DOWRY- THEN AND NOW!

 DOWRY- Then and Now!

Dowry, like many social evils, is deeply complex and rarely eliminated through legislation alone. Yet, as K.B. Sahay—a far-sighted statesman—asserted while introducing the Dowry Restraint Bill in the Bihar Assembly in 1938, the government must leave no stone unturned in its resolve to eradicate this widely acknowledged social menace. 

Nearly a century later, his words resonate powerfully, echoed by the Supreme Court as it recently urged the government to appoint Dowry Prohibition Officers, reaffirming that dowry remains a cross-cultural evil fundamentally incompatible with the values of the Constitution.

As the nation continues to struggle with this issue even after a hundred years, I pay tribute to this remarkable but largely forgotten leader. The more I study K.B. Sahay, the clearer it becomes that he was deeply misunderstood. Contemporary scholarship has failed to do justice to his contributions—a realisation that readers will share when they engage with my forthcoming biographical work, ‘K.B. Sahay: The Iron Man of Bihar.’