Why Dowry Requires a Statutory Warning
Despite decades of legal reform and social awareness campaigns, dowry system remains a deeply rooted and devastating practice in India. This blog asks a vital question: What if the fight against dowry didn't stop at legislation or courtroom verdicts—but extended into our everyday screens, stories, and social feeds? In a media-saturated world, where brides gleaming with gold flood our timelines and movie scenes, visual culture plays a quiet but powerful role in normalising practices that the law seeks to abolish. This blog explores how statutory warnings—already used to curb smoking or depict violence responsibly—can be reimagined to challenge the visual celebration of dowry in Kerala’s popular culture. It’s a call to rethink aesthetics, accountability, and the stories we choose to tell. Statutory Warning: Giving or Taking or Abetting the giving or taking of dowry is a punishable offence. We’re all familiar with those flashing messages at the bottom of movie screens: Smoking is inj...