The numbers
Dowry Statistics
in India.
Official figures from the National Crime Records Bureau, with sources, and with an honest account of what they undercount.
6,450 dowry deaths. 140,019 cases of cruelty by a husband or his relatives. 13,479 Dowry Prohibition Act violations.
All three from the National Crime Records Bureau, and all three widely believed to undercount.
Dowry deaths over time
The direction of travel is downward, but slowly. From 7,167 in 2018 to 6,450 in 2022 is a fall of about ten percent across four years, against a rising population. At 6,450 a year this is roughly eighteen deaths a day.
The three offence categories
| Category | Provision | Cases |
|---|---|---|
| Cruelty by husband or his relatives | IPC 498A, now BNS 85 | 140,019 |
| Dowry Prohibition Act violations | Act of 1961 | 13,479 |
| Dowry deaths | IPC 304B, now BNS 80 | 6,450 |
Cruelty cases made up 31.4 percent of all crimes against women recorded under the Indian Penal Code in 2022, making it the single largest category. Dowry Prohibition Act violations were up about 34 percent on 2014.
Conviction
This is the number that matters most and gets quoted least. A registered case is a long way from a conviction, and the gap is not mainly about the law being weak. The documented causes are procedural:
- Evidence at the scene degrades fast and is easily recharacterised as an accident, particularly in deaths by burning.
- Dying declarations are heavily contested and are often the only direct evidence.
- Witnesses are relatives of one side or the other, and turn hostile.
- Trials run for years, and detail and witnesses are both lost on the way.
Why these figures undercount
Being clear about this is more useful than presenting the numbers as complete.
- Deaths get misclassified. Research on the subject finds dowry deaths recorded as accidental deaths, particularly stove and burn injuries, which removes them from the 304B count entirely.
- Most demands are never reported. A dowry demand that is met quietly generates no record at all, and that is the ordinary case rather than the exception.
- Only registered cases are counted. NCRB data is a record of police registrations, so anything a station declined to register is invisible in it.
- The wedding itself is rarely counted. The bride's family funding the entire event functions as dowry and appears in no statistic.
Using this page
Every figure here is attributed, and the two charts are free to reproduce with attribution to dowry.lol and to the underlying NCRB source. If you are a journalist or researcher and need a figure we have not published, or you spot an error, write to us. We correct things, and we say when we have, per our editorial policy.
If you are being harassed for dowry right now
Sources
Related reading
Common questions
How many dowry deaths happen in India each year?
The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 6,450 dowry deaths in India in 2022, which is roughly eighteen a day. The figure was 7,167 in 2018, 7,141 in 2019 and 6,966 in 2020, so the trend is a slow decline. Researchers widely consider these figures an undercount, because dowry deaths are frequently recorded as accidents.
How many dowry cases are registered in India?
In 2022 the NCRB recorded 140,019 cases of cruelty by a husband or his relatives under IPC Section 498A, which was 31.4 percent of all crimes against women recorded under the Indian Penal Code. There were a further 13,479 Dowry Prohibition Act violations and 6,450 dowry deaths.
What is the conviction rate in dowry cases in India?
Reported conviction rates in dowry-related cases sit between roughly 11 and 17 percent, so a large majority of registered cases do not end in conviction. The reasons are mostly procedural: compromised evidence at the scene, contested dying declarations, hostile family witnesses, and trials that run for years.