If this is not dowry demand, what is it?

Ever since the dowry law came into existence, the dowry-hungry in-laws are taking different routes to satiate their selfish and cruel cravings. As and when different aspects of the harassment meted out to my cousin Deepa are discussed in the family, I really wonder how much effort some people put in masterminding ways to escape the baton of law and yet get their moolah from the girl and her parents!

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Friends, nowadays, you’ll hardly find a husband or an in-law behaving like in Hindi movies. No, a mom-in-law will not ask the bride’s father to supply lakhs of money during the wedding ceremony or lick her feet if he doesn’t! Neither will you find her dousing the daughter-in-law with kerosene and setting her ablaze. Why will she when there are other ways to get money?

Take the case of Deepa. Her husband is an educated person with an MBA degree to his credit. He did not verbally ask for any dowry before marriage. He promised to give her a decent life .But immediately after marriage he showed her immense financial problems and asked her to adjust money. He would not give her minimum comforts- not even food and clothing! Ask him and he’d say that he suffered huge business losses and he did not have money to maintain a family. The last of one such episode of financial scarcity, is threatening Deepa’s marriage now.

Deepa’s husband told her that on account of huge business losses he owed a huge amount of money to his friend. If he failed to pay up, his friend would either get him beaten up by goons or get him imprisoned. He also told Deepa that his sister helped him with some money by selling off her jewelry and Mangalsutra( the most vital jewelry that signified the marital sanctity for Indian women). But he needed to pay up more. Later he vacated the house in which they were staying as he said he did not have money to pay the rent and sent Deepa off to her father’s house. After a month he called up Deepa and said he was starving and was staying in temples. He would tell Deepa that only if he paid up his friend, he’d be saved off all these hassles. On enquiry Deepa’s father was told by acquaintances that his son-in-law was quite hale and healthy and was found picnicking with relatives.

Deepa is emotionally tormented with all this and was on the verge of giving the required amount of money to her husband. But before that she wanted to take advice from experienced people. On consultation with legal experts, Deepa was told that her husband might have presented a fake crisis to extract money from her and he has masterminded a fraudulent game with his friend. Deepa does not know the truth. She loves her husband very much and feels that any kind of police involvement will irreversibly break her marriage. Even tomorrow, under legal enquiry, if her husband says that he really had a monetary crisis, does she have any way to prove that he was faking his monetary status ?

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