For a society often seen to reflect a deeply ingrained bias for "fairness", a Supreme Court ruling sentencing a man to two years in jail for driving his wife to suicide over repeated taunts over her "dark" complexion will serve as both a warning and a mirror to its uglier traits.
The apex court was firm that ridiculing a wife by calling her "black" amounted to severe mental torture. It rejected the husband's plea that mere remarks about his spouse's complexion could not be taken into consideration as they did not amount to mental torture and so the conclusion that this drove her to commit suicide was erroneous.The court said derogatory and contemptuous remarks about a woman's dark complexion , which could be worse than physical torture for a sensitive person, caused enough mental trauma to drive the accused's wife to take the extreme step.
This order for the first time marks a new sensitivity towards a discrimination that has been so common that it is not even considered as out of the ordinary.
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jackfrost
Pro - 2008-04-06 @ 14:24:00
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unclefrank
- 2008-04-06 @ 21:24:29
For the wife to be driven to commit suicide the husband must have really harassed his wife about her complexion. It is good the apex court has penalised the husband. In India women are subject to harassment in so many different ways. But most of the time the women accept it as their fate or lot in life.
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amazing. What is the origion of the fair vs. dark discrimination ? Has it always been there, or is it something left from the British?
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unclefrank
- 2008-04-06 @ 21:18:39
In the north of India a good number of Indians are fair so the husband will focus on inadequate dowry. It is mainly in South India that we have a good number of chatty black women and this discrimination comes among the educated. The poor accept their lot in life.
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the more educated, the more discriminative. How sad
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firelight
- 2008-04-07 @ 13:55:09
I heard about this on the TV. Very sad especially when I think of the girl's parents!
Discrimination occurs in all phases and kinds it seems.-
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unclefrank
- 2008-04-07 @ 14:23:08
The husband in question was an educated man and he went to the extent of making his wife's life miserable so one fine morning she poured kerosene on herself and doused herself.The husband has got what was coming his way. The punishment in India for cruelty to women is three years rigorous imprisonment.
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firelight
- 2008-04-07 @ 14:33:16
True, but it is not going to bring back the dead woman. Three years will be nothing if he doesn't even repent his actions.
I find we have a long way to go. Women are worshiped as Goddess and yet, the human form of that goddess is tortured in different ways.
And to be fair, I'd say- it will not be just the man who would have been doing this. A woman is hurt the most when another woman (say her mother-in-law in a few cases) tortures her and is the cause for her death.
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unclefrank
- 2008-04-07 @ 15:48:25
There are many cases where the mother in law joins hand with the son in harassing the daughter in law sometimes forcing her to commit suicide and in some cases result in bride burning. There is no end the number of cases in India where the wife is tortured to bring in more dowry. We are yet to get rid of this scourge.
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sallyontour
Pro - 2008-04-08 @ 19:02:20
I have read in the Indian newspapers about harassment of brides to their deaths, both by husbands and the husbands' families. These women are often murdered too - it seems there are more than the average number of faulty cookers in India!
Three years' rigorous imprisonment does not seem sufficient punishment for taking a life, whether by murder or hounding someone to suicide. -
this is bullying..it would be the same if she had been thin,fat,old,ugly,ginger,deformed....discrimination should be regognised everywhere and taken for what it is...bullying...if one area is highlited then the other issues can be diluted...