Almost all the local media have focussed on the incident for which these five girls were awarded. In April, 2003, these five girls resisted the marriage of two children of 6 and 12 years respectively of Bhopal Singh in their village. The father of the children was actually selling his children to be relieved from the pressure of huge debt.
In a nutshell, these 5 children, Sarita, Swati, Sunita, Sushma, Neelam have been awarded for resisting child marriage in their village with their strong determination and courage, despite being so young at age.
The girls have shown an extra-ordinary courage; they have once again proved the strength of unity. They are little, but strong enough when they join hands with each other. The bravery award has provided recognition of their courage, which can further create a platform for others to protest against social evils, and protect many of them from happening again and again to others.
Apart from the evil of child marriage in this incident, there are some other social aspects associated with this same incident that need to be focussed on more. It must be kept in mind that child marriage is an isolated incident, which is related to many other social practices that ultimately reflect the mental set up of traditional societies, especially in rural India.
Let us focus on this single incident and reveal the facts associated with it.
The father of the two minor girls was ultimately selling his daughters to the so-called bridegrooms in the name of ‘marriage’. This reflects that the female children are still considered by some people as ‘materials’, rather than ‘human beings’, which can be utilised for income generation by means of ‘marriage’. The incident of child marriage in our society is not being practised openly nowadays as there are laws against this. But there are still such practices in many of the villages of India.
If the children finally would have been married off to those grooms, what might be their status in their in-laws’ house? They ultimately would have been converted into bonded slaves for thier whole life, ‘bonded’ by so-called ‘marriage’.
Look at the other side of the same incident. The minor girls were studying in Sanskar Bharti Public School of Harsinghpura. They were being forced to leave their studies at an age when all the children are supposed to be provided ‘free education’ by our national government. They were going to be a part of the long list of ‘school drop-outs’ in our country.
Child marriage, selling of children, school drop out – all such incidents are mainly associated with the female children of our society, who are still the most unwanted in their families. In the state of Haryana, such happenings are most expected where the two child norm is really difficult to implement because of the craze for a son in almost all the families, especially in rural areas. In a rural society, the female family members are supposed to spend maximum time with both household and agricultural works, but their labour is rarely counted or honoured. It is taken for granted that male members are supposed to be more busy in practising ‘hukka’ culture (smoking); talking to or playing cards with the other male members of the society, rather than assisting their wives and daughters in domestic or agricultural works along with the dairy practices.
The male members of the rural Haryana are, in most cases, born elites whereas the females are born ‘bonded’ labourers who are supposed to do all the works, both inside and outside their homes. At the same time, the females of the society are supposed to be ruled by the societal traditional norms like ‘ghunghat’ or ‘purdah’ to keep themselves isolated from the outer enlightened world. ‘Purdah’ and other ways of restoring their so called ‘modesty’ are all due, or rather, traditionally imposed on the females since their birth. Even the school girls of the rural Haryana rarely can enjoy the liberty to play in the ground as it is still considered to be a ‘shame’ for the girls. It is a shame for our nation, I must say, that despite having so many bright, strong girls who are nurtured by the traditional dairy products in rural Haryana and are capable of doing so many works both at home and outside, we have so limited female athletes in our country. At this point, we are all negatively affected by the illogic rule of traditional society, where equality in terms of social status is far to be achieved.
In the first part of the life, a female is supposed to handle the domestic works in terms of assisting her mother while her brothers have the liberty to go to school, to play, to spend their life to be the ‘elite’ of the next generation. It’s again the girls who are supposed to leave their study on the mid-way of schooling without completing their school education because of assisting in domestic works; or to take care of their younger brothers and sisters; or because of the lame excuse of distance from school, as their social mobility is always less than that of the boys.
Female children are most unwanted in the family as still the practice of ‘Dahej’ (dowry) during marriage is being practiced in most parts of Haryana. In the later part of life, after marriage, a female is automatically assigned the works at ‘sasural’ (in-laws’ house) and her life cycle also follows the same direction regardless of what she has already experienced at her own house. It’s surprising and at the same time pathetic that many of the rural females are bound to bear painful married life; tolerating all sorts of misbehaviour from drunken husbands, etc., as they don’t have any other alternative to survive. Because most of the rural females are generally deprived from their due property rights; usually at the time of marriage, they sign the bond giving the consent to their brothers to possess all parental properties.
In such a situation, when five girls in a rural society oppose a child marriage and save them from the ‘jaws of marriage’, we must consider it as a revolutionary change in the society. It’s ‘revolutionary’ in comparison to the other changes in Haryana society. In respect of child marriage, selling, drop out etc. the traditions are being changed, although slowly, but from one generation to the other, the changes are remarkable. The rate of child marriage is much less. At the village level, the awareness of literacy has increased the enrolment of children, especially girls in the schools. There are drop out cases, but the level of education of drop out cases is generally higher than the previous one; e.g., previously there were more drop outs among girls after primary education whereas nowadays there are more drop out cases after 8th or 10th standard of education. This trend is reflected through the number of literates, semi-literates and illiterates among the females.
In the villages of Haryana, the number of illiterates and semi-literates are decreasing from the older generation to the younger generation. The social evil which is still dominating the Haryana society is the practice of ‘dowry’ in marriage; although, brides are going to be ‘rare’ and few in terms of their number because of the continuous trend towards a decrease in the number of females in terms of the sex ratio.
These girls are all from very ordinary families and are still confused whether they will get the parental permission to study after 12th class, as the college is far from their own village. They take active part in the literacy campaign and associated programmes conducted by Uthaan Saksharta Samiti, Karnal. In fact, such exposures through ‘kalajathas’, etc. as a part of the literacy programme has provided them the impetus of such a courageous job. Still they have lack of social mobility and exposure to the outer enlightened world. They dream for a better future, but don’t know how to achieve that. I feel lucky to meet them at their village, to spend some days with all these bright girls; but I was feeling guilty as I couldn’t give them any assurance for a better and bright future, despite being a member of the privileged section of the society.
I wish the revolutionary spirit of all of these brave girls will help to achieve their destinies and their spirit will make its way towards the social movement to remove the social evils associated with the females who are ultimately the silent servers of this society.
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