Dowry is still a dream-killer Premium

Till October this year, Kerala has reported seven dowry deaths (incidents charged under 304B which deals with dowry deaths), according to the SCRB

Trigger warning: the following article contains references to suicide. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject.

From the sit-out of his home, Jassim Naz gazes out at the small, empty courtyard beyond. “Do you think the case will drag on for a long time?” he asks. To say that the past two weeks have been harrowing for the 39-year-old and his family would be an understatement. He is certain about one thing, though. “No girl should have to go through what my sister suffered,” he says, indignation and bitterness evident in his troubled voice.

In the normal course of things, the family would have celebrated his youngest sister’s 27th birthday on December 11. But that was not to be. Shahana A.J., a postgraduate doctor at Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, and the youngest of three siblings, took her own life on December 4. The young doctor who was attached to the surgery department was emotionally battered by alleged demands made by her fiance for a hefty dowry to tie the knot.

E.A. Ruwise, a PG doctor at the orthopaedics department of the same medical college and president of the Kerala Medical Post Graduates Association, has since been arrested by the police from his place at Karunagapally in neighbouring Kollam district. He has been charged under provisions of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, and for abetment of suicide, the police said. Shahana’s death has left her family, which is settled at Maithri Nagar, a quiet residential neighbourhood close to Venjaramoodu town in Thiruvananthapuram district, inconsolable.

As might be expected, the suicide has sparked widespread outrage. It drew sharp reactions from all around — including the Governor and the Chief Minister — against the practice of giving and taking dowry. But a worrying element is that it is not a one-off incident, but the latest in a series related to dowry in Kerala, a State known for its progressive outlook which parades impressive social development indicators, particularly in health and education.

Photographs of Shahana, which were shared on social media following her death, reveal a smiling young woman. Her brother remembers her as quiet, brilliant in her studies. “We agreed to the marriage because she was deeply in love with him. It was Ruwise who had proposed to her. He and his family visited us on October 2, but no mention was made about a dowry. When we called on them on October 6, his father insisted on it. I wanted my sister to drop the whole thing as their demand way exceeded our ability to give,” says Nas. The ‘final’ demand, according to him, was 150 sovereigns of gold, 15 acres of land and a BMW car. Going by the December 13 gold price in Kerala, 150 sovereigns would fetch ₹67,98,000. “It was his father (Abdul Rasheed) who kept pressing him to insist on dowry. We were open to reasonable demands. Even their initial demands — 100 sovereigns, property and a car — were too high for us,” says Nas. He suspects that Ruwise raised the bar even higher only because he wanted to wriggle out of the relationship.

It was on the night of December 4 that Shahana was discovered in an unconscious state in her room. She had shared a flat close to the medical college with two other doctors. When she failed to report for night duty, some of her friends went to look her up. They had summoned the police. Although she was rushed to the medical college hospital, her life could not be saved.