I would suggest you to simply ignore this, it is not a scholarly or informative article its piece of frustration
I woke up when a foreign reporter wanted me to respond about BJP leader OP dhankar’s controversial statement. Actually I was away from TV and news papers and even internet. My friend was handling my social networking accounts so I was really unaware of the whole episode, so she shared the details that OP dhankar, the leader of BJP said that if BJP comes to power in Haryana they will arrange for marriages of Haryanvi youths to Bihari girls. Shri Dhankar also mentioned that a Bihari BJP politician Sushil kumar Modi is a good friend of him and he can manage all the marriages. And then I gave her a balanced response that he is doing his bit of politics but the scheme may encourage the problem of trafficking and would certainly legitimize already booming trafficking business in the area.
I was really excited to know about responses from civil society
and other political parties and woke up and started searching on internet, to
my surprise chief of women wing of Congress party condemned it by saying, ‘the
statement is somehow supporting trafficking and it will contribute in increase
of bride trafficking’, that clearly means
that the Congress leader was aware of the issue of trafficking in the name of
marriage yet she never spoke before even when her own party leader and the then
minister of women and child development Ms. Krishna Tirath made an statement in
parliament that ‘there is no forced marriage and no one is trafficking
brides its inter culture inter region
marriages’ (Rajya sabha-15.12.2012 question number 2630 raised by Baishnab
parida) and when I came to know about her claim I wrote a detailed mail with
many video links where testimonials of bride trafficking victims are available,
but the minister never responded to my mail nor her office. And then I wrote some
mails to many politicians including congress and BJP leaders and as usual no
one ever replied.
We, atleast I am, not surprised that BJP’s farmer leader’s
remark because I witnessed a lot of people normalising or justifying the vice
of bride trafficking including civil society organizations, academic
institutions as well as mainstream media, so what we can expect from a
politician of a right wing orthodox political party? One must remember here that this politician
is very close to our prime minister and he can influence policy level decisions.
To show the real situation to a Journalist friend CarlGierstorfer I had arranged an Interview with one
and the same girl in two different places. First was in the house where she was
living and another one was in the house of my local activist and we found drastic
difference in her statement. In her own home she said that people were
cooperative and she had no food to eat in her native village but here she could
eat and live on her own (you will find the same bioline everywhere) but when
she reaches our place she showed her anger and said that she was not more than
cattle. People abuse her and tease her only because she is a purchased woman. Many of these girls, who spoke to Journalists
or any foreigner (people from out of the village) of their plight were sent
(read sold) to another place. I have a lot of names in my mind who were re-sold
only because we could not help them in time.
As a result of female foeticide the trade of bride
trafficking is becoming a socially approved inter-region marriage, it is
nothing but an anti-human thought, which attempts to normalize the criminal
practices and trade because the middle class and main stream society has keen
interest in whole trafficking phenomenon they always need traffickers, who can
provide them a full time cheap cost domestic labourer and some time with one
time investment. Most of the people on top positions of media and other
research institutions come from these states, who are also enthusiastic of
bringing change in their society but unfortunately, this cause never caught
their attention and knowingly or unknowingly they try to normalize the issue.
I really don’t know but there are hundreds of organizations
operating from Delhi and NCR who work for women security, safety and
participation but they never tried to speak about this heinous crime and they
never tried to start their work in these areas which possess highly patriarchal
mindset. And most of the heinous crimes against women come into light from this
region only: Honour killing, female foeticide, caste or identity based gang
rapes, older women hunting or little sophisticated surgical hymen repair. Even
if one considers the bride trafficking to be a normal marriage, the worst
situation of local women is not beyond imagination. They truly deserve priority,
but people always talk on TV programmes without any concrete knowledge of the
field, what can one expect of their work on the ground. When workers like me
approach them for support they always convince you that there are many other
issues on which one should work, as donors would never support any project in
economically prosperous state.
Since 2006 when I decided to start the work against Bride trafficking
with singular focus on it, I found myself alone in this difficult path.
Government, NGOs, foreign donors and civil society never supported us or
started any initiative in the field.
In the meantime,
people always create a myth that they are importing these girls only because
they don’t have girls to marry and others are sending their girls for their greed
of money or because of poverty but no one ever said that natural disasters and
human made disasters are also responsible for trafficking of these girls. The
mainstream society always painted that the parents of these girls sell their
own daughters, which is truly demonization of the powerless. People should know
that the rescue operations conducted for bride trafficking victims are only done
in response to complaints made by parents of these girls.
It is really funny to know that state of Haryana have only three women shelter homes with a capacity of 150 women for all 22 districts but at the same time Government have a total 250 animal shelters for 125 development Blocks. You can easily imagine who the priorities are.
The region have a long history of importing girls, and that
is not only related to sex abuse and exploitation but also associated with
bonded labourership which ultimately can be seen as an attempt to create a neo-Dalit
community. I have no hesitation in saying that the society of ours, which
always kept slaves in the name of social fabric and religious values is now
trying to create a new slave community.
The Girls who are being imported are called Paro (stolen)
Molki (purchased) Jugad (arrangement) which clearly reflects their social
status and children born from these girls also carries that abusive social
status. They don’t have any right in inheritance, they don’t have access to
local common properties and in most of case they cannot marry a local girl.
Therefore, the statement of a politician is simply reflection
of his basic understanding of his society. If a session court judge, in her
judgement can say that “Human trafficking rising due to female foeticide”, what
one can expect from a politician who is eyeing on the votes of the masses. Rape
of a dalit or minority community girl is not an issue of outrage or panic since
the responsible actors of society have taken to normalising this menace.
We the Indian society are truly a biased and hypothetical
elitist community and we believe in class based selective conciseness of any
cause.
Now we should think and pitch our agenda before the newly
formed Government which may listen to us to understand the whole issue and they
might open more shelters and other facilities for human beings, they may work
to prevent social crimes and every form of violence against women by enabling
local government and people’s participation.
Lets hope for Good days