The plight of Indian Women: Victims of NRI marriages

In the Indian context, marriage is considered to be a sacrosanct institution which unites two individuals and two families. In an age of increasing globalization, where a growing number of people have ties to networks of people and places across the globe, people are increasingly marrying across their national boundaries. Such kinds of marriages between two people from different countries are known as transnational marriages. Marriages with Non-Resident Indians are a class of transnational marriages. Within the time span, these kinds of marriages resulted on one side, because of the temptation of Indian brides and bridegrooms by the Overseas Indians with the hope of rejuvenating the Indian culture and traditions, whereas, on the other side, such alliances with Overseas Indians were seen as promises of better future, not for the bride/bridegroom but for her/his entire family. 

Now, in modern times, there again came a shift in the concept of marriage from a sacrament bond to a contractual union. As a result, these marriages mostly turned out to be phony ones, split fast, and began to pose serious long-term consequences and drastic issues for the whole society and economy as well for which there seems to be no easy remedy either in law or in civil society. Issues that arise in NRI marriages are  abandonment of wife, domestic violence, non–resident Indian husband already married, continued demand for dowry, pre and post marriage. 

Moreover, the lenient legal system abroad for getting an ex-parte divorce, the issue of Jurisdiction, the validity of foreign court orders, maintenance or custody laws along with property rights, and other ancillary legal issues also crop up because of the most important issue of the conflict of laws because of differences between the law of the country or nationality of a person and that of in which that person may reside or of which nationality may be acquired by him. There is also an absence of a unified civil code making the situation more critical in India. 

The decision of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs to appoint volunteers in countries with a high density of NRIs and PIOs to carry out the checks for grooms abroad has remained just on paper. With globalization, the number of NRI-Indian marriages has increased. It's sometimes impossible for the bride's parents in India to verify the credentials of the NRI grooms. What's required is some institutional mechanism of getting authentic information before these NRI marriages are finalized. Indian Missions should help out in conjunction with local NGOs and come to the rescue of victims of fraudulent marriages. Police and law enforcement agencies in India need to be more sympathetic in dealing with them. FIR reporting should be made possible for the influential families' victims. The government must bring a comprehensive regulation to ensure that all protection accorded by the law to Indian women concerning marriage, divorce, maintenance, inheritance, and custody of children should apply to the victims of fraudulent NRI marriages.