Dowry murders in India no longer spark public anger or debate, study finds
Thousands of women are killed in dowry disputes each year, despite the practice being banned in 1961
Dowry deaths in India no longer provoke the public anger they once did, despite thousands of women’s lives still being lost every year, according to new research.
The killings – women who are murdered or driven to suicide following dowry disputes between families – have also faded from political debate, despite an increase in cases.
In 2022, there were 6,516 dowry deaths in India compared with 1,841 in 1988, according to the paper.
Last August, Nikki Bhati, a 28-year-old from Greater Noida, a new satellite town outside Delhi, died from burns after being set alight by her husband in front of their six-year-old son in a case linked to a dowry dispute. As her murder was filmed and shared on social media, there was some outrage online and protests briefly erupted in Delhi before reaction to the case lost momentum.
Dr Kriti Kapila, the author of the study, said: “Political protest is problematic globally today. We have strong-handed regimes, including in India, where protest is highly controlled.
“Expression of dissent or dissatisfaction is controlled or subject to self-censorship,” said Kapila, a social anthropologist at the King’s India Institute, part of King’s College London.
While dowries have been banned in India since 1961, demands from a bridegroom’s family persist and remain widespread, according to the research, and women who fail to provide them can face abuse, harassment and, in some cases, murder.
The study said legal reforms aimed at dismantling caste hierarchies transformed the way dowries operated but failed to eliminate the social structures that sustained them.
Kapila said that a dowry was historically a ritual offering to compensate the groom’s family for taking on a daughter. After it was outlawed, it mutated into an “extractive demand” where grooms could “command a price” based on caste, class, education and professional status.
The dowry became a “premium on the male child”, tied to his economic potential, she said. When the bride’s family could not meet inflating demands, the groom’s family could retaliate by inflicting physical and psychological violence on the bride.
“The more urgent question is not why the anti-dowry law hasn’t worked, but why the killing has stopped generating the kind of collective grief that once brought thousands of women on to the streets,” said Kapila. “That disappearance is not accidental – it has a structure.”
Violence associated with dowries sparked a wave of feminist activism in the 1970s and 1980s, when anti-dowry protests became one of the first mass movements organised by women in post-independence India.
But the research found this movement had faded as the dynamics of dowry killings changed. In the 1970s and 1980s, brides were increasingly murdered in staged “accidental” kitchen fires using paraffin.
As paraffin, or kerosene, was phased out of Indian homes in the 1990s, the “kitchen accident” alibi became less plausible and hostile in-laws increasingly drove young brides to take their own lives.
This transition turned public outcry and grief into “private shame and sorrow”, said Kapila. The paper argues this blocked the public outrage that had arisen before because it became “impossible to campaign against someone who has given themselves ‘the gift of death’”.
The study also points to sex-selective abortion becoming more prevalent as a way of avoiding future debt, citing how India’s 2001 census revealed a skewed child sex ratio, with a national average of 927 girls for every 1,000 boys. In one part of Punjab, the number of girls declined to 754 for every 1,000 boys.
Kapila believes that violence perpetrated within a family inherently prevents public mobilisation against the murders.
“Anecdotally, I know people across classes and castes are not contrite about aborting a foetus because they were having a daughter,” she said. “The effects are demographic. Fewer women, but also fewer sisters.”
The research was inspired by an exhibition showing the photography of Sheba Chhachhi, who documented the women’s movement in India in the 1970s and 1980s.
Kapila was struck by how distant the protests seemed today. “Even though dowry continues to be practised and continues to be fatal for many women, it is curious that dowry deaths no longer animate any political discussion or mobilisation,” she said.
“Women will possibly find other ways to protest against dowry deaths,” she said. “It’s difficult to challenge, to find solidarity around issues that challenge social norms. It’s reflective of a wider political moment.”
