Nikki Bhati murder case: Why India must crack down on dowry-related violence

Employees arrive for work in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, where Nikki Bhati was killed last week. Reuters

Last week, not far from New Delhi, a case came to light involving domestic violence, greed, dowry harassment, torture, years of abuse and, subsequently, murder. None of these crimes are particularly uncommon in the country's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.

Thirty-year-old Vipin Bhati burnt to death his wife, Nikki Bhati, 26, at his family home, with the help of his mother Daya (a name which, paradoxically, means compassion), as the couple's seven-year-old son watched. He told reporters: “They first put something on Mumma. Then they slapped her, before setting her on fire with a lighter." She died on the way to the hospital.

In the nine years they had been married, the accused is said to have frequently hounded his wife and in-laws for more money – the latest demand was $41,000 – or a luxury car, despite already receiving a dowry that included an SUV and nearly 500 grams of gold at the time of their wedding. He is now in custody, after allegedly trying to escape and being shot in the leg by the police, as are his mother, father and brother – who, as it happens, is married to the sister of Nikki.

The two sisters married the brothers at a joint wedding. At the time, the men were unemployed and lived off their father's grocery shop income. The sisters later started a beauty parlour and began to enjoy a degree of financial independence. They would also post Instagram reels about beauty makeovers, a pastime to which at least one of the brothers objected.

It's often difficult to pinpoint the triggers and undercurrents for marital rows, but money is a recurring motif in a vast number of arranged marriages. A high prevalence of dowry-related disputes or harassment is not restricted to any one part of India, though some states, particularly in the country's north-east, have far fewer than others.

Dowry-related harassment is not restricted to one part of India, though some states have far fewer cases than others. Getty Images

In the north Indian state of Rajasthan last week, a 32-year-old schoolteacher set herself and her three-year-old daughter alight. She left a note accusing her husband, his parents and his sister of harassment. When she got married 12 years ago, the groom’s family received a car and “other valuables” in dowry, the teacher’s father said.

It’s easy to forget that dowries have been illegal – with some exceptions – in India since 1961. But the Dowry Prohibition Act is difficult to enact in a heavily classist society of 1.4 billion, despite how apparent it is that things need to change and have needed to for decades.

Between 2017 and 2021, 35,493 deaths related to dowry disputes were reported in the country. That’s about 20 women killed a day. The number of women enduring harassment is much higher.

In too many of these cases, it’s also stunning that female alliances find such little room

In many Indian Hindu communities, dowries are traditionally paid by the bride’s family to the groom. In Indian Muslim communities, the equivalent practice, known as mahr, sees the money paid from the groom to the bride. India’s Muslim Personal Law allows the latter.

“Dowry laws are rarely enforced properly,” Karuna Nundy, an Indian Supreme Court lawyer told The Telegraph, a British newspaper, this week. “Rather than punishing abuse and protecting women, the authorities dismiss cases altogether, leaving women without safety or shelter”.

The frequent absence of any real enforcement of the law allows many men – often educated and solvent – to feel entitled and perfectly at ease with their greed, which is commonly validated by their parents and communities.

In too many of these cases, it’s also stunning that female alliances find such little room, with mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law equally party to the crime of harassment, and the complete breakdown of decency or anything resembling a human value.

But as with a lot of deep-rooted societal issues that plague many developing countries, solutions do exist: teach better values in schools, broaden public awareness campaigns, make legal enforcement stricter. Solutions are not easy to put into practice. It can also take several decades to shift attitudes, expectations and behaviour.

And greed, it would appear, keeps up with inflation, or at least aspiration. In July, in Tamil Nadu, the body of a 27-year-old woman was discovered inside a parked car. Unable to cope with her in-laws’ dowry demands, she sent her father a string of voice notes apologising, saying she loved him and her mum, before ending her life by consuming pesticide tablets. Her father told the Indian Express newspaper that the groom's family reportedly demanded a dowry of 1 billion rupees ($11.4 million), a figure they allegedly said would be enough to start a business.

There are plenty more such cases, with different details, but they fall in the same category of dowry harassment.

“Instead of giving daughters their rightful share of property, families pour money into weddings, and dowries, almost like paying ransom, hoping their daughters will be kept safe,” said Ms Nundy.

Other developing countries have managed to make some progress on reducing societal pressures to attach financial conditions to marriage. Writing in The National earlier this month, Neslihan Cevik, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, cited the examples of Bangladesh and Indonesia.

She pointed out the advantages of tightly regulating the financial cost of marriage and promoting low-cost wedding ceremonies. “In Indonesia, modest dowry practices and targeted, subsidised mortgage programmes help support more affordable pathways into household formation. The result is a low-cost, culturally sanctioned pathway into family-building”.

Even though it may not be straightforward to adapt solutions from elsewhere to an Indian context, not least for when there are religious differences, it’s time to start thinking on similar progressive lines and cracking down on what has essentially become a normalised crime.

There has been rightful anger across many sections of Indian society and the diaspora online over what happened to Nikki, and keeps happening to 20 women a day. But that will probably still fall plenty short of what's needed to end the systemic free passes to greedy grooms and their families – as well as to too many willing or even inadvertent perpetrators on the brides' side.