| Friends,
Marriage of an IPS officer might not apparently seem to be a professional topic directly related with this group but if we go slightly deep down into the issue, we find that there are many facets of this topic that certainly have a deep relationship with the larger issues related with the society.
I am not going into some deep theoretical enunciation of this topic but would limit myself to one topic that is not generally discussed in open but which possibly has far-widening impetus for the society.
This train of thought got initiated in me after I had an interaction with a young unmarried IPS. As one of the casual questions, after his academic background etc, I asked him whether he was married or not. He told me that he was unmarried. I took it further by asking if his marriage was getting finalized soon. He gave me a very clear answer- "Sir, I shall be getting married in 2014." I was slightly astonished at this extremely specific answer and asked the reason for this. He told me-"Actually I have a steady girlfriend who is presently engaged in shaping her carrier and I also need a few years to get settled. So, this decision." His clear-sightedness amused me further. I asked-"Suppose, you were not getting married to your girlfriend, what would have been the dowry you would have got?" Pat came his reply-"Sir, the last offer I got was that of Rs. two crores. But since I have already decided to get married to my girlfriend, with whom I have been steady before I entered the IPS, hence this amount does not really matter to me."
This further interested me to dwell into the mindset of the present generation of IPS entrants. I asked him-"So, what is the dowry rate prevailing these days for the IPS." His answer was-"The highest is that for Andhra Pradesh officers. It goes to the tune of Rs. 20-25 crores in a few cases." Then he himself added-"But there are such arranged marriages also in which there is absolutely no dowry. Most of them take place when the girl's family is a very strong political or industrial family. It is possibly because in such cases, there is a presumption that the benefit accruing would not be a one-time affair but would continue throughout the officer's life."
I again asked him-" And how many of officers marry on their own?" The answer was-"Possibly not more than one in ten. What happens is that even those officers who were previously entangled with a girl often have a rethinking in this regards and often prefer an arranged marriage."
My last question was-"And what about the lady officers? Do their families also have to pay money when getting married to one of the fellow officers?" The answer was-"Not at all."
Having narrated the entire incidence, I would only like to state that not much seems to have changed in the 20 years period in which I entered the service and we used to get fat uncles coming to NPA every now and then as prospective in-laws and the present days when the same buying and selling is continuing. Yes, the amount we used to hear as the dowry rates in 1990s has certainly increased manifold, possibly because of the inflation. The only new thing I came to know was that political and industrial families don't pay money as they give the allurement of life-long support. As far as I knew, in my days, it was only the senior bureaucrats (IAS and IPS officers) who had this privilege. Possibly this shows the emergence of the political/industrial class as a more powerful lot in the public perception than it used to be some twenty years ago.
Being truthful is called a virtue (though in reality it shall be called a necessity) hence I would not hesitate from bringing a few facts about my own marriage. I got married to Nutan through a decision taken entirely by my parents and her. I must say that I proved to be very lucky because despite coming from a reasonably wealthy family, Nutan proved to be an extraordinarily down-to-earth person.
I remained a silent spectator to things at an age when I might have said things which I would have felt proud of later. But when I later saw the world more closely, I have realized in no uncertain terms that dowry is a real black spot for the Indian society which gets further boost because of the all-pervading Caste system. When I broke away from my caste and decided to become casteless, this was also one of the motivating reasons. At the same time, I and my wife have decided that both my daughter Tanaya and son Aditya shall get married on their own, with least of our intervention, in any caste they feel like, obviously without any dowry in either of the two cases.
Today I feel very strongly about this because it is my belief that among one of the major reasons for rampant corruption in India is the mind-boggling dowry assisted by the caste framework. But it seems to me that instead of the young IPS officers, it would be their parents (and similarly in the case of all the eligible bachelors) who would have to realize and understand this because firstly a young officer has not seen much of the world and secondly he has remained so attached to his parents that he readily accepts whatever decision they are taking. Then only this menace of dowry can be actually tackled.
Amitabh
Meerut # 94155-34526
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