“FIR Lodged. LOC issued, PO declared but no action agst Ramandeep who ruined my life by deserting me days after marriage. Pls help @SushmaSwaraj”, tweeted Chand Deep Kaur, a young married woman from Kapurthala, sometime in April.
Chand was married in July 2015 to Ramandeep Singh, an accountant from Auckland. The next month he left her at his parents' home in Jalandhar and went back to New Zealand. He returned to Punjab again in December that year, and left the next month. Thereafter he has not shown up in India. The young bride had spent a total of about 40 days with him, with no signs of her joining him. One fine day, her in-laws told her that they had disowned Ramandeep, and that she could go back to her parents.
Chand had urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to deport Ramandeep from New Zealand and get his passport cancelled. Chand used the social media to highlight her plight that she shares with thousands of other women in the Doaba region of Punjab, who were hastily married to NRIs (non-resident Indians) only to be used and dumped by them.
These “holiday wives” have been running from pillar to post, to resolve their status. Some would like to sort out the issue and join their husbands, forgiving them their trespasses. But many say they do not know whether they are married, divorced, dumped or widowed, and want a clarity. Chand, for instance, wants to divorce her husband and start life afresh.
Rakesh Srivastava, Secretary, Ministry of Women & Child Development, said that a law to protect Indian women who are abandoned by their NRI husbands or foreign partners would be finalised soon.
Such a law has long been in the wish list of the women of Punjab and Gujarat, the two states that are believed to contribute the majority of cases to an all India estimate of over 20,000 women who have been married to NRI men, only to be deserted.
Most of them have claimed to have fancy jobs and fancy lifestyle in the foreign country, and these women have been fed on dreams of a secure future and comfortable life that will include the migration of their unmarried siblings and aged parents.
After years of struggle, and through the constant pressure by Balwant Singh Ramoowalia who founded the Lok Bhalai Party with these women's welfare as its one point programme, the police in Punjab have begun registering cases at the instance of the abandoned girls. The regional party that never made a dent in the assembly elections, has since merged with the Shiromani Akali Dal.
The details of the draft bill have yet to be finalised, but it appears that the government is serious in its intention of passing a bill to protect these women. Bouyed by the response to the push it gave to the triple talaq issue and subsequently the verdict, the Modi government, sources say, wants to “implement suitable strategies and women-friendly laws to ensure that women have equal opportunities to enter and enjoy decent work in a just and favourable environment, including fair and equal wages, social security measures, and occupational safety and health measures.”
India has been ranked 87 out of 144 countries in the latest World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2016, according to ASSOCHAM.
The government's efforts will not be short on symbolism. Krishna Raj, Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare revealed that they intend celebrating October 15 as Women Farmer’s Day.
