Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime - Softcover

Oldenburg, Veena Talwar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195150724 ISBN 13: 9780195150728

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The Hindu custom of dowry has long been blamed for the murder of wives and female infants in India. In this highly provocative book, Veena Oldenburg argues that these killings are neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system that encourages violence against women. Rather, such killings can be traced directly to the influences of the British colonial era. In the precolonial period, dowry was an institution managed by women, for women, to enable them to establish their status and have recourse in an emergency. As a consequence of the massive economic and societal upheaval brought on by British rule, women's entitlements to the precious resources obtained from land were erased and their control of the system diminished, ultimately resulting in a devaluing of their very lives. Taking us on a journey into the colonial Punjab, Veena Oldenburg skillfully follows the paper trail left by British bureaucrats to indict them for interpreting these crimes against women as the inherent defects of Hindu caste culture. The British, Oldenburg claims, publicized their "civilizing mission" and blamed the caste system in order to cover up the devastation their own agrarian policies had wrought on the Indian countryside. A forceful demystification of contemporary bride burning concludes this remarkably original book. Deploying her own experiences and memories and her research at a women's shelter with "dowry cases" for almost a year in the mid-eighties, the author looks at the contemporary violence against wives and daughters-in-law in modern India. Oldenburg seamlessly weaves the contemporary with the historical, the personal with the political, and strips the layers of exoticism off an ancient practice to show how an invaluable safety net was twisted into a deadly noose. She brings us startlingly close to the worsening treatment of modern Indian women as she challenges us to rethink basic assumptions about women's human and economic rights. Combining rigorous research with impassioned analysis and a nuanced treatment of a complex, deeply controversial subject, this book critiques colonialism while holding a mirror to gender discrimination in modern India.

About this title

About the Author:

Veena Oldenburg is Associate Professor of History of India at the City University of New York.

Review:

"Oldenburg has a unique and compelling voice as a historian. She has left no stone, or document, unturned in her search for the answers."--Geraldine Forbes, Professor of History, SUNY, Oswego

"Oldenburg's arguments are persuasive and [are] written in such clear and jargon-free English that even nonacademic readers should be able to follow [them].... Her accounts of contemporary marital clashes are wrenching, insightful, and sadly familiar. Dowry Murder should be read by all persons seeking to understand gender relations in today's India."--The Journal of Asian Studies

"With this study, Oldenburg has turned the standard interpretation of both sati and dowry deaths on its head. Her methodology combines the historian's careful combing of the archives with the anthropologist's use of life histories and interviews. This is a provocative and original work of scholarship. Many will disagree with it, but few will be able to ignore it."--Gail Minault, Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin

"A strong, contentious book on an intellectually and socially hot topic, Dowry Murder offers a rich complex answer to the question: What are the causes of voilence against women in India, of female infanticide, 'dowry' deaths, and battering?"--Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

"One of Dowry Murder's many original contributions is to link the discourses on female infanticide/dowry in the high period with the current discourse on dowry . Oldenburg provides a complex picture of causality."--Barbara Metcalf, Professor of History, University of California, Davis

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0195150724
• ISBN 13: 9780195150728
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288