(MENAFN- Arab Times) When Sadhuram Berwal wanted to get married, his family went about it in the traditional Indian way, asking relatives, neighbors and local temple priests to suggest a young woman. But after an extensive search among women of his caste in his area, no suitable bride could be found. A larger factor had narrowed the field sharply: a skewed male-female ratio that is particularly pronounced in his home state of Haryana, in India's north, due to sex-selective abortions in a society where many families prize boys over girls, mostly for economic reasons.
Through a friend, Berwal eventually found a woman 2,700 kms (1,700 miles) to the south, in the state of Kerala, who was willing to marry him. But with a different language and profoundly different customs, she was overwhelmed by her new life.
That dramatic decision more than 10 years ago shocked his village of Sorkhi at the time but has become increasingly common these days in northern India, where the dearth of eligible women is starkest. In Sorkhi, buffaloes roam the dirt roads, winding their way to a massive pond, the main feature of the sleepy village.
Women go by driving slowmoving oxcarts, loaded with grass and other fodder for cattle. It's as if life has not changed over the decades in Sorkhi's bucolic routine, although the village of 7,000 is just 150 kms (95 miles) west of New Delhi, India's capital. What has changed, however, is the glaring shortage of young women, says Om Prakash, a retired school teacher and influential village elder.
Find
"In Sorkhi alone, there are around 200 to 250 young men who wish to get married, but their weddings are not taking place since they can't find girls to marry," said Prakash, as several elderly men sitting on rope-strung cots nearby nodded their heads in agreement. India banned prenatal sex determination tests in 1994 after it became evident that families were aborting female fetuses.
It is also illegal for medical doctors or technicians conducting sonograms to reveal the sex of a child before birth, but the practice still flourishes underground. Mobile medical vans made sex-determination tests accessible even in the remotest villages. Female infanticide is also a contributing factor.
In Haryana, the state with the most imbalanced sex ratio, there are 834 girls per 1,000 boys age 6 and under, according to census figures. Across India, the ratio has fallen to 919 girls for every 1,000 boys for the same age group, the most uneven level since modern India was founded in 1947.
Boy babies are preferred among many Indian families because of the heavy economic burden girls bring with their dowries, which often include refrigerators or motorcycles in addition to large sums of money and gold. While Indian law prohibits giving or receiving dowries, the tradition persists. Daughters are also considered less desirable because they will most likely move away from home after marriage and be unable to care for parents in their old age. Given the imbalance, families of young women in Berwal's area have gotten pickier. "Earlier, families with girls of a marriageable age would seek out boys and entice them with rich dowries. Now, it's the other way round. The girl's family checks out the boy. They want to know how much land the boy has, whether he has a government job and whether their daughter will live in reasonable comfort," said Virender Berwal, another villager as he took slow drags on his hookah pipe. The caste surname is common in the village.
Trend
The arrival of Berwal's wife started a trend in the village as more men sought wives from Kerala, usually through personal connections and word of mouth. There are also women from Bihar and West Bengal states to the east. Several Kerala women who agreed to marry men in Haryana told The Associated Press they did it partly to avoid the oppressive dowry demands.
The grooms' families agreed to pay all wedding expenses and did not take any dowry. Activists say another consequence of the shortage of women in northern Indian states such as Punjab and Haryana is that human trafficking has become a lucrative trade. Agents procure girls and young women from different states in India, promising them jobs or a husband, and sell them to brokers in Haryana. "This is happening on a large scale," said Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association.
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