Current Events
The Nowhere Wives
by AMITABH SRIVASTAVA & ASIT JOLLY
Initially, Sarabjit Kaur, 40, thought she had found her soulmate in Gurpreet Bal, 41, a lecturer in a college in India, when they married in 2002.
The fairytale came to an abrupt end when Bal left for the United Kingdom in December 2003 without informing his wife, who was at her parents' home post pregnancy.
Her daughter Harpreet Kaur was born in August 2003.
When Sarabjit tried to go back to her in-laws' home, she was turned away.
She filed a case against Bal for desertion in 2004. In March 2011, Sarabjit took her case to the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in her city following which Bal's Indian passport was revoked. Bal, according to Sarabjit, is now living illegally in the U.K.
"I have lost
all hope of a settlement," she says.
Sarabjit is one of the
several hundred women abandoned by their Indian husbands based abroad. The
National Commission of Women (NCW) has registered 796 such complaints
between September 24, 2009 and November 30, 2011, translating into one
complaint reaching NCW every day. A cell for dealing with Indians living abroad was
set up at NCW to look into the cases.
Gurmit Kaur, 38, got married to an Indian 'settled in the U.S.' on
November 22, 2000. Her husband Manjit Singh went abroad after marriage
with a promise to send her immigration papers. A promise he never kept.
She learned, to her horror, that Manjit was married with a son.
"Not
only this, he was not well-settled ... just an unskilled worker in
Seoul," a bitter Gurmit says.
Women have been found to have been
forcibly sent back by their Indian husbands or held to ransom for dowry
demands. There are also several cases where victims weren't picked up at
the airport upon arrival in a foreign country. Some were slapped with
abduction charges if they returned with their children, according to a
background note jointly prepared by NCW and the Ministry of Overseas
Indian Affairs in February 2011.
Many victims, says the note, have found
that their Indian husbands were either already married in the foreign country
or gave false information about their jobs and immigration status.
The
NCW note also states that some of the Indian husbands have taken advantage of
lenient laws in foreign countries to obtain ex parte divorces from
overseas courts to deny maintenance to women dumped back. NCW has
received several complaints from countries, including U.S., U.K., Australia,
Thailand and U.A.E., of women abandoned by Indians without proper immigration
documents.
In a written communication, NCW Law
Officer Neeraj Rawat says that Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab
are the most affected states on the basis of complaints received, though the crimes prevail across the country like an epidemic.
Though the charm of an Indian groom from abroad has faded in recent years given the instability in global economies and availability of eligible men with good pay locally, the dream of settling daughters abroad is still a tempting prospect for some.
"In their eagerness to not let go of such a
match, families totally ignore even the common precautions that are
observed in traditional matchmaking," says 44-year-old Gurpreet Kaur
Deo, inspector general of police, Punjab.
In the
past three years, 159 criminal cases have been filed in one Indian state alone against
overseas husbands for abandoning their wives. Having represented scores
of such brides, Daljit Kaur, 42, a
Chandigarh-based lawyer, says Indians' preference for expatriate grooms
is linked with the age-old fascination with the West.
"Besides, divided
holdings have left many families with shrunken farm income. The
expatriate success stories tempt them to desperately seek foreign
alliances," she says.
Former Union social welfare
minister, B.S. Ramoowalia - a Sikh activist - who has taken up the cause of brides abandoned by Indians in India, believes more than 15,000 women in one Indian state alone, for example, have been
deserted by their overseas husbands over the last two decades.
"The
Indian husbands based abroad tend to exhaust the women by prolonging the
cases," says the 68-year-old politician. In March 2011, Jalandhar's rpo
set up a women's cell to address concerns of brides deserted by Indian spouses living abroad. Legal provisions of the Passport Act of 1967 have been invoked
to confiscate or revoke passports issued to individuals who
misrepresented their marital status or against whom criminal cases are
pending. So far, orders to revoke passports have been issued in over 50
cases. But such orders are issued only if victims produce proof of
marriage, rarely available with deserted women.
The NCW cell has a
few success stories as well. In the case of Gurpreet Kaur, NCW got a
new passport issued after her Indian husband dumped her. NCW also got
an NGO to fight her case in the British courts.
The panel is following
up the case of Sunaina Devi in New Zealand. She was rescued from her
home after her husband got her declared insane.
While the
'successes' are few and far between, the number of desertions indicates
that the law still has some catching up to do to nab the errant Indian husbands, most of whom exploit its loopholes to make their getaway.
[Courtesy: India Today. Edited for sikhchic.com]
March 9, 2012
Conversation about this article
1: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), March 10, 2012, 12:16 AM.
It's quite horrible to hear one of these stories when they pop up. Women are especially vulnerable as some very evil Indian men make a living through fake marriages to brides for dowry. However, one thing which I have noticed in articles examining fake marriages is that they usually only look at the Indian male living abroad who has married a woman back in India. The circumstances can also be reversed. I have heard many stories of men born in Canada who agreed to an Indian bride. However, sometimes the bride leaves the family after only staying in Canada for a month or they don't even meet at the airport. The same is also true for Canadian born women and Indian men. Dowry culture and weak immigration laws unfortunate lead to very unfortunate situations.
2: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), March 10, 2012, 1:21 PM.
It is the governments that have primarily failed us in dealing with this outrage. As well, I find it extremely disturbing that even some Sikhs are taking part in such crimes.