India now sees fewer murders and dowry deaths. What does it indicate?
India Today
According to data by the National Crime Records Bureau, murders and dowry deaths have come down in the last five years.
Crime in India has been on a decline: 2021 saw a 7.6 per cent year-on-year fall in the number of crimes registered. Consequently, the crime rate per lakh population also fell from 487.8 in 2020 to 445.9 in 2021. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s data, murders and dowry deaths have come down in the last five years.
The average number of annual murders during 2012-16 was 32,839, which fell to 29,010 during 2017-21. Similarly, the average annual dowry deaths fell from 8,005 to 7,093 in the same period. It’s noteworthy that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar ranked highest in terms of dowry deaths in India in 2021. UP (2,222 deaths) and Bihar (1,000 deaths) together accounted for nearly half (48 per cent) of the total dowry deaths in the country.
“A shrinking economy may be accompanied by reduced investment in law enforcement systems, leading to a state of lawlessness, in which citizens are more exposed to violent crime,” the Global Study on Homicide report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted. This in turn indicates that growth in the economy curbs the incidences of murders.
The report underlined that the empowerment of women reduces violence by intimate partners. Greater autonomy and independence, along with a higher social status, help to protect women from the risk of homicide.
“The death of those killed by intimate partners is not usually the result of a random or spontaneous act, but rather the culmination of gender-related violence that is rooted in historically unequal power relations between men and women,” the report added.
When we checked the murder data, we found that in terms of motives, while murders related to property disputes had decreased, those due to illicit relationships or love affairs had increased.
Murders related to property disputes fell from an annual average of 3,138 during 2012-16 to 3,099 during 2017-21. However, the annual average homicides due to love affairs or illicit relationships rose from 2,706 to 3,139 in the same interval.
