iii) Anti-dowry Movements

Dowry murders have witnessed a sustained campaign by several women’s organisations and civil rights groups. Journalists wrote extensively about the dowry problem. In the 1980s several women’s and other progressive organisations formed a joint front in Delhi called “Dahej Virodhi Chetna Manch”. Organisations in other major cities also campaigned through protest, demonstrations, discussions, street theatre, posters etc. against the ghastly murders of young brides for dowry. After much deliberation, the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 1984 was passed. The Act sets a limit to the amount given in dowry but does not ban dowry. While cruelty by the husband and his relatives leading to suicide or death has become an offence, punishable with imprisonment, still dowry deaths continue.