Bride Burning - From Holy Fire to Unholy Pyre

Meena was burned to death by her sister in-law in collusion with Meena's mother in-law and husband. This happened when Meena's parents refused to meet the constant dowry demands. In her dying declaration, Meena indicated how she was mentally and physically tortured by her new family.Twenty two year old Vimala was burned to death after seven years of her marriage. Sudha was married to Laxman Kumar in Delhi. She was subjected mistreatment by her husband and in-laws since the very first month of her marriage for non-payment of 'sufficient' dowry. Sudha was burnt to death when she was eight months pregnant.
You must have read about thousands of bride burning cases like these as you go through the newspapers.There is no end to the crime against women. They are a blot on a society that claims to be progressive and unfettered by outworn traditions. Are Indian women destined to be wedded to the flames? The holy fire which witnesses the couple's first steps towards domesticity may easily turn into a vicious death trap.
Recent surveys in India have undoubtedly established the rising trend in bride buring deaths, a major form of dowry death. Although the system of giving dowry to a daughter is an age old institutions, the issue has suddenly acquired pernicious overtones in recent years. this problem of demand and supply continues to be an accepted social practice and there seems to be no end to this.
What happens to the girl when she is wedded to the 'paraya ghar'? As she steps into the house, she faces all sorts of cruel and inhuman torture and exploitation. There are those who protest and break free from this nuptial bond in sharp contrast to those who silently suffer harrassment and indignities for having brought insufficient dowry.The humiliation generally starts with criticism followed by familiar scenes- insults, abuses and demand for more money and finally she is beaten up and set on fire. today young brides and brides to be carry a vision in their minds of a daemonic women haing a kerosene tin in one hand and match box in the other hand and shrilling menacingly, ' marry without dowry and repent later' . This vision is enough to give her nightmares and nervous breakdown.
During the entire drama involving the bride and her mother in law where is the 'pati paremeshwar'? the saviour , the bread winner, the hero who had vowed to support his wife through the thick and thin of life. In some cases he is out of the scene and in some he has turned into a non-entity, hiding behind his mother's 'palu' or maybe he had risen like a beast of prey ready to thrust her into the pyre his mother has lit.
It is ironical that a country which worships women as godesses should treat her as a commodity to be consigned to the flames when she cannot fulfill the material greed of the family. It is also ironical that a women in her role as a wife and mother particularly as mother embodies all that our culture holds dear- sacrifice, endurance patience- can turn into a cold blooded scheming woman known as mother in law burning her son's wife alive. And when she is not doing something as macabre as this she is bullying her bahu through relentless ragging. Further it is bewildering that in india where many women today have attained positions of eminence and responsibility there are still those who are subjected to humiliations and torture.
Why do girls submit to these opressions? Why do they not realise that a divorce is better than marriage where money is the be all and end all of all relationships. Marriage is not the ultimate end in life but happiness certainly is.