Shikha Sharma, 2nd Year, Chanakya National Law University, Patna
Yatra nari pujyante tatra devta ramate (That is where the woman is worshiped, where the deity resides.) .This proverb is very prevalent in our Indian culture. But speaking of the present, it is only about the Vedas. If we talk about history, then women have to give proof of their ability and purity all the time. This article is not just about one single girl but about all the girls who keep struggling in their lives and this struggle starts from their birth and goes till their death. They have to suffer social, mental, physical, and intellectual stress all the time. It has been 74 years since India became independent, but when will the women and girls of our country come. What a wonderful thing that we call India as our mother and daughter-in-law of same independent India is not independent in her life.
The main idea of my article shows the state of mind of a girl while dowry is demanded from his father. Nowadays, taking dowry is becoming a culture in our society. I am not talking of the time when in-laws are tortured by in-laws or they are pressured by family members before marriage. Nor is my aim here to show any richness and poverty.
Here I mean that section of the society that educates their daughters gives them the freedom to live life and teaches them to always move in the right direction in their life. But even then, a father has to face a lot of odd circumstances for his daughter's marriage, this problem is very wide in our society, it happens very often that girls refuse to marry due to dowry but for this, his father is seen in a very insulting and abusive view in the society. Thousands of girls could not raise their voices against this insult.
This article shows the thinking and situation of a girl when her father has to bow down to people due to dowry, her father has to bow down and be embarrassed even after she is educated and capable because he has a daughter. The father whose head she wants to lift proudly wants to brighten his name. The father who never taught her to bow down in front of anyone or to accept the wrong things of anyone, now the same father is bowing his head in front of people only for the happiness of his daughter. This class is fulfilling every reasonable and unreasonable demand of the party, hence the father of a daughter. Is it such a big sin to have a daughter?
Yet the father who was proud of his daughter, who never bowed in front of anyone but now is the father of the only daughter, has to put his self-respect and self-confidence at stake. Is this the definition of a well-mannered society?
Till when the father who never taught his daughter to bend now the daughter is seeing her father helpless and incapable on the front of a cruel society. What would be passing on that daughter, because her father is traveling so much, and still she cannot overcome this problem because if she does anything like this then her father will have to be burnt in the society. How ironic is it that a daughter's father has to be burnt in society? Is this eternal truth? And if it is then? Who wrote it and why?
Why? Why in our society only a daughter and her parents have to travel? Even if a girl is capable, she is seen with suspicion and she is tested and tested. A girl cannot stand her favor in society. After all, how long girls will continue to compromise their situation when they will get freedom from the bondage of these mindsets.
In our society daughters are called father turban, father's daughters are in the hands of thousands of prisoners, they cannot prove their favor even after being able to prove themselves unworthy.
The government made so many provisions, amendments, rule, and regulations for the protection of girls such as:
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is a central government plan for girls' plans that is applied throughout the country. Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana is a special government-backed savings plan that features a girl. The Balika Samriddhi Yojana is a scholarship scheme designed to provide financial support to girls. Section 233 'allows women to kill rapists. The Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act of 2005 for the protection of women. Section 304B was added to the 1860 Indian Penal Code ("IPC"), which made death by dowry a specific offense punishable by a minimum prison sentence of 7 years and a maximum prison sentence for life. Additionally, section 498A of the IPC was specifically included in 1983 to protect women from cruelty and harassment. In the past 12 months, 243 million women and girls (ages 15-49) around the world have been victims of sexual or physical violence by an intimate partner.
Like such provision and law, so many laws have been made for girls. Can anyone make law from society's perspective? A big question on the behalf of all girls is why law made only for the safety of girls and why is it not for the safety of boys? Why dowry has to be given to a girl's father as well why not to a boy's father? Why is all culture imposed on a girl and why not on a boy? Can anyone give me the answers to such questions?
In the famous landmark judgment “The daughter has the same right to ancestral property by birth, even if her father was not alive", justice Arun Kumar Mishra uses a very famous phrase: “the daughter is the only daughter, but the son is the only child until that gets married”.
I want to try to bring out some untouchables aspect of society through this article that shows how the girl is helpless. And no one understands his mentality and his conditions. We need not make laws for the safety of girls, for dowry, for domestic violence and anymore but we need to create new thinking, we need to stop following all the paced traditions and need to create the right traditions. In the upliftment of society, the hand of a man is as much as that of a woman. According to the Vedas and Puranas, women are the power in which the whole universe is contained. Then why does society consider a woman or a girl weak. If society and country have to be taken on the path of progress then we have to understand the definition of femininity. Just the right approach to what a girl wants from society.
We need freedom not your vision, we need a new vision, not your green vision, we want respect not your favor, we will write our own story, we need a way not only your arguments, but we also want to fly, we need sky, not your enclosure.
(Disclaimer- The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of Child Rights Centre.)