- NEW DELHI -- It is
a big mistake to venture out at night if you are young, male and unmarried
in India's Bihar state.
-
- Subhash Kumar, a bank clerk in Patna, let his guard down
and paid the price by being kidnapped.
-
- Four days after being carried off by a gang of thugs,
manacled to a bed, starved and severely beaten, Kumar found himself married
to a girl he had never seen before.
-
- His tears and offers to pay ransom led to beatings, at
least until the nuptials were complete. To his horror, even the household's
women joined in, wielding slippers and brooms whenever he begged to be
freed.
-
- During the marriage ceremony a rope was tied around Kumar's
waist in case he disgraced the bride's family by trying to flee. But by
then, the resistance had been beaten out of him.
-
- In those dark hours, all he wanted was for the nightmare
to end, even if it meant being married to a complete stranger. The next
day a sullen Kumar took his wife home, vowing vengeance against his in-laws.
-
- But, like thousands of similarly married Bihari grooms,
he feared the kidnappers' vengeance. Unwilling to face more beatings he
resigned himself to marriage. "After marriage, compliance [of the
groom] is guaranteed by the kidnappers for an extra fee," said Mithelesh
Singh, a political activist from near Patna.
-
- This is marriage season in the eastern Indian state of
Bihar, and it is a dangerous time for young men.
-
- Bihari social workers say excessive dowry demands by
grooms, particularly among the upwardly mobile Bhumiar agricultural class,
has forced the parents of young women to hire men to organise such "shotgun
alliances".
-
- Bihar is among the most violent of India's 28 states,
where politicians and landlords own private armies and the rule of law
barely exists.
-
- Officials in the state capital Patna said scores of bachelors
were abducted each year in the state's Gaya, Darbangha and Purnea districts
and, after being beaten senseless, are married according to Hindu rites,
in a custom that has gained tacit social approval.
-
- In northern states such as Punjab and Haryana, the marriage
market has the opposite problem, a shortage of brides partly driven by
parents hoping for male babies aborting female foetuses.
-
- But in parts of Bihar eligible grooms remain on the run,
conscious of the dowry they can demand if they remain free to select their
bride.
-
- Payment of large dowries - banned by law - is widespread
in Bihar, where the bride's family usually compensate the groom's parents
for the money spent on his education. She is expected to bring with her
a wide range of consumer goods and presents and jewellery for her husband
and family.
-
- Dowry demands often continue well into the marriage.
When the bride refuses or is simply unable to meet them she is brutally
treated, at times even forced into an inflammable nylon sari, doused with
paraffin and set on fire. Husbands often claim the victims caught fire
while cooking.
-
- In the early 1980s such deaths became so commonplace
that anti-dowry activists forced the government to change the law. Today,
any such death by burning within seven years of marriage is deemed unnatural
and the husband and his parents are charged with murder.
-
- More than 12,612 dowry deaths were recorded across India
in 1998 and 1999, the largest number in Bihar and neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.
-
- But anti-dowry activists and non-governmental organisations
said the true number was much higher and estimate that a woman is burned
to death every 10 minutes across India.
-
- Activists in Bihar said the groom kidnapping system was
well honed, with parents choosing a victim according to caste and community.
A marriage fee is negotiated, depending on the prospective groom's status,
and specialist bachelor kidnapping squads then move in.
-
- Delivery by the "groom contractors", known
to shadow their victims for days, even snatching them off buses and trains
in daylight, is guaranteed within days. Also assured is a compliant, if
somewhat bruised, groom.
-
- Middle-class professionals are among the top targets.
Government employees are the favourite, followed by doctors, businessmen
and company executives.
-
- "Eligible bachelors are so terrorised by these enforced
nuptials that many rarely ever venture out alone during the marriage season,"
said Singh. Many even leave the state.
-
- Ultimately, official apathy and Bihar's social mores,
dominated exclusively by caste, leads to the victim and his parents compromising
and accepting the bride as part of their family.
-
- But she is rarely looked upon kindly, adding to her woes
of being a woman in an inconsiderate, male-dominated society.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003.
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