Victims Of Betrayal Dreamed Of A New Life In Canada – Now They Weep For Shame

[singhbj singh]

ABANDONED BRIDES: Victims of betrayal dreamed of a new life in Canada now they weep for shame

MIKE ROBERTS

THE PROVINCE

Across India, an estimated 30,000 young women live to regret marriages that have left them alone, miserable and consumed with shame.

They married Indian men living overseas in affluent countries including many from Canada known as Non-Resident Indians. But, their expectations of a happy life in a new country were quickly dashed.

Here are the stories of some of Indias abandoned brides.

Bent like a broken flower over a red velvet box containing her wedding photographs, Navjit Kaur Sandhu raises a delicate hand to her forehead and sobs silently.

Her father, Ramesh Kumar, weeps inconsolably into the trembling curtain of his fingers. Her mother stares at the floor, as if wishing for a hole to swallow them all up.

The middle-class Punjabi family is assembled in a relatives home in Maradpur, 40 kilometres away from the prying eyes and tutting tongues of neighbours at home in their village of Aujla.

They have come to share with The Province their story of the familys fall from grace.

Thirty-year-old Navjit, a disarmingly beautiful high school teacher with three university degrees, gathers the courage to open the box in her lap.

The photographs inside tell the story of 10 days last spring during which Navjit was married to fellow Sikh Jaswinder Singh Sandhu and was quickly deserted.

After the wedding, in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, the groom returned to his home in Surrey, promising he would soon send for his wife.

Navjit has heard no word from him, or his family, since June 21.

Navjits case aside, tens of thousands of women in India have seen their family honour and wealth sacrificed to bride-shopping Non-Resident Indians NRIs from affluent countries abroad.

These men exploit the hope of many urban and rural Indian families to escape domestic poverty and cultural oppression.

Experts in India estimate that fraud is involved in as many as half of all NRI marriages, maybe more.

In Canada, the estimates are lower between five and 10 per cent. Despite this, community leaders in B.C. insist that many NRI marriages do result in successful, lasting relationships.

Canada, with its historical links to Punjab, is a primary source of the bride-hunters, who also come from England, Germany and the U.S. (Seventy per cent of Canadas 500,000 Indo-Canadians hail from Punjab; B.C. is home to half of them.)

The men and in rare cases women represent only a small fraction of their community.

But the damage they leave behind is a source of lifelong shame to their victims in India and considerable embarrassment to community members overseas.

The phenomenon of the abandoned brides has been described by a senior judge in India as a national psychosis.

(Young women) think (that) outside India, its all heaven. Therefore by some means or other, they will go. They are forgetting everything else. And the parents also say, All right, lets help her go. Its a dream. Just a dream, says Supreme Court Judge K. Sukumaran.

Experts who have studied the problem say the pressure the young women face from their families is formidable. They are not empowered, independent women with a voice in their own destiny, but mere commodities in their cultures matrimonial market.

Choosing a love mate is not an option, and ultimately they are twice victimized first by their families eagerness to marry them off and then by their runaway husbands heartless greed.

Tales of betrayal vary only in the details among the estimated 15,000 abandoned brides in Punjab.

In the neighbouring state of Gujurat, an estimated 12,000 young women have been duped. All told, as many as 30,000 women have been abandoned to live life as social outcasts.

One Indian lawyer who has handled hundreds of such cases says that many involve men who have married, fleeced and divorced multiple women.

And a leading Punjabi politician who heads a national campaign to combat what he calls an insidious crime says the perpetrators are brutal and cruel.

avjits father pads softly across the polished marble floor and draws the shutters and drapes, shutting out the cacophony of urban India, the all-pervasive poverty his daughter had sought to escape.

Outside in the blinding light and the blasting heat, the horns of transport trucks and auto-rickshaws split the ears.

Beggars drag their crippled legs down busy streets and naked infants fight with pariah dogs for food scraps atop rotting garbage.

Day labourers wallow barefoot in black sludge clearing blocked sewers for pennies a day.

Navjit resumes her story: I posted a profile on the marriage portal, on the Internet thats how we came to meet. I was always skeptical about marrying an NRI but everyone in his village said it was a very nice family and to go ahead to make the match.

There were hints of possible trouble. A family friend in Vancouver offered to meet with Jaswinder, but he declined, saying he was too busy.

Navjit says she knew that Jaswinder, a machinist, had been married and divorced twice before, once in Canada and again in India.

And when he arrived in India for their wedding, he talked mostly about money.

He would always talk about money, how he needed money, how he was short of cash, Navjit says.

Her hands tremble as she fusses with her pale blue pant suit, recalling their first meeting.

He told me that I was very thin. I said, We can still go back we didnt have to marry. He said, No, no, I will marry you. He would say I was not beautiful, that I was not as fair as my picture on the Internet. He was mad that I didnt have money for taxis.

Navjit says her family gave Jaswinder jewelry, gold ornaments and clothes and spent $11,000 on a lavish wedding to impress his family, few of whom showed up.

But her family refused to pay a dowry a tradition outlawed in India, but common among status-conscious Sikhs.

The honeymoon was a disaster, Navjit says.

Every day I was insulted. His behaviour was very rude and bad. I was tortured mentally by him. He never respected my parents. He never spoke nicely to them.

Navjits father cringes at the memory.

Im not the type of man who cries, says the retired electrical engineer. I was so upset mentally. I had hallucinations that my daughter had been killed.

When I came out of it, at least my daughter was alive.

Navjit says that, after Jaswinder had returned to Canada: There were no phone calls, nothing, no communication. When I did finally manage to reach him, he would say, Im not well, Im sick. I have blisters in my mouth. I cant speak. my mother is sick. I have to look after her.

Once, Jaswinder called to demand a divorce, then hung up. Navjit was distraught. Now, she is at a loss what to do.

Her red and gold wedding bangles jangle over her trembling arms.

Im not removing my bangles because I am ashamed that people will see that my husband has left me, she sobs.

Now I want to go abroad so I dont have to face insults in India.

He has ruined my life, she says. He should be punished in such a manner that anyone else thinking of doing this to Indian girls will learn a lesson.

Traced to his familys sprawling home in Surrey, Jaswinder Singh Sandhu is at first reluctant to discuss the marriage.

I know what youre doing, you get out of here, he tells a reporter.

What gives you the right to interfere in peoples lives? You guys get out of here or Im going to call the police.

Jaswinder then says his marriage didnt work out, although he offers no explanation.

Asked about the future, he says: Of course Im going to divorce her. Who cares about it?

Increasingly agitated, Jaswinder says he never mistreated Navjit.

People make fake charges, he says. Thats <banned word filter activated>. These are garbage charges.

he phenomenon of betrayed brides runs deep and wide through Punjab, from poor rural villages to upscale city suburbs.

It came to the attention of Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, president of the Lok Bhalai Party (Peoples Welfare Party) in 1999, when the first women, emboldened by their numbers, came forward.

I decided to champion the cause of these girls, Ramoowalia says from his headquarters in Ludhiana, Punjabs largest city.

He says a random survey in 100 villages last year found three or four abandoned brides in each one.

He believes that in Punjab, where the Sikh religion dominates and 95 per cent of marriages are arranged, many parents are so focussed on wealth and status that they are willing to gamble their daughters futures on the chance that an NRI match will work out.

Every father and mother, they want the best match for their daughter . . . [they] attach top priority to boys living abroad, he says.

But these boys are often rogues, he says, with few qualifications apart from their Canadian citizenship.

The girl has all the qualifications, more educated, more young, Ramoowalia says. The marriage takes place, the boys side squeezes the girls side, exploits the weakness with maximum brutality.

It is not uncommon for a Canadian NRI groom to demand as much as $40,000 from a family in Punjab, he adds.

All expenses are borne by the girls side. One boy came [to his wedding] in a helicopter. [Families] will be asked to give a car to the dowry. The father of the girl offers to meet every demand, even honeymoon expenses . . . he [the groom] gets the honeymoon, cash, ornaments.

Because dowries are illegal in India, these unofficial transactions can seldom be traced or proven. There is no paper trail and errant husbands find it easy to make plausible denials.

Ramoowalia says some NRI scoundrels return to Canada , never send for their brides, but return each year to India to use them as holiday wives.

The women and their families, too ashamed to admit the marriage is a sham, play along.

Ramoowalia says he has seen desperate parents sell off their lands up to $60,000 worth of property to appease a greedy son-in-law, and still their daughter ends up alone.

Typically, he says, the abandoned bride will receive an envelope from Canada. She opens it, excitedly, only to discover she is divorced.

You cant imagine the kind of suffering which they have to endure, he says. There are no laws to catch those guys.

In nearby Chandigarh, activist lawyer Daljit Kaur says: What I see is an organized crime.

In one case, she cites a woman who heard nothing from her Canadian husband for 29 years. The wifes letters and petitions to authorities were ignored.

The courts, the lawyers, they dont have sympathy, Kaur says. They dont have the political will. They are doing nothing, zero, for these girls.

Rajiv Ahir, Senior Superintendent of police for the Jagraon Police District in Punjab, agrees there are few official remedies.

He sees 15 to 20 abandoned bride cases each month and most, he says, involve NRIs from Canada.

he long, broken road to Rupinder Kaur Chahals impoverished Punjab village is a ribbon of brown dust filled with potholes, camels, grinding tractors and sputtering mopeds.

The rice fields alongside are lush and green, with fresh shoots springing from brown muddy waters.

On the village outskirts, bedraggled girls hawk tin plates and wizened old Sikhs doze on wicker chairs.

The painted gates to Rupinders home are shut tight as, inside, the family gathers in a sparse living room to share the story of their downfall.

Rupinder wears gold earrings with a traditional turquoise pant suit. She has the equivalent of a Grade 10 education. Her eyes are downcast, and she defers to her father, Gurdev, a man of patriarchal authority.

Her 18-year-old brother Amarjit, his teeth clenched, stares into space, as if visualizing some faraway foe.

I wish that my daughter was not born, says her mother, Jagjit.

Rupinder begins to cry.

The family is strongly religious, members of an offshoot of Sikhism called Sirsawala.

Pictures of their gurus adorn the walls of a courtyard next to a pungent cattle stockade.

We used to meet for hymns and prayers and we met a man named Bhajan Singh, says the father.

I [told him] I have two daughters and they need to get married: You are a member of the same sect, you know us, make us a good match.

The matchmaker went to work. In January last year, Rupinder was introduced to Beant Singh Chahal. They were married within a month.

At first, Beant insisted on a simple wedding, Gurdev says, but five days before the ceremony he began demanding money.

He said he was getting a better offer of nine lahk rupees ($24,000 Cdn). He said: If you come with nine lahk rupees we will come with a wedding party, if not our answer is no.

Rupinders family consulted the village council, the panchayat, and were told nothing could be done.

They [the council] said we would put a pockmark on their face and a social taboo, Gurdev says.

Gurdev went to relatives, neighbours and money lenders to raise the money.

What could we do? he asks. The marriage cards were already sent out.

Beant had already received 2.5 lahk rupees ($6,500) in jewelry and clothes prior to the wedding, according to the family.

Gurdev says it was not until after the wedding he learned Beant was 52 years old.

He had coloured his beard, he says defensively.

There was an age problem, Rupinder says. He was as old as my father, but he treated me well.

Beant returned to his home in Calgary, promising to return in three months to take Rupinder to Canada.

Eight months later, Beant told Rupinder it would be seven years before she could join him.

Rupinder hopes that lawyer Daljit Kaur can pursue charges under the Indian Dowry Prohibition Act against her runaway husband.

ays Gurdev: Were facing major social problems here. People who weve [borrowed] money from, they come calling saying, Where is our money and why is your daughter still here?

The familys 11/2 hectare property is up for sale to pay off wedding debts.

I hope an airplane comes and just bombs our house and we all die. That would relieve us of all our miseries, says Jagjit.

Rupinders mother still hopes her daughter will join her husband in Calgary. For her, it is better to lose a daughter to uncertainty than to lose face in the community.

If he is not taking the girl there, then he should return all our money with interest, or even let her live with her in-laws here.

There are no other options, she says. This is the only solution to our social stigma here.

Rupinder refuses even to go outside her home. No, no, she says, when invited for a stroll. I cant go out.

Within hours of being contacted by a reporter in Calgary, Beant Singh Chahal had filed sponsorship papers for Rupinder.

He insisted he had never had any bad intentions toward her.

Beant says he is having financial difficulties and is now living with his adult daughter (from a previous marriage).

He says he is recovering from an arm injury he sustained shortly before leaving India.

I got a call last night from my wife from India, claims the airport maintenance worker. I have already sponsored her, I am not holding anything up.

About the age difference between himself and his wife, Beant says a matrimonial middleman told him Rupinder was closer to 35.

He says he did not discover until their wedding day that she was 24.

Beant claims he never received a dowry: I havent gotten a single penny from them.

Asked why he told Rupinder it would take seven years to complete the sponsorship process, Beant, who emigrated from India in 2002, says he was mislead by a friend.

Source - http://www.vancouverdesi.com/news/nridiaspora/abandoned-brides-victims-of-betrayal-dreamed-of-a-new-life-in-canada-now-they-weep-for-shame/365264/

[simran345]

There maybe cases like this, but i feel its worse the other way round, this story compared to opposite of how many girls and guys from India will do anything to get abroad then leave the spouses and make up stories to make them look bad, sob stories they are from India, and taken advantage of, all BS. Why dont they publish other side of what is going on, how the girls also bring their bfs over after. And even married men ruin girls lives here. All sorts goin on nowadays.

Even cousins will ruin their own relatives lives, by taking advantage causing trouble in marriages as the hidden is somebody else wants to get abroad.

Then the students stories who already with somebody else and have kids but come out with stories like how they are mistreated, but when they get the pakki stamp they go back to their original lovers.

You can't trust nobody nowadays they will even do jhooti sau and use gods name too in process to get abroad.

Yes bad apples broad but i feel more bad apples in India. And they can't handle the truth when told.

[proactive]

This is mainly a Canada problem and these thugs are mainly people who have gone to Canada recently. It happens like this. A Freshie from Canada who may not even have proper papers goes to Punjab and he is treated like a God. People run after him trying to get their daughters married off to him in the hope that the whole family will then be able to follow the daughter to Canada. No decent family would look twice at a freshie who has just been to Canada. The girl's families don't look at the NRI's background in Canada and have no care whether he is a divorcee. In the case above the guy was twice divorced!

[simran345]

Oh and i forgot the ones who have spouses with health problems, they just waiting for them to die so they can get their chance, even winding them up and hurting them verbally to their grave quicker.

Any sort of weakness they will play on, then blaming the ill person they are paranoid and have mental issues. wouldn't trust everything anybody says, whole families lie to cover their lovely fake lives.

Its not just Canada problem, its anywhere abroad from India.

Foreign jana, bittu di valeti voti kam karondi baut, bechare da viah kida di nal hogea, more like bittu is having whale of a time. But worry not, sadi simo te bittu di jorhi vadia, vkde2 saal tho baad diiy vors hojana fr sadi simo ne maharani banjana. Yeah right simo gonna sit on her backside when she comes over and bittu gonna work double for her, which is usually wat happens. So bittu becomes from bechara to sada jwaiyi he working double hard now. Then simo says, tu kamthe renda sara din n decides to have affair with sheepa who goes to same English class as her, and does diiy vors with bittu.

Then whole family blames bittu for drinking and ki pata keri najarr laggyi c.

Note: names have been made up, but story is normally that.

[Sikhistan]

Post their photos online. Name and shame!

[N30S1NGH]

This is mainly a Canada problem and these thugs are mainly people who have gone to Canada recently. It happens like this. A Freshie from Canada who may not even have proper papers goes to Punjab and he is treated like a God. People run after him trying to get their daughters married off to him in the hope that the whole family will then be able to follow the daughter to Canada. No decent family would look twice at a freshie who has just been to Canada. The girl's families don't look at the NRI's background in Canada and have no care whether he is a divorcee. In the case above the guy was twice divorced!

You obviously haven't heard of harjap bhangal law cases in britian??..its a shared problem...Freshie/punjabis generally needs to be well integrated with western values/sikh values.

[Sikhistan]

I think canada has most of this sick problem.

[DailyMail]

Anyone who thinks this is a Canadian problem is hugely mistaken. It's a Sikh Panjabi problem with culprits in both Canada and equally in the UK. Here is a 2009 report from the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8370459.stm

New Indian brides abandoned by British Asian husbands

By Poonam Taneja

BBC Asian Network

Getty images

Indian brides' families still pay dowries of up to £20,000 to some British men

Thousands of brides in India are being abandoned by their British Indian husbands after they are married.

Despite this, there is evidence to suggest that Indian women are continuing to fall for British suitors.

In a dusty village in the Jagraon district of Punjab, northern India, 35-year-old Suman (which is not her real name), lives with her widowed mother in a small room in a crumbling building.

Four years ago, the secondary school teacher married a British man in a wedding arranged by relatives.

Shortly after the ceremony, her husband, who is in his 50s, left for London with the promise he would send for her. At first all appeared to go well.

"He would visit two to three times a year.

"Whenever he came to India, we had a good time," she said.

However, on one visit he claimed her application for a spousal visa to the UK had been refused.

It was like being a prostitute you take along and have a good time with and then leave behind

'Suman', 35

"He told me he had applied for an appeal.

"But he has never shown me a copy of that appeal. He's never shown me any documents."

The visits and calls ended, and for the past six months Suman has had no contact with her husband.

"In hindsight, it was like being a prostitute you take along and have a good time with and then leave behind.

"When he returned to England, there would be no communication. A month before he was due to come back, he established contact again.

"Many a time I let that pass, thinking he might be busy, but now I get the feeling that I was being used all this time."

In the bustling city of Chandigarh, lawyer and women's rights activist Daljit Kaur has dealt with many similar women who have been deserted by their husbands who live in the UK, Canada and the US.

"There are 15,000 to 20,000 abandoned brides in India," she said.

Daljit Kaur

Daljit Kaurs thinks up to 6,500 British men may have left brides in India

In India these women are called "holiday brides" and Mrs Kaur believes British grooms account for a third of all such cases.

In the village of Rurka Kalan, in the Doaba region of Punjab, an area that has strong links to Britain's Indian community, I was taken to a local community centre, a bare single-storey concrete building.

There I was staggered to discover up to a dozen women huddled together, clutching their marriage documents and wedding photographs.

The youngest of these "holiday brides" were barely out of their teens.

A pretty girl dressed in a shalwar kameez (tunic and trousers) had married a man from Coventry, central England.

She said: "He did not give me any reason, why he did this.

"I came to know later through relatives that he did not want to stay married to a girl from such a poor background."

The eldest was a 41-year-old lady who was deserted by a Glaswegian man more than 20 years ago.

She handed me a scrap of paper with an address scrawled on it, urging me to trace him for her.

Not one of these women had re-married. They said their lives had been ruined in this socially conservative part of India, where divorce is frowned upon. Many are forced to depend on relatives for financial handouts.

But Indian women are still falling for British suitors.

Abandoned bride's wedding bracelets

After marriage, they physically and mentally tortured me

'Rani', 25

Jassi Khangura, a businessman from London and now a politician in the Punjab Legislative Assembly, says Indian families are obsessed with emigrating to the UK.

"People are desperate to migrate, because they don't think this land gives them the opportunities they need, particularly for girls," he said.

Rani (not her real name) is one such 25-year-old is hoping for a better life in the UK. She got married in January.

"When the marriage date was fixed he asked for around £12,000 so my parents sold our house, to give him the money," she said.

In India, paying and accepting a dowry - a centuries-old tradition where the bride's parents present gifts of cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom's family - has been illegal since 1961.

But the practice still thrives in rural areas, and a British Indian groom can command a dowry of up to £20,000 in Punjab.

After Rani's marriage, her in-laws demanded more cash, but her parents could not pay, and she was dumped.

"After marriage, they physically and mentally tortured me.

"He made me abort my baby, then they threw me out of their house."

Rani still wears her wedding bangles in the hope that she will one day be reunited with her husband in England.

I managed to trace Rani's husband in England. He claims to have left her after discovering she had a boyfriend who she continued to see after they were wed.

Balwant Ramoowalia

Balwant Ramoowalia said fraudulent husbands should be sent to India

Another "runaway groom" I located in England claimed he was duped by his Indian bride, who only married him for a British passport.

UK matrimonial expert Tahir Mahmood helps arrange marriages, and believes British men are the victims.

"Anyone from back home (India), they want British, British, British... the girls over there, don't care if someone has been married twice before, they don't care how he looks like or what his background is."

The British government's Forced Marriages Unit says it has been dealing with a rising number of forced marriage cases involving British men.

In India, legal action against missing British grooms is a complex and lengthy process.

Clampdown sought

Inspector General Gurpreet Deo, from the Punjab police force, said: "If the person is residing abroad, one has to seek recourse through the extradition treaty.

"The expertise and knowledge of the police officers themselves in this area is so restricted, I don't think any case would reach that level."

But politician Balwant Ramoowalia, of the Lok Bhalai party in Punjab, believes both India and Britain should clamp down.

He said: "If there is any misconduct, cheating or fraud, the husband should be sent back to India.

"There should be a provision that maintenance should be given to the girl till the case is final."

The Home Office in the UK says it has not received a single extradition request in relation to abandoned Indian brides.

Meanwhile the Indian government has set up a department to provide assistance to the thousands of women who live in hope of being reunited with their husbands.

[simran345]

There is actually two sides to this, it happens with men from India too, and with men and women abroad taken advantage of. Not just women from India nowadays. There are numerous stories of guys from India working abroad, that marry girls in age younger to them from India, thinkin they are beautiful and will make families, but once they get over they leave for somebody their own age.

The guys from abroad probably dont want to get married in first place and only agree with their parents and relatives to.

And then theres the ones that get left in India, as the guys and girls click on to wat their real motive is.

The thing is nobody can say wat really is going on, apart from those involved.

And we can't blame either side, India is not like before, people are actually more clever than those abroad in some places.

The ones that get left are the unlucky ones who listen to other people and dont know wat is happening. They want Wats best for their children, but get taken advantage as they may not be educated.

But these stories still dont stop them trying get abroad, i dont blame the genuine ones that dont have nothing there, as our families also came abroad in the past for better life.

But the ones that have stable lives there, become greedy and when they come over wish they not, as their life was better in India.

[Sikhistan]

Difference between men and women is that when victim is girl from India then whole nri men family is involved. When a boy from India or boy from abroad is involved then the girl family is never involved in it as she alone hid her intentions.

Only recent immigrants or those who got recent immigration very easily (sponsored by family members) are the one who do such anti sikh stuff. Also some blame lies to parents in India who heavily gets sold on "NRI" status.