Jhujar Singh’s marriage was straight out of a dream.
Three years ago, the resident of Punjab in northern India was 24 when he was introduced to his wife who was 18 then, just about the marriageable age according to the Indian law. And though the arranged marriage set-up meant the two had met just a couple of times before their wedding, he had gradually fallen in love with her.
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So, one day, when his wife spoke with him about her dream of relocating to Canada – the far-off country which immigration-obsessed Punjab looks at as almost their home base – he gave it serious thought.
Jhujar knew that his wife had excelled at academics, getting far better grades at school than he ever had, and had already started preparing for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exams – an English language proficiency test widely regarded as an important tool for global migration.
So, he happily funded her Canadian voyage with the hope that once she was settled there, it would pave the way for his move too. He told VICE that he spent nearly Rs 1.8 million ($24,000) on her tuition for IELTS, clothes, tickets, visa fees and rent.
“For the first two months, we were constantly in touch,” Jhujar told VICE. “We would chat on video call almost every day.”
And then, she ghosted him, blocking his number and changing her address in Canada.
Jhujar’s situation is not unique. And now, he and around 80 other men have come together to form a WhatsApp group named “Thugiya de Peedit” (Victims of Fraud). They all share a similar story: The husband and his family fund the woman’s education in Canada with the hope that she will get residency there, and then, be able to take her partner along. But within a few months, the wife goes off the grid, which sometimes also culminates in the discovery that she has a new partner in Canada.
The state of Punjab traditionally records a high efflux of its citizens to Canada. The Punjabi population in Canada is both statistically and socially strong, their influence reflecting in everything, from road signs being displayed in Punjabi (it’s Canada’s third most spoken language) to a record number of members in the parliament (even more than in the Indian parliament).
But life in Canada for the women who might’ve “abandoned” their Indian husbands would look vastly different from the one they left in India.
“For Punjabi women in the villages, there is absolutely no freedom,” said Satwinder Kaur, the founder of the non-profit Abandoned Brides by NRI Husbands Internationally (ABBNHI), which helps women — and now, even men — who’ve been abandoned by spouses living abroad. “No parent can claim to give their daughter absolute freedom in Punjab. So, when these smart women – often in their early 20s – go to Canada, what are the chances they will want to fall back into a life they never wanted to begin with?”
Sometimes, couples expressly marry so that they could realise their individual goals of migrating to Canada. This is often referred to as a “contract marriage” even though Ravinder Kaur, a professor of sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, does not agree with the term. “For the longest time, men have been abandoning their wives. So, the newfound sympathy that men seem to be eliciting seems misplaced.”
The Ministry of External Affairs recently informed the parliament that it received 4,698 complaints from wives abandoned by their husbands between January 2016 and May 2019. There is no official data on the number of men abandoned by their wives. VICE tried reaching out to some of the women accused by their husbands of abandonment but did not receive a response from any of them.
How did this trend emerge though, we ask. Ravinder said that this can be traced to the fact that most Punjabi men end up becoming complacent in the way they approach employment.
“The fruits of the green revolution (the agricultural surplus boom in the 1960s) have petered out. These men usually have some land but they waste time loitering around. Also, we have all heard about the drug and alcohol crisis in Punjab.”
Punjab’s drug crisis has reached deep within its cities and villages, making users out of every imaginable demographic: policemen, teachers, school kids, housewives, sex workers, farmers and domestic workers. Punjab’s rate of drug-related crime towers over other states, with reports stating that at least half of inmates in its jails are either convicted or facing trial under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS). The recent Punjab Opioid Dependence Survey (PODS) found that there were more than 200,000 opioid dependents in Punjab. Additionally, deaths due to drug abuse in Punjab have only increased after the pandemic.
“For this reason, most parents in Punjab prefer not getting their daughters married to these men,” said Ravinder. “There is even a shortage of brides in the state, so Punjabi men are now marrying women from the northeast [of India] and other regions.”
Ravinder said that there is usually a “mismatch” between the intellectual and social capabilities of Punjabi women and men. “So, for that woman who goes to Canada, this chasm becomes very acute.”
But according to Jhujar, it’s all about the freedom that Canada can offer these women. “Once in Canada, they go out of the control of their own parents,” he said. “The age matters because they are all between 16 to 22 years, so that’s when everything is new. My wife had a boyfriend, which I found out from her roommates who told me that she had disappeared from their basement accommodation without paying rent.” Patriarchy and the idea that women “belong” to their parents or husbands has long plagued India, and when confronted by a woman who has chosen to live life on her own terms, albeit with her husband’s money, the results can be dire.
“Haven’t you heard of Lovepreet?” Jhujar asked. “Until the end, they didn’t register his complaint, and when his wife left him, he soon found out she had a boyfriend there.”
Jhujar is referring to the case of 24-year-old Lovepreet Singh, whose body was discovered near the irrigation pump of a wheat farm in Punjab in June last year. He had died by suicide after consuming fertiliser on the farm. Later, the cops booked his wife Beant Kaur, who was in Canada, for cheating and abetment of suicide.
But the way Indian law works, legal redress for abandoned husbands is limited. “In India, there’s no such law that recognises abandoned husbands,” Neerja V, who looks into NRI (non-resident Indians) affairs for the government of Punjab, told The Print. “If any husband is indeed abandoned, they have to take legal recourse, and their wives may be booked under Section 420 (cheating) in case they’ve been cheated on, or section 498 (A) for mental cruelty.” But the right to compensation against desertion is reserved only for women.
“We have dedicated non-resident Indian affairs police cells where aggrieved men or women can file complaints,” said Kripa Shankar Saroj, a high-ranking bureaucrat and special chief secretary to the Punjab department of non-resident Indian affairs. “If the accused is in Canada, we issue lookout notices. So, whenever they are back in India – and they do often come back – their passports are impounded. Our government is vigilant about this issue. If the case is genuine, due process is followed.”
But Jhujar and the other men on his WhatsApp group believe this is not enough. After a two-year legal battle that involved endless rounds of the Canadian embassy, Jhujar’s family ultimately reached a “compromise settlement” with his wife’s family under the guidance of the panchayat, the local village council. “They still haven’t paid me more than half of what she owes me,” he said. “But I have accepted my fate now. How much can I fight? I leave it to divine judgement.”
Satwinder Kaur, the founder of ABBNHI who also manages the “Victims of Fraud” WhatsApp group, was abandoned by her own husband in the past. “After a few months into our marriage, when he moved to Canada, he simply stopped contacting me,” she told VICE. “When he finally returned, he came prepared.”
The husband insisted she live in a rented room on the outskirts of their village. “I begged him to take me home, tried convincing my in-laws, and prayed to god every day,” she recounted. “But he just wouldn’t take me.” Women in India often rely financially on their husbands and, without their own money, are rendered powerless to make their own decisions. Their secondary status in the society doesn’t help matters. This is where women victims differ from men, who usually have more agency over themselves.
But this was not the way Satwinder had envisioned her life. A graduate of commerce, she’d harboured dreams of becoming an accountant in a big city, with a swanky office that overlooked a sprawling metropolis.
After a few years of working with women through ABBNHI, she started getting questions from “abandoned” men too, and thus, the WhatsApp group came about.
The group is both a safe space for men like Jhujar to vent their frustrations, and an information-sharing platform. On some days, the men console each other, too.
“In this WhatsApp group, the men sometimes [curse] their own fate and their wives too,” said Rakesh Sharma, the chairman of ABBNHI, who calls this situation “reverse dowry.” “I believe that many men here don’t trust their talent because they want to spend all their money on women who usually do well abroad. It is a common and not entirely misplaced belief in Punjab that the chances of a woman preparing for exams and getting a good job in Canada are higher than men’s.”
Jaswinder Dhaliwal, a 29-year-old from the city of Barnala in Punjab, told VICE that the group is perhaps the only support system men like him will ever have. His wife had cut off ties with him after he’d spent close to Rs 2.5 million ($33,000) on her expenses in Canada.
They are now divorced.
“We keep track of one another’s progress [in getting back our money] on the WhatsApp group,” he said. “We also share legal remedies and suggestions on how to go about the whole process based on our experiences.”
Jaswinder’s “abandonment and fraud” left a considerable dent on his mental health. His parents went through sleepless nights, too. “I know men who had mortgaged their lands and houses for their wives who left them,” he said. “How can that not affect you?”
Ravinder Vallo from the city of Bathinda in Punjab, one of the admins of the group, faced a similar issue. He told VICE that he’d even called his wife out on social media but to no avail. “Within four months of going to Canada, she blocked me on WhatsApp, and not a word from her ever since.”
Ravinder says this is the story of “every house” in Punjab. The narrative is reflected in a popular Punjabi song, “Tera door ni Canada” that talks about one such ghosted man waiting for his wife’s call while going about his farm work, with imagery of said wife all glammed up interspersed throughout the music video.
“You are so drenched in dollars that you can’t hear my cry,” croons singer Pavitar Lassoi.
But the way Satwinder of ABBNHI sees it, comparing the absconding women with men who’ve left their wives behind in India is a case of false equivalence. “The sheer volume of men abandoning their wives is staggering,” she said. “Women in Punjab are mostly married off to men who they never liked in the first place. That is also the root of all discontent.”
Ravinder, the sociologist, feels the same way, and sees the trend of women liberating themselves by starting new lives in Canada as a positive development for Punjabi women in general.
“This would mean that the stigma around divorce and broken marriages is also slowly fading,” she said. “Women are now prioritising their aspirations over everything else.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, help is available. Call 1-800-273-8255 to speak with someone now or text START to 741741 to message with the Crisis Text Line.
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