Archana Datta
Just a couple of weeks back, a handful of grim-faced women held aloft placards reading #NRINightmare at Jantar Mantar, Delhi’s protesting hub. The stories of many such despairing women, abandoned by their NRI husbands, are common on the Internet. "I am not only a victim of NRI fraud marriage but also of the disabled authorities who cannot execute the orders of Indian courts," says Chennai’s Cynthia Partheeban, highlighting the plight of several such women.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sources say that, on an average, it receives one distress call from a married NRI woman in every eight hours, mostly from the US, Canada and Middle East. During the last three years, according to the MEA, as many as 4,189 complaints have been addressed. The last census showed that India has 2.3 million separated and abandoned women, double than the number of women divorced.
The horrific tales of sufferings of unsuspecting and naive Indian brides in alien lands shock us. Many of them, including the educated ones, tried hard to save their marriage despite being cheated on at every stage. Sadly, studies reveal that nearly two in every ten NRI marriages are resulting in break-ups. If India’s matrimonial sites are to be believed, a non-resident Indian, an NRI in popular parlance, is probably the most sought-after groom in India’s marriage market. Is it Bollywood effect, or because of some other socio-economic factors?
The integration of global markets has spurred an exodus of Indians, highly-skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled, in search of a better life. Such Indians often face the dichotomy of being in a liberalised society without being unable to liberate themselves from the stereotypical Indian mindset. The onslaught on the institution of marriage may be the fallout of such contradictions.
Legal hurdles
The road to legal redressal is fraught with many intricate complications such as inadequacies of the existing Indian legislations, absence of a suitable international protocol and jurisdictional issues, as each country is guided by its own private international laws. The Hague Conference on Private International Law has already begun the process of ‘progressive unification’ of the varied private international law rules, but it needs further fine-tuning to make them relevant to NRI marriages. Further, if India wants to protect the marriages solemnised in India and their dissolution under its own laws, it should also enter into bilateral agreements, especially with the countries having a large Indian diaspora.
Little relief
Meanwhile, many aggrieved women continue to knock at the doors of the judiciary. A joint petition by eight affected women from Delhi, Pune, Bathinda and Puducherry, seeking deportation of their errant husbands, has been pending before the Supreme Court since November, 2018. The petition cited the existence of more than 50,000 NRI marriage fraud cases in India.
However, the recent news about the impounding of 45 passports of absconding NRI husbands may bring some cheers to these miserable women caught in the legal quagmire. Further, missions abroad has been asked not to allow any change in the passport an Indian spouse, married in India or abroad, without an Indian court’s declaratory order. Undoubtedly, NRI marriage frauds now has assumed a pan-Indian dimension, with pockets of high occurrences in states like Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. The NRI wing of the Punjab Government says there are more than 30,000 pending legal cases in the state, even though it has a compulsory NRI Marriage Registration Act since 2012. Some states like Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya also have special laws for the registration of marriages, but none of them has any specific reference to NRI marriages.
To date, the narrative remains confined to a narrow perspective of legal remedies alone. But what about other larger issues that await these traumatised women ahead in life? How are they going to pick up the threads of life anew? Shouldn’t there be empowering interventions to restore in them the lost self-confidence?
When law is not good enough...
The compulsory registration of all NRI marriages was considered a potent legal tool in judicial proceedings. The National Commission of Women (NCW) drafted a bill in 2005 and proposed necessary amendments to the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1886. The Supreme Court, while adjudicating in Seema v. Ashwani Kumar, 2005, said, "Though, the registration itself cannot be a proof of valid marriage per se, ………..yet it has a great evidentiary value in the matters of custody of children, right of children born from the wedlock of the two persons whose marriage is registered and the age of parties to the marriage." The first attempt to bring about a law on compulsory registration of NRI marriages and amendments to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969, fell through with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014. The proposed amendment, though, drew criticism for lacking punitive measures in case of non-compliance. Now, in 2019, a refurbished Bill was reintroduced with some punitive and empowering provisions like impounding or revoking the passport of an NRI offender for non-registration and the authorisation of Indian courts to issue judicial summons to the offending NRI spouses, etc. Unfortunately, its fate hangs in the balance at the moment.
— The writer is a retired Indian Information Service Officer, and a media educator
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