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Child Marriage still continues unabated in Rajasthan
If you strictly believe that the marriages are made in heaven, think again. A tiny village in Ajmer district of Rajasthan called Chhaparwala, under the Mangaliawas Police Station, belies this popular notion. Mahendra Mishra reports from this sleepy village in Rajasthan.
Report: Mahendra Mishra
It was marriage with a difference. The village Chhaparwala, a small hamlet near Ajmer, wore festive look on this early winter morning. Sixty barat parties from different parts of the district gathered on the public ground of the village. Nearly 40,000 people from at least 52 villages attended the 3-day long ceremony which ended on Saturday, last week. But hold on…It was indeed a marriage with difference. A marriage ceremony all right but the couples to be married were minors and most of them aged below 8 years.
Chhaparwala is a village where parents get their children married as early as they are just few days old. Take, for instance, Parama who is just 25 days old and has just been married to Nemai, a 2-year old kid in the grand en masse marriage ceremony.
Shockingly this was the fourth event of this kind in the village since January this year. The mass child marriage ceremony was like any normal Rajasthani wedding. The brides, most of them hardly able to walk, were dressed in typical Rajasthani colourful lehnga and ghunghat pulled over their heads, and sat before ‘havan’, waiting to complete the ‘saat feras’ with their husbands. On the other hand, the bridegrooms, attired in safari with black kajal in there eyes and a sword encased in their waistband, totally unaware of what was happening around them and looked at the purohits innocently who chanted mantras.
Most of the kids were sitting in the laps of their parents and were feeling sleepy. The parents tried to keep them awake with chocolates and milk tubes but in vain. The kids clearly had no idea of what was happening around, or why they had become the cynosure of so many eyes suddenly. When Zee News team visited the village, the villagers turned reluctant and threatened them to leave the place immediately or face the wrath of the public. Nobody turned up to share any information with us as they feared that we could play spoilsport by informing the local administration about the event.
However, after much of requests and persuasion a few of the villagers on the outskirts of the village did talk. Ram Gosai, who had got his 7-year-old son married in the ceremony, said, “This is an age-old tradition in our Gujjar community which has been passed on to us from our forefathers. We have to stick to it, or else we will be ostracised by the village Panchayat. We cannot afford to face that situation." Lolararkh Gujjar, another villager whose 2-yr-old daughter got married, cites poverty as a reason. He said, “We are poor people and cannot afford to organise marriage ceremony separately, so whenever there is a good occassion we just pool in some money among ourselves and organize en masse marriage party .We invite all the parents from the nearby villages with proposal to get their children married. This suits them too, as this is the cheapest way of marriage."
Ironically Rajasthan was one of the pioneer states which banned child marriage way back in 1929. But it goes without saying that the law has been confined to papers and no government ever bothered to take initiative to arrest the trend.
However, when Zee News contacted the District Collector Usha Sharma for clarification, she said she was unaware of the development. Later, she claimed that not a single marriage had taken place in the village. She said that the ceremony was meant to provide a platform for prospective couples but it had nothing to do with child marriage.
On the other hand, the villagers claimed that one more en masse marriage was scheduled to take place in the same area on November 25 and they expected the local administration to cooperate with them in the same manner as they did in the past.
It was marriage with a difference. The village Chhaparwala, a small hamlet near Ajmer, wore festive look on this early winter morning. Sixty barat parties from different parts of the district gathered on the public ground of the village. Nearly 40,000 people from at least 52 villages attended the 3-day long ceremony which ended on Saturday, last week. But hold on…It was indeed a marriage with difference. A marriage ceremony all right but the couples to be married were minors and most of them aged below 8 years.
Chhaparwala is a village where parents get their children married as early as they are just few days old. Take, for instance, Parama who is just 25 days old and has just been married to Nemai, a 2-year old kid in the grand en masse marriage ceremony.
Shockingly this was the fourth event of this kind in the village since January this year. The mass child marriage ceremony was like any normal Rajasthani wedding. The brides, most of them hardly able to walk, were dressed in typical Rajasthani colourful lehnga and ghunghat pulled over their heads, and sat before ‘havan’, waiting to complete the ‘saat feras’ with their husbands. On the other hand, the bridegrooms, attired in safari with black kajal in there eyes and a sword encased in their waistband, totally unaware of what was happening around them and looked at the purohits innocently who chanted mantras.
Most of the kids were sitting in the laps of their parents and were feeling sleepy. The parents tried to keep them awake with chocolates and milk tubes but in vain. The kids clearly had no idea of what was happening around, or why they had become the cynosure of so many eyes suddenly. When Zee News team visited the village, the villagers turned reluctant and threatened them to leave the place immediately or face the wrath of the public. Nobody turned up to share any information with us as they feared that we could play spoilsport by informing the local administration about the event.
However, after much of requests and persuasion a few of the villagers on the outskirts of the village did talk. Ram Gosai, who had got his 7-year-old son married in the ceremony, said, “This is an age-old tradition in our Gujjar community which has been passed on to us from our forefathers. We have to stick to it, or else we will be ostracised by the village Panchayat. We cannot afford to face that situation." Lolararkh Gujjar, another villager whose 2-yr-old daughter got married, cites poverty as a reason. He said, “We are poor people and cannot afford to organise marriage ceremony separately, so whenever there is a good occassion we just pool in some money among ourselves and organize en masse marriage party .We invite all the parents from the nearby villages with proposal to get their children married. This suits them too, as this is the cheapest way of marriage."
Ironically Rajasthan was one of the pioneer states which banned child marriage way back in 1929. But it goes without saying that the law has been confined to papers and no government ever bothered to take initiative to arrest the trend.
However, when Zee News contacted the District Collector Usha Sharma for clarification, she said she was unaware of the development. Later, she claimed that not a single marriage had taken place in the village. She said that the ceremony was meant to provide a platform for prospective couples but it had nothing to do with child marriage.
On the other hand, the villagers claimed that one more en masse marriage was scheduled to take place in the same area on November 25 and they expected the local administration to cooperate with them in the same manner as they did in the past.