India’s Infamy: Child Couple Glare At Unstable Future

The country is still in the hangover of its successful Mars mission. The scientists and intelligentsia are basking in the glory of this tremendous success in the field of space technology. On mother earth though, the scene is quite different. India, the land where mixture of culture, tradition, heritage, science, IT and modernity make for a heady concoction, there is an age-old problem that still stands out like a niggling thorn.

The country is rich in human resources. Average age of an Indian is well below the quintessential 30s. The minds are modern-yet-rooted in ancestral knowledge. It is a melting pot where old and new meet to create awesome results. The ‘new’ is the perspective and the ‘old’ is the customs that don’t seem to go away. The world’s largest democracy is bearing the burden of being world’s second largest country as far as population is concerned. And there is something else that keeps India at the second rank. It is the number of child marriages that take place in the country.

Recently, United Nations reported that India stood second in child marriages that happen across the world. Though the practice has been brought under the ambit of law, they continue unabated away from the watchful eyes of authorities.

There have been embarrassing situations for ministers when they have attended mass marriage ceremonies and found many couples to be underage. Sometimes, such marriages have been stopped, sometimes the children go home as couple.

Two things have transpired in the last two decades for India, which may well cost its global image. Between 2000 and 2012, there were majority of child marriages that went unregistered. And these years also saw India standing in the second position with rising number of child marriages. Now, a crucial point here is that the child marriages that were reported constituted this data. It is anybody’s guess as to how many such marriages may have gone unreported, without the authorities even getting the slightest wind of it.

It is surprising to note that a South Indian state – Kerala, is in a prominent position as far as child marriages are concerned. Would one call it an irony that the state takes pride in being a ‘total literacy’ state too? What went wrong then?

The state, which has matriarchal system, wasn’t among the most prominent names in the past. But, the slow and steady rise of this social menace has surely left the issue in a quandary. Blame it on social system or a way of treating gender balance, but the indicators surely post a worrisome picture.

Culture, tradition, lackadaisical implementation of laws pertaining to child marriage contribute to this practice that was mostly seen in the states of Northern India; such as Gujarat and Rajasthan where children were married even before they were born. Though the system finds its roots in tribal communities, it has surely made its way into other communities as well.

In fact, fighting this social issue was among the prominent things a modern India dreamt about, which was to release itself from the clutches of British administration. Nearly seven decades since, India is still grappling with this issue.

What is surprising though is the fact that India comes second only to a country like Niger which is nowhere close to India in its growth charts. Niger boasts of 75% child marriages, where one of three girls is married off as soon as they step into teenage. In India, girls are married off before they reach a legally permissible age of 18 for marriage.

Bihar, with its low literacy rate, and notorious reputation of being partners with other states that carry out female foeticide unabatedly, is the top most state in India which marries off girls even while they are underage to be a bride.

This is followed by Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.

Though the law against child marriage is applied equally to all religions with no relaxation to any particular community, the administration sometimes fails to adhere to this owing to dominance of a particular community in the area. It becomes a highly risky thing to implement laws in communities which are dominant in the area with the implementing officers being meek observant when such incidents take place.

Economical instability, rising gap between rich and poor, migration and low sex ratio contribute to the social problem that is sure to cloud India’s achievements in the near future. Just as the country inches towards becoming the most populated in the world, displacing China, it would also soon have the highest number of child brides and underage bridegrooms who will find it difficult to access education or make ends meet with a natural maturity that comes with age.