Dowry woman becomes textbook star

[emad]

By Geeta Pandey
BBC correspondent in Delhi

A young bride who became the talk of India 16 months ago for calling off her wedding and getting her fiance arrested after he demanded more dowry money, has now made it on to the school curriculum.

The new English textbook for the sixth standard - age 11 to 12 - in schools run by the government of the Indian capital, Delhi, includes a chapter on Nisha Sharma.

The chapter, Man in Jail over Dowry Demand, first appeared in a newspaper in May last year.

Mrs Sharma joins the likes of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and astronaut Kalpana Chawla as prominent personalities who have chapters devoted to them in school books in India.
More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3696562.stm

[noonwitch]

1. Good for her! The dowry system in India needs to go.

My dad went there in the 70s on a Rotary-sponsored trip. He told my sister and I repeatedly afterwards how lucky we were to be women in this country. He stayed at rich people's houses while there. One family was somewhat westernized, and had a family dinner hour in which the men and women ate together, and the daughters were able to ask he and his fellow rotarians questions about this country-he said they were mostly interested in what our schools were like. The rest of the families he stayed with, the men ate, then the male servants, then the dogs, and lastly, the women in the family got to eat. He also said that there were several incidents covered in the media while he was there of married women being killed by their husbands once they received the dowries. The killed them by setting them on fire and claiming it was a "cooking accident".

We had an Indian guy stay with us, in exchange for Dad's trip. He was a really nice young guy, recently married to a woman his family chose for him. He really liked his wife and said that after they were introduced, both families gave them an out, but that they liked each other and decided to get married. Of course, he spent all of his nights while staying at our house hanging out at the local meat market bar, picking up american women.

Probably the fact that this woman is now in history textbooks is indicative of India's ongoing efforts to join the modern world. My dad said that the father of the good family he stayed with was employed at a british company, and his daughters attended a private british-run school. The Rotary program my dad was participating in was part of that effort, and it does seem to be paying off for India.

[pop goes the weasel]

2. Fantastic!

Obviously, India hopes to inspire young girls to be as resolute and clear-thinking as Sharma. She certainly deserves the celebrity for her courage.