When Jabariya Jodi's loveable rascal Abhay Singh (Siddharth Malhotra in mofussil mawali mode) menacingly tells a groom he's all set to kidnap: “Shaadi bhi karaate hain shraadh bhi,” the audience watching the Parineeti Chopra-starrer might find it hard not to laugh. But would 30-year-old resident of Khusrupur, rural Patna Vinod Kumar Yadav also be as amused?
Vinod, an executive engineer with one of India’s largest public-sector steel units has been fobbing off family pressure to marry. “It is not like I don’t want to settle down but the moment any prospective bride or her people get to know of what’s happened to me they back off.”
While the film tries to drive home the ugliness of the Western Bihar tradition of pakadua vivaah (kidnap and force to marry) where patriarchy, the social compulsion to marry and dowry come together in a deadly combination, this message doesn't seem to have reached the grassroots where the incidence of such forced marriages is on the rise.
Vinod, an executive engineer with one of India's largest public-sector steel units has been fobbing off family pressure to marry. “It is not like I don't want to settle down but the moment any prospective bride or her people get to know of what's happened to me they back off,” he says reminiscing the ugly chronology from 2017 which seems to have cast a permanent dark shadow on his marital prospects.
Eldest among five siblings, Vinod's family was hit badly when his father suffered a brain haemorrhage at the beginning of October that year. “He spent a long time battling for his life before succumbing at the Patna Medical College & Hospital,” he sighs. While he was coping with this blow, a bigger one waited to strike.
“While my father was in hospital one Surendra Yadav from Pandarak (55 km away in the neighbouring block of the same district) came home claiming he was a family friend of his who had reached on hearing of his hospitalisation.” Vinod’s intubated father who was on a ventilator couldn't speak and the family assumed Surendra - who regularly visited the hospital and even came home for the funeral and rites that followed– was quite close. “He'd drop heavy-weight politicians' bureaucrats' names and we were in awe of him,” remembers Vinod who was tempted when Surendra offered help in securing a huge promotion and transfer at his job.
“That was my undoing,” repents Vinod. “Enroute to a wedding on December 3rd to Islampur, Nalanda, Surendra called saying my promotion and the transfer was fixed by a senior politician and I should go immediately.” When he rushed to Mokama, Pandarak, Surendra escorted him to an even more interior remote village of Gopkita to a house decorated with lights and garlands.
“I felt they might have had a ceremony in the family and unsuspectingly walked into a trap to be kidnapped and forcefully married off to Surendra’s younger sister Kundan.”Vinod Kumar
Just like the grooms in the film, when he refused and pleaded he was beaten up and threatened at gunpoint. His phone was taken away and all contact outside was forbidden. “At gunpoint, I went through the wedding in tears. This is obvious in the photographs and footage which they shot.”
He was then locked up in a bedroom with the bride to consummate the marriage. “The girl who would keep trying to excite me sitting astride would call out to Surendra or his friends if I refused. After they came in twice and roughed me up threatening to kill me if I didn't have sex with her. I just stopped fighting. Both during and after sex I felt violated and dirty.” The next morning he managed to get hold of a family help's phone and alerted his brother.
When his family first approached Khursrupur police they said they could do nothing since this was under the Pandarak police jurisdiction.
“Thanks to Surendra’s rapport with the cops, they told my family to accept the marriage. ‘What’s done is done. It is not like they’ve killed, robbed or kidnapped him for ransom, have they?’ the senior PI asked.”Vinod Kumar
A whole day of calls to the Superintendent of Police and politicians finally led to Vinod's rescue well past midnight on December 3rd. “I was so shaken that after I came back home with my parents, I've never reached out to the other side. I still wake up in a cold sweat remembering what had happened. Not only marriage but I feel sick of any thought of physical intimacy.”
A case in the local lower court has been dragging since. “The other side just doesn't turn up at the court and the police have not even begun investigating the case. I've written to everyone from the District Magistrate, the Bihar Chief Minister, the National and State Human Rights Commission and even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court but there has been no response. It’s like I am being punished for what happened,” says Vinod. Since December 3rd 2017 he has not had any contact with either the girl he was unwillingly married off to or her family.
But not all forced marriages break-up right after the guns and goons disappear. Some last unhappily ever after like Abhay Singh's parents in Jabariya Jodi where his mother is stuck in a relationship with a tyrant husband sleeping around at every opportunity.
The doctor at the government hospital in Ramnagar in the Bihta tehsil of Bihar's Patna district, Dr Vikash Kumar Soni should know. He should have specialised and become a medicine post-graduate by now but destiny had other plans. “We're not abjectly poor but it was barely a working-class life. To escape the drudgery, I slogged at studies scoring well both at my Class X and inter exams with dreams of clearing medical entrance and becoming the family's first doctor.”
Too young and immature to comprehend the magnitude of what was happening and scared of being roughed up more if he said no, “I went with the flow still not understanding this cannot be undone,” he remembers.
When his family sent him to see off extended family at the Bettiah (where they live) bus station, his friends picked him up in a vehicle saying they will give him a lift till home. “I was instead whisked off to a secluded house on the outskirts despite protests, and forced to marry my friend's sister (who had seen him at village puja).” Too young and immature to comprehend the magnitude of what was happening and scared of being roughed up more if he said no, “I went with the flow still not understanding this cannot be undone,” he remembers. After pressurising him to “complete the obligation of a married man,” the same girl's family later told him, “You have deflowered our girl. Now no one will accept her. If anything happens to her, we will hold you responsible.”
The 2009 forced marriage left him so shaken that for two years he almost gave up on studies. “From being a carefree youngster who rarely thought beyond my next meal and studies, I was suddenly responsible for another person,” he remembers.
“When my bride first came home, there was a lot of hostility between us and also from my family. But it never surfaced since her brother is a known goonda in our neighbourhood who openly goes around with a double-barrel rifle,”Dr Vikash Kumar Soni
Two years later he finally got into medical college and then landed a government job at a rural hospital. He's now prepping for his master's entrance. And marriage? He sighs and says with the wisdom of someone far beyond his years: “What cannot be cured has to be endured. I've made peace with my wife and in-laws.” The arrival of his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son has helped smoothen things between both families who have decided to bury the hatchet.
Chhapra resident Ratan Ojha (name changed on request), a Bhumihar, has never gone back to his home town or even Bihar for over a year. “My family is happy I don't come home,” says this flamboyant video editor with a famous TV news channel, with a thing for gym workouts.
When his decision to not marry the girl was conveyed, the girl’s parents had him kidnapped and detained in an old farmhouse while they got busy making arrangements for the wedding.
A year ago, a girl in his village saw him dance at a wedding and insisted she would only marry him. “When her family approached my mom and dad they were happy since she is the grand-niece of one of Bihar's top IPS officer. But I was aghast they had even considered the idea. I insisted I was too young, barely getting started in my career. I want to travel the world and marriage is nowhere on my mind.”
When his decision was conveyed, the girl's parents had him kidnapped and detained in an old farmhouse while they got busy making arrangements for the wedding. Realising he would be better off playing along he made his captors believe he was getting around to accepting the marriage. Once they dropped their guard, using the ruse of relieving himself in the field behind he fled. “I had cuts and bruises all over my shoulders, arms and face where the razor-sharp sugarcane leaves cut into me,” he remembers.
After hitting the road he hitched a ride to the Dighwara railway station and travelled ticketless to Delhi.
“My phone was with my captors. But I never felt like calling even my parents till I reached Delhi. I had no idea whether my parents are on their side or mine.”Ratan Ojha
Later, even when his parents visited him at the Delhi barsaati he then rented, he was so paranoid that he changed houses again. “I''m thinking of moving to Bangalore since Delhi still seems closer to home.”
Vinod, Vikash and Ratan are not isolated rare instances but three of thousands from Western Bihar and bordering UP, abducted for jabariya/pakadua vivaah (enforced marriage). Bihar police statistics show 3,681 youth were kidnapped and married off forcefully in 2018; 3,400 in 2017; 3,070 in 2016; 3,000 in 2015 and 2,526 in 2014. In fact, though not even half of 2019 is over the there are already 1,612 cases.
Retired DGP P K Thakur says this problem is more social than legal. “Often even when two consensual adults elope, angry parents of the girl (who want to basically make it seem like they are fighting for family honour) say it is a case of kidnapping. In instances where a pakadua vivaah is established, the long investigation and hard work are all given the short shrift if the couple is expectant or the couple/families reconcile. So the police do not take these cases with the seriousness needed.”
Debutante director Prashant Singh whose mainstream film makes a point about this social evil (In the end even Abhay's evil father who runs a groom kidnapping business admits: “Jabariya kuch bhi achcha nahi hota!”) says he was very clear that while he wanted to highlight groom kidnapping he didn't want to make a dark film.
“I’ve tried to package the message in a romantic comedy with a mainstream cast and catchy music. Both the massy entertainment factor and the messaging are given equal weightage.”Prashant Singh, Director, Jabariya Jodi
Singh who has family roots in Bihar points out how the 2009 National Award winner Antardwand had first dealt with this subject in a dark and real manner. “But it was a niche film made for the festival circuit. I want the psycho-social implications of this issue, which has seeds in patriarchy to be taken to masses in a way they will relate to, but also stay clear of any virtue signalling,” he says of the film which began as a germ of an idea with a Sanjeev Jha story.
“While authorities downplay figures saying numbers have gone down from the 80s and 90s my RTI threw up the fact that since 2000 there have been 17,000 plus such cases!”
Sanjeev grew up in Motihari where he saw such kidnappings happen all the time. While researching the film both Prashant and he travelled through Western Bihar meeting affected men and their families. “While authorities downplay figures saying numbers have gone down from the 80s and 90s my RTI threw up the fact that since 2000 there have been 17,000 plus such cases!” He also pointed out how the figures for ransom kidnapping (once famously called “Bihar's most lucrative cottage industry” by a Supreme Court judge) had comparatively fallen.
Our search for why this happens led us to a young man who was in the thick of managing the campaign of a political heavyweight, contesting Lok Sabha elections from the riverine Koshi belt. On condition of anonymity, he admitted running a groom abduction gang with “guaranteed services” has many takers and makes better business sense. Like Abhay Singh's character says in the movie, he too underlines: “This is the Bihari poor's answer to the scourge of dowry,” and adds, “Abducting people for ransom made people fear me but they also reviled me and went out of their way to avoid me. Now I'm shown much respect and love.”
He explains, “An engineer in a well-paying government job can even demand in the excess of a crore in dowry. When the girl’s parents come to us they’re able to get the same guy at 1/5th the cost.”
He explains, “An engineer in a well-paying government job can even demand in the excess of a crore in dowry. When the girl's parents come to us they're able to get the same guy at 1/5th the cost. Of this even if we spend 50% on paying off police and others and costs of transport, arms, etc, it is a clean killing of Rs 10-12 lakhs per abduction. In my mind what I am doing is helping a social cause.” He admits, it largely remains unmessy as people get tired of fighting and accept the marriage. “It is a good thing everyone largely believes they have to get married sooner or later. In the end, it becomes easy to use that and convince them. Kabhi na kabhi toh shaadi karni hee hai na?”
But does he use violence or death threats to prevent divorces like Abhay Singh and his gang do? “We try not to but with some, the gun speaks better than words,” he laughs.
He remembers one instance in Begusarai, where a boy abandoned the girl he was forcefully married to. “The girl wouldn't let go. She filed a case in the fast track court looking into domestic abuse and kept going to the CM's janta durbar to follow-up. Finally, the boy and his family gave in. She now lives with him in Delhi and is expecting their first child.”
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