The secret scourge of family violence and murder in Australian Hindu and Sikh communities

Updated

Advocates are attributing an alarming increase in domestic violence in Hindu and Sikh communities to myriad factors, including the influence of ancient texts which relegate women to inferior status, a reluctance by clergy to even raise the subject of family violence, and Australia's failure to outlaw dowry abuse.

This feature is part of an ongoing investigation by ABC News edited by Julia Baird and Hayley Gleeson into religion and domestic violence. Other articles in this series have examined Islam, mainstream Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, and Christian clergy wives.

Just six weeks after her grand Hindu wedding in India, Priya* found herself locked in a Sydney house from 8am to 6pm while her new husband was at work.

"I didn't even know the name of my street," Priya told ABC News. Nor did she know what work her husband did or how much he was paid.

Her wealthy father had given her a large dowry, which included gold and property in India. Priya was a human relations professional, who in keeping with custom, had agreed to an arranged marriage.

The property in India was in her name, but when her husband demanded she transfer registration to him, she refused.

"He started hitting me, abusing me. He said he needed those property papers … Slowly I came to understand that he was interested in my properties and my money and he needed a beautiful wife — that's it," she said.

Her husband, who had Australian citizenship and lived in Sydney, would not explain why he had obtained a visitor's visa for her, rather than a spouse visa, nor why he had claimed to have a master's degree when he had a diploma.

Shame prevented Priya from revealing her plight when her husband gave her a laptop with Internet access, allowing her to speak daily with Indian friends and family.

"In our Indian culture, once you get married you don't want to stay in your Mum and Dad's place. You stay with your husband," she said.

When Priya discovered her husband was being paid $18 hourly, she gathered her courage, and got a better-paid job herself with a multinational company by applying online.

Her husband demanded that she ask her father for $20,000 to pay for a spouse visa. A quick internet check revealed the cost was much lower. She refused.

The stigma of returning to India after a failed marriage seemed impossible within her Hindu culture.

"There are so many questions on a girl's head," she said. She recoiled from the thought of telling her parents because she didn't want to make them unhappy.

"Dads can give us a brave courage, but I didn't tell about my heart melting," she said.

Her husband beat her again over her refusal to ask for $20,000, then sent Priya back to India, while he stayed in Sydney.

As is expected of a wife, she had to live with her husband's family. Her parents-in-law also beat her, she said.

She fled back to Sydney and was again met with her husband's violence.

One day, he demanded to know again why she would not transfer her dowry to him. He hit her so hard she fell over.

"He kicked me in the stomach and I fainted. When I opened my eyes I could see two people with a blue dress beside me," she said. They were ambulance officers.

"He told me in our language, 'If you tell them I hit you and you fainted, they'll arrest me and send you to India'," she said.

But Priya now had permanent residency and contacted voluntary community worker Aruna Chandrala who, she says, helped empower her to make her own decisions.

"She helped me find a job and to focus on my life and not to dwell in the past," she said.

Ms Chandrala also helped Priya to talk to her parents about her predicament.

But when she filed for divorce in India, she discovered a new web of lies. Her husband already had a wife and two children in Australia.

His family had colluded, she believes, to gouge as much as they could in dowry from her family.

A secret scourge becomes public

Educated, highly employable and able to find support, Priya escaped family violence and is now a mother after happily remarrying an Indian man whose family expected no dowry.

But for some members of the Australian Sikh and Hindu communities, the only escape has been death.

An ABC News investigation — part of an ongoing series examining the links between religion and domestic abuse — has found there are rising concerns about a significant increase in family violence in Australian Hindu and Sikh communities over the past decade.

This secret scourge has become public in a spate of horrific deaths by murder and suicide.

Advocates attribute this violence to several factors, including the insidious influence of ancient Hindu texts which relegate women to inferior status and call for obedience to their husbands, a reluctance by clergy to even raise the subject of domestic abuse in faith communities, and the fact that Australia has failed to outlaw the dowry system, despite its banning in India more than 50 years ago.

But the fundamental problem fuelling the abuse of women is a deeply patriarchal traditional culture that, at its extreme edges, sees female foetuses aborted, brides burned, and abused women tormented for bringing shame on their families.

Some of these practices have now come to Australia following a wave of migration over the past decade.

Advocates sounding the alarm over the level of abuse of Hindu and Sikh women say that in many communities, all-male clergy fear they will offend men, which makes them reticent about confronting a culture of "male entitlement" and holding perpetrators of family violence to account.

While Sikhism and Hinduism are distinct religions, there is intermingling among members of these faith communities which both originated in the Indian sub-continent and share historical practices affecting women's roles and status in society, including dowry-giving.

We asked our readers what they thought about the stories in this article. Read the responses in the comments.

What is the impact of religious and cultural beliefs?

In at least 11 cases since 2009, family violence in these communities has led to homicide and homicide-suicide. Nineteen people have died. Twelve were women, five men and two children.

In four of the cases, men killed their partner and then themselves. In one, a woman killed her husband before taking her own life.

Alarmed at a spike in family violence deaths in Melbourne's Hindu and Sikh communities five years ago, the Victorian coroner commissioned family violence specialist Dr Ruchita Ruchita to report on the impact of religious and cultural beliefs in several cases of homicide-suicide.

These beliefs could have been "a major contributing factor" when Nilesh Sharma, a Fijian Hindu of Indian descent, killed his wife, Preetika Sharma, along with his son aged six and daughter aged three, Dr Ruchita said in her July 2014 report to the resulting inquest, according to Judge Ian L. Gray's 2015 findings as Coroner.

"There was evidence of family violence involving Preetika and Nilesh, primarily in the form of controlling and isolating behaviour," Dr Ruchita said.

Their daughter's birth may have been a factor, she said.

"A girl is taken as being [a] burden on the family, whereas a male child is taken as being old-age insurance," Dr Ruchita told the Coroner.

"Girls are deprived of good food and education to save money for their dowry. Giving birth to males improves the position of [the] woman amongst in-laws and the whole society. Giving birth to females lowers the status of women and she has to face her in-laws aversely, especially her mother-in-law."

In other findings that year, Judge Gray also drew on Dr Ruchita's evidence that, "cultural and religious beliefs could also have been a major contributing factor" when Sikh man Avjit Singh killed his wife Sargun Raji by stabbing and burning her.

However, Dr Ruchita argued Mr Raji's Sikh faith "does not support violence".

"His cultural beliefs and values, such as gender inequality, male superiority and a patriarchal society belief system appear to have over-ridden his religious beliefs," she said.

Judge Gray said: "On Dr Ruchita's evidence, Mr Singh appeared to have been motivated by a culturally entrenched patriarchal/male entitlement attitude."

Dowry abuse in Australia

The dowry a bride's family pays the groom and his family in gold, jewellery, cash, goods and sometimes real estate, was originally devised in India long ago to provide for women because only men inherited family property, Ms Chandrala believes.

However, some families have distorted the practice to enrich themselves and will use violence against the bride to pressure her family to increase the dowry after the marriage has occurred, she said.

The dowry system, outlawed in India since 1961, but still legal in Australia, is one of the most pernicious causes of family violence in Hindu and Sikh communities here, according to Melbourne psychiatrist Dr Manjula O'Connor.

It has played a part in the violence leading to deaths in these faith communities, says Dr O'Connor, who is campaigning for nationwide laws outlawing dowry abuse following a Victorian Government undertaking to do so.

After decades of dowry-related trauma resulting in deaths or suicides, religious leaders have been forced to recognise the problem.

The Australian Council of Hindu Clergy recently took tentative steps to address dowry abuse by posting a statement on its website headed "The Crime of Dowry".

"We, the Hindu Clergy of Australia unreservedly condemn the giving and the taking of Dowry. It is a social evil as well as a sin, condemned by the Shastra [sacred scriptures]," they said.

They quote from an ancient legal text, the Laws of Manu: "Those deluded relatives who live off a woman's property — her carriages, her clothes, and so on are evil and go to hell."

Ironically, however, Dr O'Connor, who sees the dowry system as emblematic of a culture of male entitlement, links it to prescriptions on women's treatment in Laws of Manu, or the Manu Smitri, which for centuries was considered the foundation of Hindu law, and outlines a code of divine Hindu conduct.

In these laws, women are referred to as seductresses (2/213), and they should be punished if suspected of tearing their hymens by having their heads shaved or two fingers cut off, and being forced to ride a donkey (8/369).

Men are warned not to marry women who have red hair, or who are sick or bald (3/8). High caste Brahmans are told not to look at their wives when they eat, yawn, sneeze (4/43) or give birth (4/4).

Overall, in the laws of Manu, women are defined in relation to men, as daughters, sisters or wives, Dr O'Connor says.

Women are to be in the "custody" of their husbands: "In no circumstances is [a wife] allowed to assert herself independently" (5/151).

Women are told their only duty is to worship, serve, obey and please their husbands.

One law (9/6) provides:

"It is the duty of all husbands to exert total control over their wives. Even physically weak husbands must strive to control their wives."

According to Manu, marriage is the only pathway to spiritual enlightenment for women and caring for the family home is like tending to a spiritual fire.

"In modern India, people would accept that this is not a good scripture to follow as far as women are concerned," Dr O'Connor said.

However, she argues that its views on women have seeped into the culture and imbued Indian faith communities, including non-Hindus.

"It's incorporated at almost every level of society," Dr O'Connor said. And, she adds, an ongoing belief in male superiority keeps dowry abuse alive.

"They [the husbands] take the dowry and then the girls are abandoned and they disappear with the dowry and they totally deny they ever took it. This is happening a lot in Melbourne. I've seen dozens [of instances] in the past 12 months."

The push to outlaw dowry violence

The Victorian Government has promised to implement the Royal Commission into Family Violence's 2016 recommendation to "expand statutory examples of family violence to include forced marriage and dowry-related abuse."

Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula told ABC News his government was drafting legislation to protect women and girls from dowry-related abuse under the Family Violence Protection Act and intends to introduce it next year, in keeping with that recommendation.

Dr O'Connor said the new laws could not bar families giving gifts to their daughters, but they could stop grooms and their families from demanding it, mainly by acting as a deterrent.

"So what the Family Violence Protection Act will say is any coercive demands for gifts of cash, money cars etc will be seen as economic abuse and any associated verbal abuse or assaults will of course be treated like any other domestic violence act," Dr O'Connor said.

She agrees that it will be difficult to prove coercion, but cited an example of a recently married woman whose husband has been pressuring her to sell the modest car she uses to get to work and buy him an Audi. She has evidence of the demands in text messages.

Husbands and their families sometimes also make their extortion demands via Facebook messaging and some women have recorded verbal threats, Dr O'Connor said.

Now Dr O'Connor is heading a push to outlaw dowry violence nationwide.

Her Australasian Centre for Human Rights and Health in April this year asked a federal parliamentary inquiry into a better family law system to recommend laws to protect women from "bride price" extortion, which often escalates into violence.

"The phrase 'dowry violence' refers not to the dowry paid at the time of the wedding, but to additional escalating, coercive payments demanded by the groom's family after the marriage," the submission said.

"The additional dowry is often paid to stop the husband from systematically beating and/or abusing the new wife."

Women in wealthy families are often targeted, with the mother-in-law in India keeping the bride's jewellery and larger goods such as cars, while the groom gets the cash, it said.

White Ribbon, an organisation campaigning for men to act against family violence, will assist Dr O'Connor in her push to ban dowry abuse here by mobilising activists in other states and territories, according to diversity and inclusion manager Sunila Kotwal.

"It's a form of domestic abuse … It's not generally every Indian community who do it, but [among] those who do it, it has consequences. It used to be about gifts at the wedding. Now it's expanded. It's easy money by abusing the wife. Parents want daughter to be happy," Ms Kotwal said.

"It [the dowry system] shouldn't have come to Australia. We are educated and should know the good from the bad."

Ms Kotwal does not believe the practice has any basis in religion. She sees its genesis as cultural and limited mainly to families from India's deep north and south.

But men with good qualifications disappointed at being consigned to low-paid work like driving taxis in Australia can be tempted to use upping the dowry as another way of making money, she says.

"In India, Australia is advertised to be a land of opportunities. Expectations build up so high, when they come here, it's a rude shock," Ms Kotwal said.

The deputy president of the Australian Council of Hindu Clergy, Pandit Rishikesh Bhattar, told ABC News the dowry was against the faith's traditions and at a recent meeting, the council decided to work to totally eliminate the practice.

"We 100 per cent support that dowry is unacceptable … dowry is a very dangerous disease," Pandit Bhattar said.

But Dr O'Connor says efforts to restrict dowry giving have already met resistance within Hindu and Sikh communities.

"This dowry thing refuses to die because it completely feeds patriarchal expectations," she said.

"It allows the groom to feel more important than he already is by virtue of being a male. And the sons and sons-in law in Indian culture are treated like gods."

And, she adds, the culture of male entitlement can too often lead to the value of well-educated women being counted solely in dowry dollars.

"If someone is a resident of Australia, ipso facto they must be an ideal catch. The residency of a first world country gives these men an open ticket to demand a dowry and treat the women badly because their status is even more exalted," she said.

Increase in calls for help may be due to 'huge wave of migration'

Victoria has set a precedent in digging deeper into the causes of family violence in Hindu and Sikh communities.

But coroners' reports and court decisions indicate that other states and territories have failed to follow.

Brisbane social worker Jatinder Kaur, who is a board adviser to the charity Sikh Helpline Australia, has done some cultural sensitivity training of police and members of the judiciary, but believes much more is needed.

She vowed to take action about family violence in her community when she became frustrated over the deaths of two women at the hands of their husbands.

"Not one single person as a representative from the Sikh Punjabi Indian community came out to say, 'This is not okay, this is not part of our culture'," Ms Kaur told ABC News.

"There was no acknowledging, 'We do not condone this type of behaviour or actions'."

In one case, Ms Kaur heard community members claiming the victim was not honourable and her husband was.

"I've seen the silencing of the victims' voices, particularly from the Sikh faith community," she said.

The secrecy is blown when shocking practices more common on the Indian sub-continent, such as "bride-burning", have appeared here.

Still, it is difficult to ascertain the prevalence of family violence in these communities because no-one gathers statistics which would indicate the proportions of perpetrators and victims from particular backgrounds, Ms Kaur said.

The general manager of the family violence helpline 1800RESPECT, Gabrielle Denning-Cotter, told SBS in February 2017 callers of Indian background were the second highest number after Australian-born women.

Jatinder Kaur believes the apparent increase may be due to a "huge wave of migration" over the past decade.

The percentage of respondents reporting they were Hindu has surged from 0.7 per cent in 2006 to 1.9 per cent in the 2016 census, while the Sikh population has risen from 0.1 per cent to 0.5 per cent over that period, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

This is driven by an increase in the number of Indian-born migrants, the ABS said.

"Our community come from India, where patriarchy and women's rights are not equal. It is an accepted cultural norm in their country of origin. This is a generational shift which will take time," Ms Kaur said.

"Part of the challenge we face in our communities is a push to preserve the marriage and the sanctity of the marriage," she said, adding that this does not encourage women to opt for safety.

The women 'suffer silently'

Features of Priya's case, including use of incarceration, isolation and dowry-inspired physical violence coupled with escalating demands for money, as well as her unwillingness to tell even her parents, are familiar to activists like Aruna Chandrala.

Ms Chandrala is one of several senior Australian Hindu women who regularly rescue wives from family violence, including young brides who know nothing of their new country and sometimes little English.

Sometimes they are put out on the street by an abusive husband with no money, afraid both that their spouse visa will be revoked and their family will be too ashamed to take them back, she says.

The practice of abandoning brides is so common within India's diaspora worldwide, she adds, that the Indian Government now provides deserted spouses in Western countries with $US3,000 in legal assistance.

Through the Global Women's Network — which Ms Chandrala founded — she links deserted wives to lawyers, police, housing and employment networks and urges them to perform Hindu rituals daily to recover their self-esteem.

"Because of the social stigma involved, many, many, many cases [are not reported to] the authorities. They [women] suffer silently," said Ms Chandrala, a former president of the United Indian Associations.

Ms Chandrala also laments what she describes as a "culture of male entitlement", though she stresses there are men such as her engineer husband Visnawath, with whom she migrated 31 years ago, who treat women with respect.

Dealing with different cultural values can be dizzying for those dealing with family violence, she says.

"For a Hindu family living in Australia, once they step inside the house they have to follow the Hindu custom and traditions, the way of living and the food … Everything is different. Once they step outside the house, they are trying to assimilate with Australian culture," she said.

Ms Chandrala believes Hinduism's reverence for powerful goddesses such as Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati and the fierce mother-goddess Durga, runs counter to violent male cultural practices in sections of Indian society.

"[In] Hinduism there are no restrictions, there's nothing to look down upon women. But it is more of those fanatics who interpret this religion in a different manner to advantage themselves and use it," she said.

They interpret the teaching that men are gods in their own households to mean men can dominate women and are able to abuse them, she said.

Women fight against ancient laws

But anti-violence advocates say the main problem for the abused women in these communities is not the use — or abuse — of sacred texts to justify harming or controlling women.

Hinduism and Sikhism are much more individualistic and less formal religions than Christianity, Islam or Judaism, with less reliance on the words of scriptures or priests, so perpetrators from these communities are not inclined to justify their violence using texts, as they do in other religions, local anti-violence advocates say.

Priya blames her ex-husband's lack of education and failure to understand that women can have their own property and money, combined with family greed over her dowry, rather than any religious belief, for his attitude.

However, like Dr O'Connor, Sydney Tamil community leader Dr Chandrika Subramanian believes women's oppression within sections of Hindu and Sikh communities worldwide, spawning extremes such as "bride-burning" and abortion of female foetuses, derives partly from the Manu Smitri.

"Often I'd hear from the client, 'Oh, it's part of the culture, beating the wife'," said Dr Subramanian, a journalist, solicitor and former domestic violence officer with Immigrant Women's Speakout Association.

Both perpetrators and victims hold this attitude, she said.

Dr Subramanian cites Shamita Das Dasgupta, an American academic and anti-family-violence campaigner, who has written that Manu's edicts, "marked women as unworthy creatures who must be kept under continual subjugation by men and their families".

Dasgupta wrote in a chapter in the 2015 book Religion and Men's Violence Against Women: "Critics have often traced the secondary status of women and woman abuse in Hindu societies to misogynist religious directives that began with Manu."

On International Women's Day last year, students at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi burnt pages of the Manu Smitri which they said contained 40 derogatory references to females.

Although the controversial document contains conflicting edicts about women, with some paragraphs instructing husbands to respect their wives and treat them well, modern translations show that it accurately describes the way women are still treated in these communities, Dr O'Connor says.

"It is truly representative in modern day India."

But Sunila Kotwal from White Ribbon Australia argues tradition — not religion — is to blame for men's violence against women.

"I'm not aware of anyone using Manu [to justify abuse] … It's not as popular in the broader community as it is made out to be," Ms Kotwal said.

"The violence problems we have in the Hindu community are related to dowry and visa problems and the newly married girls not being aware of the services available to them, [as well as men's] controlling behaviour, but this is nothing to do with religion."

Much of the problem, advocates say, is the lack of respect for the role of the wife.

According to Sumati Advani, project coordinator with the non-profit Seva International, a woman traditionally joins her husband's family upon marriage, but is often seen, "as an extra pair of hands around the house instead of an extra member of the family".

"That is an unfortunate cultural thing," Ms Advani said. "She becomes part of the violent cycle. The mother-in-law is in charge. A lot of the problems we have with domestic violence are related to the mother-in-law interfering in the family."

The influence extends to Australia. "Though they are India, their tentacles stretch over here," she said.

Ms Advani, who also chairs the United Indian Associations women's steering committee, is trying to educate service providers about the need for early intervention and to target newly arrived migrants, whose temporary spouse visa status leaves them vulnerable to abuse.

"Girls must wait two years for a permanent visa and they are in a no-man's land, financially dependent," she said.

Where is the clergy response?

What is urgently required now, advocates say, is training and education for religious leaders in Hindu and Sikh communities, who are reluctant to even mention the subject in sermons in temples for fear of offending men.

Dr Subramanian believes one obstacle stems from the fact that Hindu clergy believe "the wife has to obey the husband".

But Ms Advani says members of clergy can play a significant role in addressing domestic violence because when Hindu or Sikh migrants first arrive in Australia, they usually visit a temple or gurdwara.

"The clergy can be the first place that deals with issues of violence, but no-one trains them or tells them where to seek help," she said.

Men, she adds, "hardly ever" talk openly about this issue.

The NSW Government's Justice Multicultural Advisory Council will next year launch a project to train religious leaders in how to respond to domestic violence.

The project will ask leaders of all faith communities to spread the message that family violence is not acceptable in Australia.

Hindu cleric and leader Pandit Bhattar said women were valued and even worshipped in his religion and violence against spouses, children, parents or elders was an unforgiveable sin.

"No ceremony can free you from your sins. God will not accept at all. All the other little sins, you can do ceremonies, but violence against women and children, no ceremony can purify you — you go to hell," Pandit Bhattar told ABC News.

"Definitely family violence is the biggest problem, but family violence is totally against anything in the scriptures."

Hindu reformers had rejected outdated elements of Manu Smitri relating to women, he added: "Great gurus came and realised that basically this is no longer given that importance."

Clergy members currently do not know enough about the law and counselling techniques to assist those suffering from family violence or to intervene and would welcome education, he says.

The clergy's resources and power are limited, though, he said, and people who visit temples are unlikely to tell a priest about family violence for fear their secrets could be spread among the community.

"Religion only can guide [victims], but law is there to protect them and their rights," he said.

Jatinder Kaur has emphasised in numerous forums that there is a huge contradiction between the patriarchal Indian culture and the gender equality which the Sikh religion's founding Guru Nanak Dev Ji preached.

"We believe strongly in gender equality, and in our history, we've had women who've led our congregations and [even] fought in battles," she said. The culture eroded these values.

In India, Sikh gurus have now spoken out against the practice of sati, in which widows were forced into being burnt alive on their late husbands' funeral pyres.

They also prohibited the practice of killing girl children, she said.

Now it was time to speak out against family violence and the fact that dowry is against Sikh beliefs.

"That's where our faith leaders need to step up — there is no-one reminding the community that these are our social and religious values," she said.

Clergy reluctant to raise domestic violence for fear of offending men

Jasbir Singh Saropada, chairman of the Sikh Interfaith Council of Victoria, runs parenting programs for Anglicare as his day job and in his spare time gives workshops within his faith community aimed at addressing family violence.

"My approach and intervention is parenting and through that, I bring in the topic of family violence … If we just say [the workshop is] about family violence, [people] don't attend because of the stigma," Mr Singh said.

He does this with his wife, Param Kaur, through the body they founded, Sikh Australian Support for Family Violence. After every workshop, he gets a call from someone affected by family violence, he said.

"There [has been] a slight paradigm shift," Mr Singh said.

"People in the Sikh community are now willing to come forward. I've been getting phone calls. I would like to run a men's group in my community. It will take time before men will come to a workshop with other men."

Dr O'Connor wants to see more clergy members take action against domestic violence.

She says Hindu and Sikh clergy are reluctant to take even small steps to confront family violence because of its stigma.

"They will not put up posters about domestic violence in their temple … because that will put off men and then women won't come either. It's a very, very touchy subject," she said.

"The Sikh temples do not mention the words 'domestic violence' in their sermons. They don't want to offend men. They might in a roundabout way say, 'Respect your wife', but they won't actually say, 'Don't hit your wife. It is against the law.' They won't say to women, 'You ring 000'."

Many women pressing for change feel the bulk of the work has been left up to them.

"Personally, I've been supporting 10 to 15 women over the past two years," Jatinder Kaur said.

Newly married, Priya was locked in her new Sydney home and endured torture for three months. She is grateful to Aruna Chandrala and her husband for showing her a way out.

She says she has told her story so women can learn they are not powerless. They can seek help.

"You have to be strong" she said. "I'm happy today."

*The names of domestic violence survivors have been changed for security and legal reasons.

Debra Jopson is a Sydney-based freelance journalist and author. You can follow her on Twitter: @DebraJopson.

*Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported the dowry system had been abolished in India. It was banned in 1961 but has not been completely eradicated.

Other articles in this series

Exposing the darkness within: Islam and domestic violence

'Submit to your husbands': Women told to endure domestic violence in the name of God

Shattering the Silence: Australians tell their stories of surviving domestic violence in the Church

'Their cross to bear': The Catholic women told to forgive domestic abuse

Raped, tracked, humiliated: Clergy wives speak out about domestic violence

Topics: domestic-violence, marriage, hinduism, women, courts-and-trials, murder-and-manslaughter, australia

First posted