Bachelors want brides for votes

Unmarried men now ask parties to tackle Haryana's poor sex ratio

Ahead of elections, hundreds of chronic bachelors in Haryana have joined hands to prod political parties to address their predicament.

The issue of single men, desperate to shed their bachelorhood tag but unable to find a match, is fast turning into an election issue in the  state that goes to poll on April 10.
Chronic bachelors have formed a forum in Haryana – Unmarried Youth Organisation – that is roping in all such unmarried men who could raise their issue collectively before political parties as poll fever picks up.

On Tuesday, the forum wrote letters to BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and even Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal urging leaders to spare a thought for them and to address the larger social rot that they say is responsible for youth in large numbers not getting married in Haryana.

Jatland Haryana is blemished with an abysmally poor sex ratio, 877 girls
against 1,000 boys.

“It’s no secret that brides are often bought paying heavy cash to marry Haryana men. The practice has been continuing for several years,”  Sunil Jaglan, the sarpanch of Bibipur  village in Jind said talking to Deccan Herald on Tuesday.

He said they have coined a slogan which means ‘give brides, get votes.’

“It’s a slogan symbolic in nature. The idea is to ask political parties to address the larger social issue and not merely the symptoms. The practice of buying brides needs to stop. Political parties need a firm resolve to tackle sex ratio. A way out has to be found to marry men,” he said, adding that political parties will have to respond to the issue since it is not just the count of unmarried men that matters, it’s now their families and entire villages that are supporting the issue.

Bibipur village alone has some 68 chronic bachelors who are over-aged and have not been able to find their better half.

Support from all

In every village of Jind district, Sunil Jaglan said, there would be around 60 unmarried youth. The forum will soon make use of social networking sites to get support from all the right quarters, he said.

In the last few days ever since the forum was floated, Jaglan said they have been flooded with calls from unmarried youth from all over the state wanting to be a part of the organisation.

Haryana’s social fabric is largely dominated by self-styled khap panchayats who often issue diktats that have sometimes resulted in either killing of youth or social boycott of families.

Marriage within the same village and gotra is prohibited by khap panchayats, which makes the choice even more limited.