Current Events
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, a la Malwa:
Bengali Mail Order Brides
by JATINDER PREET
Men from Punjab's Malwa region, notorious for its skewed sex-ratio, are bringing women from Bengal to marry, for a payment.
Nishabar Singh of Lehra in Sangrur district, Punjab, paid Rs. 50,000 to arrange for a bride from Kolkata for his 35-year-old son Dulla.
Tek Ram from the same village, who arranged the match, insists this does not amount to purchasing the bride. The money was for arrangements on weddings and other expenses, he claims. Among other expenses, he includes the money that has to be paid to the person arranging the match in Kolkata.
Known as Teku in the area, he himself is married to a girl from Kolkata. Teku says he is just helping others who cannot find suitable brides in Punjab.
Take the case of Dulla, he explains. Dulla was a drug addict and was known to be a petty thief. His father Nishabar Singh, knowing well that he would not find a match for his "ageing" son in Punjab, approached Teku. Teku, who has his wife's family in Kolkata and has the experience of arranging many such inter-cultural matches, found a girl for Dulla.
"There is so much poverty there," he observes when recounting his first trip to Kolkata 15 years ago as an assistant to a truck driver. "It's not only about Dulla, I also helped a needy family who could not afford to spend on their daughter's marriage," he says.
A girl from another poor Bengali family was brought to Punjab by Mithu Singh of Lehragaga when his first wife died at childbirth. 35-year-old Mithu refuses to talk about it.
Puran Singh from village Khokhar found a Bengali bride after he could not find a suitable girl here. Similarly, another girl, Rinki from Kolkata is married to a truck driver from village Jawanda. Her sister Tikli is married into another Punjabi family in Malerkotla.
Teku says he has arranged around 25-30 such marriages in the area. There are many girls ready to be married to anybody who can pay for it, he claims. He talks of a girl in Kolkata whose family has approached him to look for a man in Punjab to marry her off. All he knows of the girl is that she is fair and is around 22-23 years of age. "It's my responsibility," he says, vouching for the girl as he cites his own marriage as a successful experiment.
His wife Pinki plays down the scope for any problems because of cultural differences. She was married to Teku 15 years ago and like any other girl who adopts her husband's family and their ways, she too has adapted herself, she says in fluent Punjabi. She asserts that she is happy here and adds, "Men are alike everywhere."
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), October 25, 2011, 12:40 PM.
You neglect and exterminate the female at your peril! Superstition, sexism, dowry practices, casteism, foeticide, neglect of one's core values, will inevitable lead to this. Every actio has a reaction. Love and respect the Female as yourself, and half of the world's problems will disappear immediately!
2: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), October 25, 2011, 7:37 PM.
Some years ago I saw a most depressing Hindi film, 'Matrabhoomi' that still produces goose bumps for me to this day. The opening scene was set in a rural village in Bihar, depicting the delivery of a baby girl. The disappointed father, hoping for a boy, drowns the newly born babe in a vat of milk in a public ceremony. Years later, the village is now populated solely by males, and looking desperately for wives. There are none for miles around. At last a single woman is found and she is literally bought from her father. Not knowing that the poor hapless girl would become a modern day Draupadi and would be married to all the five boys! A weekly roster is drawn up with the father too thrown in to take turns on who gets to sleep with her and when. She is eventually chained to a post in the cow-shed and raped mercilessly night after night. The film ends on a violent but hopeful note, as she bears a baby girl and the men of the village now kill each other over rights to her and the baby girl. In Malwa today, it is no different except that Punjabis, being more enterprising, probably have agencies sprung up for mail order brides with the slogan, "Order two, get one free!" Looks like another cottage industry in Bengal to produce more girls for export to Punjab. Colour, caste, language and dowry, no bar. Incredible India!
3: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), October 25, 2011, 8:44 PM.
There is a ray of hope because in Punjab recently, I read in a local paper that local officials are paying (bribing) local villagers with Rs. 100,000 onwards, NOT to abort the female fetus, in villages where there is a gender imbalance. And it's working! Pity, because if they stuck to Sikh values, it wouldn't require bribes.
4: N. Singh (Canada), October 25, 2011, 9:49 PM.
Although on the surface it might appear attractive to certain societies to have a larger male to female ratio because men are typically seen as breadwinners, the long term effects of a skewed sex-ratio for any society is highly damaging. Having a predominately male population leads to a more violent society due to natural male aggression. Studies conducted on football hooliganism have found that having more females amongst crowds decreases the level of violence at such events due to the calming and counterbalancing effect of the female hormone 'estrogen' in the atmosphere. Since there will be more men competing for fewer women, those who are successful in getting a mate are typically the more 'dominate males' (better educated, financially well-off, physically stronger). This then leaves a pool of men who are less desirable, and unable to find a mate. These men are more likely to indulge in anti-social behaviour such as theft, murder, drug abuse. Countries and parents who condone these practices are really setting themselves, as well as their male children, up for failure and unhappiness in the long term.
5: S. Singh (U.S.A.), October 25, 2011, 11:37 PM.
I remember my mother telling me that before I was born my grandmother used to say, "munda hou ga, munda!" and my mother would reply: "taa(n) ki ho-geyaa jey kurri ho gaee!", to which my grandmother would say, "Assi ki koi paap keetey ney kie saadey kurri hou gi!" All this seems very good on the surface with brides from other states. Once you start scratching the surface, I can only imagine how many of them are physically, mentally abused by their husbands and their in-laws. Sadly, many seem to have forgotten the unequivocal admonishments of our Gurus against the abuse and mistreatment of women.
6: Harinder (Uttar Pradesh, India), October 25, 2011, 11:39 PM.
Some Sikhs have started behaving like other Indians as cowards who can't take on the responsibility of a girl-child.
7: Taran (London, United Kingdom), October 27, 2011, 4:19 AM.
Right from the Akal Takht to the commoner - although many have the Sikh saroop, they are not living up to the Guru's teachings. Our troubles will follow us as long as we are led by mahants!