Dowry Law Page #2

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[Adam]

Dowry crime

was spiraling out of control.

And the government passed laws,

so that anyone

even remotely connected

to the death of a wife

can be thrown in jail.

If a bride dies

in the first seven years

of marriage,

her family can file a charge

alleging dowry crime.

All the in-laws

can be imprisoned.

[]

[Adam]

I came across mothers, sisters,

sons, daughters, aunts,

even nieces and nephews,

all behind bars in Tihar.

This is--

[speaking in Hindi]

[Adam]

Some are growing up in jail

simply because

their families are here.

Who's this?

This is the son

of one of the women

who's in the-- who's in the--

this cell?

Yeah.

Her sister-in-law died,

so this is one

of the sisters-in-law, her son.

[Adam]

Yeah.

Raja, Raja, Raja.

[woman speaking in Hindi]

[Adam]

This old woman and her daughter

have done two years

of a 20-year sentence

for murder.

The son wasn't charged.

The women claim

they weren't there

when the daughter-in-law died.

[Anjel]

The daughter-in-law

bolted the door from inside

and put herself on fire.

How is she responsible

for her daughter-in-law's death?

[Smita]

Basically,

the boy was very jealous

and they were fighting

very badly.

And the sister-in-law feels that

this was a tension

between husband and wife

and they got involved in it.

She feels very lonely

and abandoned also,

because the son

doesn't come to meet her either.

He has gotten married again,

he has family.

[Adam]

And then he doesn't come here

any longer?

[speaking in Hindi]

She says that,

if I had done something

I would've felt satisfied,

"Okay, I did it

that's why I'm here."

[Adam]

But-- yeah.

But she feels

she didn't do anything.

And now

she's been abandoned here.

The so-called accident

is always the same.

It's always in the kitchen

and nobody's ever at home.

She says that, yes,

I've been committed unfairly

that my daughter-in-law herself

said that while she was cooking,

her nightgown caught fire.

She gave that

a dying declaration.

Everybody here says,

"It wasn't me,

I'm not-- I'm not guilty."

And I-- I'm-- I'm puzzled

by what they're doing here then.

The conviction is if the dowry--

if the suicide or the death

has been abetted--

[Adam]

Right, that's enough.

That is also a reason

for conviction.

[Adam]

Yeah, right, right.

And that reason

can be either present

very obviously

like in the actual burning

or a mental state of mind

or the pressures that are there

on the daughter-in-law.

[Adam]

So if you're involved

in the harassment,

in the view of the court,

you're part of the crime.

Yes.

What they say is that,

"Look, our mother-in-laws

used to taunt us,

so we were made to work

very hard or whatever.

Or we did not have any freedom

of doing anything on our own.

We were like kind of answerable

to everybody in the family."

[Adam]

It's no surprise that few say

they're guilty.

But some are behind bars

carrying the can

for the dowry crime

committed by their sons.

Because in Indian society,

men are simply more important.

They can remarry,

find a new wife,

and get the new dowry

that goes with her.

To parents' minds,

it's ingrained in our system

that boys mean that-- it'll--

[Adam]

Boys mean cash, basically.

Uhuh, yeah.

[Adam]

I mean they do--

they do at marriage time,

certainly.

Yes.

[Adam]

Boys mean cash.

Yeah.

[]

[Adam]

Kajal and Anand,

the perfect union.

Two young doctors

from good families,

an arranged marriage

and a financial deal.

It looked like

a match made in heaven.

Beautiful, upwardly mobile,

Kajal Sharma

and Anand Singh

from a higher caste family

in need of cash.

So this is um-

[Smita]

This is Kajal's room.

Hmm.

[Smita]

There are gifts to be given

throughout the year

at every festival

and then when the girl

has a child and-

[Adam]

Yeah.

[Smita]

Uh, so you know, your parents

prepare in advance

for all these things.

[Adam]

So this-

she's already bought all this?

[Smita]

This was for the future, yes,

for the entire year.

[speaking in Hindi]

[Adam]

Kajal Sharma's parents had spent

a fortune on her education.

Pretty and clever,

they now wanted

an upper-class husband for her.

And they knew

the right young man

would cost them

thousands of pounds.

[woman speaking in Hindi]

[Smita]

They're her books

and that's a teddy

she gifted to her mother.

[Adam]

That-- that-- that teddy bear?

[Smita]

[Adam]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[speaking in Hindi]

[Smita]

She used called her

mother "teddy bear" only.

[Adam]

Did she?

Yeah, yeah.

[speaks in Hindi]

[Adam]

Yeah.

The wedding costs and the dowry

were mounting by the day.

And Kajal's father

even had to turn to her brothers

for money.

So this was a grand wedding?

It was a grand wedding.

What are these, I mean--

These are

gold and diamond ornaments.

And these were what,

presents from your family?

Yes, they were presents

from my family and the relatives

to the girl for her marriage.

[Adam]

In the marriage video,

Kajal is on show,

packaged up

in her wedding finery.

This wasn't a love marriage?

No, no.

But why, in that case?

Why-- why push your daughter

into a marriage

that wasn't a love marriage?

[speaks in Hindi]

[Smita]

They were after us

for the marriage

and they were so persuasive

that it seemed like

they really wanted my daughter

and that was good enough reason

to have her married

in that house.

And when somebody's asking

for a girl,

then you presume that

they would also treat her well.

[Adam]

The money thing was

really important to them,

It was very--

was it?

it everything.

Like the father, Mr BB--

Dr BB Singh,

he had called my father once

before the marriage

to his house in the morning

to discuss that,

"What is your budget?"

That was the word he had used,

"budget".

Budget is a financial word.

Then at that time

my father gave him

a good scolding that,

"If you want money from us,

we will not marry our daughter."

Then he-- at that time he said,

"Oh, don't be angry.

We will not talk like this."

[Adam]

The Sharmas drew the line

at buying a 7,000 Toyota car

for the Singhs.

But they did eventually settle

on a final dowry figure.

I'm not very experienced

on what goes on,

but this was obviously a wedding

where lot of effort,

a lot of expense was put in.

I mean some of these clothes

are incredibly ornate.

And all these decorations

and the jewellery

that the bride's wearing.

There's a picture somewhere.

There we are.

With her mother.

Mr Sharma is an engineer.

Not badly paid,

certainly not rich.

He'd been saving

for Kajal's wedding

since her birth,

even so he said that

the dowry was destroying him.

And days before the marriage,

new demands for cash.

Yeah.

55,000.

This I got in cash from bank.

Out of this 55,000,

50,000 I gave to him in cash.

Then this money, 75,000,

this I paid him in cheque.

Right.

I mean, you--

you were breaking the law

doing that, weren't you?

Because the law in this country

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