As if dowry deaths, gender-influenced abortions and other social ills didn’t make me ill enough, now I can read about NRIs who return to India and marry purely for fiscal reasons, with the intent to abandon their naive new brides;
Baljeet Kaur gave her life savings and a scooter as dowry to marry Harvinder Singh in 1986 with the promise she would leave Punjab and join him in Canada where he drove a taxi.
A few weeks later, after pocketing 400,000 rupees (8,510 dollars), Singh went back to Canada, promising his then 24-year-old pregnant bride he would return for her within a year.
“But he never come back,” Kaur said. “Whenever I asked my in-laws about him, they used to beat me and tell me to get lost. After a couple of years, I moved to my mother’s house. My son doesn’t even know who his father is.”
Kaur is one of an estimated 16,000 women in the Punjab who have been abandoned by suitors working abroad who come back home briefly in hopes of finding a wife who can pay a dowry.
Sixteen-thousand. That’s insane. And before you question my use of the word “intent” in my introduction, read on:
“It’s a very planned crime by the entire family,” said Adarsh Sharma of the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCD) which is investigating the cases.
“What usually happens is that these boys come home for a holiday during which they get married after taking loads of money as dowry — money that would help them abroad. After some time, the grooms go back and the girls begin an endless wait.”
That the men who use these disposable marriages as get-rich-quick schemes are employed in professions that aren’t lucrative didn’t surprise me, however, the community that most of them apparently hail from did.
Most of the suitors are working as taxi drivers, electricians, waiters and gas station attendants in the United States, Canada, Britain and the Gulf countries, Sharma said. A majority of them are Sikh, the largest expatriate Indian community.
Expatriate. The allure of a stronger currency lining your daughter’s future joint-bank account; the promise of immigration…two irresistible forces convince Indian parents that these men are sought-after, and blind them to the ugly potential scenario of a well-ensconced foreign girlfriend/wife, occupying the space that their daughter hopes to claim.
And what of those duped daughters?
…many say they were forced to work as slaves by in-laws, beaten and eventually sent back to their mothers…Some muster enough strength to fight a legal battle while others just let it go. According to the co-director of the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development, K. K. Singh, the women have a plethora of legal rights under the Hindu Marriage Act, including the ability to file for divorce.
The plethora of rights and strategies that “holiday wives” can use include attempts to reclaim their dowry, charging their phantom spouses with harassment or torture, requesting separation and alimony or pleading for “the restoration of conjugal rights.” The victims may also find that international laws regarding marriage are relevant, but laws aren’t going to accomplish jack if their NRI husbands don’t respond.
In Ludhiana, which unfortunately bears the sad distinction of being the “epicenter” for this horrid trend, “holiday wives” gathered to share their nightmarish experiences;
Gurprinder Singh’s husband left her to work in a restaurant in Spain after taking money from Singh’s father. Recently, he allegedly came back to Ludhiana and remarried after taking another huge dowry.
Showing pictures of the remarriage, the 30-year-old said she was now trying to get a case registered against him.
“He is hiding in Ludhiana waiting for a visa to go back but police are not arresting him. I want to teach him a lesson,” Singh said.
Something tells me he’s not interested in learning. Meanwhile, the grim cynic within is just happy they didn’t douse her with kerosene before having a “kitchen fire”… :(
