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Evil of dowry will continue unless women are economically independent: Kanak Mukherjee

In August 1986, Kanak Mukherjee delivered a speech during a debate on amendments to the Dowry Prohibition Act in the Rajya Sabha.

While welcoming the move to amend the Dowry Prohibition Bill and most of its amendments, I do record my protest against the way the [Rajiv Gandhi] government is introducing and passing it in such a hurry. Yesterday the government passed an important Bill, called the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Bill, and today they want to pass this Bill. These are two most important bills affecting women and we should have been given time for proper study and for collecting opinion from the people outside, especially the women’s organisations, as we did before.

I don’t know what is the intention of the government to pass this important Bill in such a hurry. Do they want to appear as champions of the women’s cause after passing such a retrograde Muslim Women’s Bill or is it just a propaganda to show that they want to do some good for the women? Anyway, I still welcome this Bill and most of its amendments.

But, I would like to point out that some of the major recommendations of the Dowry Prohibition Joint Select Committee have still been left out. They have not been included here. The Dowry Prohibition Joint Select Committee, which included the present honourable Minister and myself also, took two years to study the matter and they made exhaustive recommendations, but still its major recommendations have been left out. The major women’s organisations, especially the All India Democratic Women’s........

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