Babubhai* ran a unique matrimonial service out of a small shop in a busy Ahmedabad locality. He bought girls from Gujarat’s tribal areas and sold them as brides to rich Patel farmers. The ‘grooms’ were men who couldn’t find wives in their own communities because sex selective abortions over several generations had led to a severely skewed gender ratio. The few eligible women from the community didn’t wish to live on remote farms.
Babubhai was very proud of his ‘service’ – he didn’t think of it as trade. “I am saving them from poverty and starvation,” he’d say, of the girls involved in his transactions. “What sort of lives would they lead in their own tribal villages? Drunken husbands, more children. And I am giving these men healthy and obedient young wives. They are well worth their price.”
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