12,000 cases in Gujarat of women abandoned by their NRI husbands, a figure higher than Punjab

AHMEDABAD, November 23 2004

Made in heaven but arranged with an NRI. It’s any prospective bride’s dream come true, especially in Gujarat. But when Union Minister of State for Non-Resident Affairs Jagdish Tytler recently stated in Surat that there are 12,000 cases in Gujarat of women abandoned by their NRI husbands, a figure higher than Punjab, he focused attention on a malaise that has long been hidden by the wedding ghoonghat. A look at police records in the state, not a single such case registered, tells its own tale.

A tale that Hetal Shah, a chartered accountant from Ahmedabad, is too traumatised to tell. Locked up at home for the last five months, she refuses to meet even her grandparents.

Hetal, who married NRG doctor Ajay Parikh in Nairobi in July 2003, got a dose of reality on the very first day of married life: her husband Ajay Parikh told her he was into a relationship with another Gujarati girl residing in Nairobi. Her wages snatched by her husband, abused and threatened, she was finally dumped in Ahmedabad a year later. With Ajay making his way back to Nairobi, Hetal has filed for divorce.

Hetal’s is not a one-off case. Though it’s unhappily ever after for many girls married to NRI grooms, more than 90 per cent of these cases go unreported, say social activists. The problem, as Hetal’s mother puts it, is “our Gujarati community is very conservative when it comes to marriages.

Even when marriages don’t work out, we try our best to hide the fact”. Hetal, too, kept this news from her parents for two long months as she felt it would hurt them to know that the marriage they’d arranged hadn’t panned out.

The excuses these NRI grooms give for dumping their wives can range from something as small as bad cooking to an unsatisfactory physical relationship, say activists.

Zarina Singh Darba of Borsad was left by her husband, Yassin Khan Pathan, a Riyadh-based carpenter, on the pretext that she was a bad cook and behaved badly with his parents.

Hemant Bhogilal Patel, a systems engineer in the US left Rupal Vinubhai Patel after only four days of marriage because he found out that she had failed in the final year of her engineering course.

Salim Rathod, a Muscat-based businessman who hails from Bhuj, dumped Najma Samrai from Kolkata, saying that he wasn’t able to derive any physical satisfaction from the relationship. He also claimed that the girl’s parents had shown him some other girl and got him married to a different one. “Humne police mein report nahin karaya kyunki humhe lagaa ki aapas mein bhaith kar suljha lena hi tikh hoga”, says Najma’s mother.

“Fear of social stigma is the main reason why such cases go unreported,’’ says Mrinalini Doctor of Jyoti Sangh, an NGO that deals exclusively with women’s issues.

“We have asked all police stations in Gujarat to provide us details of any such cases reported to them, but the tally is zero”, says Vijay Gautam, SP, women’s cell, CID Crime. Police source say the figures quoted by Tytler are not official and probably provided by an NGO.

Asked about the figures cited by Tytler, Malay Mishra, joint secretary in the NRI division, said: “We don’t know about the figures, Tytler is the man to ask. However, NRI marriages have been a matter of concern for the ministry, though so far no framework has been put in place to take offenders to task. We have the reports and are trying to work on it.”

Ila Pathak of AWAG, a prominent Ahmedabad-based NGO, says, “The problem is when the boy already has a steady relationship abroad and is still forced to marry an Indian girl by his parents. The girls are swayed by the prospect of going abroad. Such marriages seldom last. The problem of abandoning of brides is a very acute problem in the Patel community as it is a dowry-oriented caste. The girl is dumped and the boy vamooses with the dowry.’’

Ilaben says Muslim wives also face similar situations when their husbands go abroad for jobs and marry again there.

Police officials says most of these cases qualify as social offences, which are not punishable under law. Even when cases are registered, follow-ups are difficult as the boy lives abroad. ‘‘First, we have to send a red corner notice to Interpol and then they contact the police in the respective country so that the offender can be tracked down”, explained Vijay Gautam, SP, CID Crime.