Friday, 17 May, 2024
Child marriages are most frequent in rural India, amongst those who do not have access to education and usually belong to the cohort of very low income families.
One of the biggest and most persistent problems faced by Indian society is the practise of child marriage. According to Indian law, the marriage of a female below 18 years of age is considered illegal while the marriage of a male below age 21 is treated in a similar fashion. Child marriages are most frequent in rural India, amongst those who do not have access to education and usually belong to the cohort of very low income families. While the numbers are going down because of the universal literacy campaign and welfare schemes launched by most state governments for the higher education of girls, the practice is still widespread. Given this backdrop, a recent verdict by the Punjab and Haryana High Court regarding the legality of the marriage of a 16 year old Muslim girl caused quite a flutter in civil society groups. The news was overshadowed by protests against the Agneepath scheme, the revolt by senior Shiv Sena leaders against the party leadership and the grilling of Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald case. But the verdict is important. According to it, the marriage of Muslim girls and women comes under the ambit of Muslim Personal Law. Since that allows “child” marriage, existing Indian laws cannot be applied in such cases. As per Muslim Personal Law, a girl can marry upon attaining puberty or even if she is 15 years old.
C Voter-India Tracker conducted a nationwide survey to gauge public sentiments on the important issue that confronts Indian society. People were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the verdict of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that makes the marriage of a 16 year old girl legal. Overall, 58% of the respondents disagreed with the verdict while 42% agreed with it. In other words, 42% of Indians are still comfortable with the practice of child marriage. Some interesting data popped up when one analysed the responses across demographic, education, income and other ethnic categories. As the accompanying chart shows, 44% of females in India seem OK with child marriage. About 47% of those with very low education and 57% of scheduled tribes affirmed that they are comfortable with child marriage. In sharp contrast, just 29% of those with high education supported child marriage; dropping even further to 26% with upper caste Hindus. A massive majority of 79% of respondents from the Muslim community appeared to support child marriage. It may be noted here that Muslims in India are victims of both poor education and low income: two factors that lead to child marriages.
According to the 2011 Census, more than 100 million girls were married before the “legal” age of 18 years and an overwhelming majority of them (well above 80%) belonged to the Hindu community. It would be interesting to see data for the 2021 Census which is yet to be completed because of the
Covid pandemic. Has Indian society progressed or regressed?
