India While on Holiday
I am sure we all have our differences of opinion on the subject of marriage. We particularly fortunate people in the West do not depend on it for our future security and well being – though I am sure you’ve all met that girl whose “happiness depends on being married”. But what if you didn’t have a choice? What if your future depended on somebody you didn’t know? How would you feel if every hope and dream that you ever had was stripped away from you because they didn’t fulfil their end of the bargain?
Last week BBC radio aired a one-off documentary about an ongoing trend in marriages in India: Holiday Brides. Poor families in India are desperate to give their children the best opportunities in life, and as they see it, the best opportunity they can give their daughters is a husband from the West – NRI or non-resident Indian. As these people see it in the West there is better housing, more freedom, better education and overall higher standards of living; these are prospects that attract the young women just as much as their parents. Most marriages in India are still arranged either with the help of relatives, or a private ‘matchmaker’. Indian men from Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia come to India to marry these girls, often demanding huge dowries at the ceremonies – a custom which was recently made illegal – then stay for maybe a few months before returning to their country of residence. The men promise they will send for their brides in time, and some make irregular trips back and forth, but very few of these young women ever make it out of India.
According to women’s rights activist, Daljit Kaur, from Chandigarch there are between 15000 and 20000 such women in the Punjab alone:
What of the men? The UK governments “Forced Marriages Unit” confirmed that it has seen an increasing number of investigations concerning young British men, of Indian extraction, who are being forced into marriages. They are sent “home” to India under the impression that they are going to visit relatives, only to discover that the entire family is preparing for a wedding ceremony; their’s. Tahir Mahmood, community leader in London, says that the people back in India are obsessed with marrying someone British. The greed of these families is such that they don’t even ask about the backgrounds of the men, sometimes not even meeting him or his family until the day of the wedding. Mr Mahmood thinks the young men are just as much the victims in these situations, being given misleading information about the bride and her ‘history’.
It is difficult to pinpoint who exactly is at fault, or if it is even fair to apportion blame on one party when the business of marriage in India is such a complex construction with input from many sides, sometimes with very little involvement from the bride or the groom themselves. With the issue only being publicised recently I have no doubt that further developments in the judging of cases will emerge as the Ministry’s involvement in Indian society becomes more inherent to the law. I sympathise with all those who have been deceived or mistreated, but more than anything I am grateful to have been born with all the freedoms and liberties that a human being deserves.
I am sure we all have our differences of opinion on the subject of marriage. We particularly fortunate people in the West do not depend on it for our future security and well being – though I am sure you’ve all met that girl whose “happiness depends on being married”. But what if you didn’t have a choice? What if your future depended on somebody you didn’t know? How would you feel if every hope and dream that you ever had was stripped away from you because they didn’t fulfil their end of the bargain?
Last week BBC radio aired a one-off documentary about an ongoing trend in marriages in India: Holiday Brides. Poor families in India are desperate to give their children the best opportunities in life, and as they see it, the best opportunity they can give their daughters is a husband from the West – NRI or non-resident Indian. As these people see it in the West there is better housing, more freedom, better education and overall higher standards of living; these are prospects that attract the young women just as much as their parents. Most marriages in India are still arranged either with the help of relatives, or a private ‘matchmaker’. Indian men from Britain, the USA, Canada and Australia come to India to marry these girls, often demanding huge dowries at the ceremonies – a custom which was recently made illegal – then stay for maybe a few months before returning to their country of residence. The men promise they will send for their brides in time, and some make irregular trips back and forth, but very few of these young women ever make it out of India.
According to women’s rights activist, Daljit Kaur, from Chandigarch there are between 15000 and 20000 such women in the Punjab alone:
- “The girl is ruined in all dimensions. Financially, she has been spoiled; socially, she can't get remarried; and emotionally, she is ruined.”
What of the men? The UK governments “Forced Marriages Unit” confirmed that it has seen an increasing number of investigations concerning young British men, of Indian extraction, who are being forced into marriages. They are sent “home” to India under the impression that they are going to visit relatives, only to discover that the entire family is preparing for a wedding ceremony; their’s. Tahir Mahmood, community leader in London, says that the people back in India are obsessed with marrying someone British. The greed of these families is such that they don’t even ask about the backgrounds of the men, sometimes not even meeting him or his family until the day of the wedding. Mr Mahmood thinks the young men are just as much the victims in these situations, being given misleading information about the bride and her ‘history’.
It is difficult to pinpoint who exactly is at fault, or if it is even fair to apportion blame on one party when the business of marriage in India is such a complex construction with input from many sides, sometimes with very little involvement from the bride or the groom themselves. With the issue only being publicised recently I have no doubt that further developments in the judging of cases will emerge as the Ministry’s involvement in Indian society becomes more inherent to the law. I sympathise with all those who have been deceived or mistreated, but more than anything I am grateful to have been born with all the freedoms and liberties that a human being deserves.