30-yr-old Aradhana’s Letter to the Indian Prime Minister Regarding #Dowry

Nov 28, 2015

Aradhana is a 30-yr-old woman from Noida in northern India who recently wrote to the Indian Prime Minister about the distress she felt each time a prospective groom turned her down because her family couldn’t give him the dowry he demanded. She wants the Prime Minister to give her financial help to ensure she gets married on Dec 02, as planned, or else she has threatened to commit suicide. Aradhana because of her family’s poverty could not study beyond class 10, and had to help by doing menial jobs. In her letter to the PM she wrote:

“My wedding was fixed several times in the past few years, but it never happened as my family could not meet dowry demands. With great difficulty, my father (a gardener) found a match for me about 10 months ago. He is a driver and lives in Dankaur, Greater Noida. However, I am afraid that this time too my wedding may not take place as it has already been postponed once. If this time something goes wrong, I will kill myself as I don’t want to be a burden on my family. I am trying to educate my siblings but it is tough.”

The question is how should the government help Aradhana?  Should the Indian government give her family the dowry money, even though dowry is illegal in India, and the demands keep escalating and thousands of women get killed even after paying dowry?  Or should the government take legal action against this and all the prospective grooms and their families for making an illegal and criminal demand?  If Aradhana is bent on paying dowry to get married, will either of these steps prevent her from getting killed?