GUWAHATI: Assam government, which earned national and international media headlines with the crackdown on child marriages in February, is going to relaunch the drive across the state.
Addressing the fourth SP (superintendent of police) conference at Bongaigaon in western Assam on July 28, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma disclosed another operation against the century-old social menace is planned in September.
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Sarma, also in charge of Assam’s home portfolio, asked the police force to prepare specific operating procedures to deal with various social evils including “love-jihad”.
During the major crackdown in February, the Assam police picked up over 3000 individuals (including 93 females) following 4235 registered complaints across the state.
It came to public notice that many elderly Muslim men used to marry young girls taking advantage of their poverty and socio-economic status.
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Pointing out that the child marriage is banned in India for nearly a century as it threatens the lives, well-being and futures of the girls, the Assam CM announced that the drive against all social menaces will continue till 2026.
Needless to mention that the social practice of underage marriages negatively impacts the children’s rights to health, education and empowerment.
It adversely affects the girls as they have to carry an early pregnancy and later child births for many years in their conjugal lives.
With no or a very little available (or affordable) medical care, those women face serious health complications later.
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The practice also affects the economy of a country. The married children usually avoid pursuing their education and career opportunities. Thus, they become an added burden to the poor families.
Data from the National Family Health Survey reflects that Assam continues to record a higher number of child marriages as well as cases of teenage pregnancy than the national average.
Assam also loses around 200 mothers among 100,000 during the child births (national average is 97 deaths per 100,000 live births).
Similarly, Assam records 36 infant deaths per 1000 live births (where national average is 28).
The drive against child marriages, though logically supported by every conscious citizen, also invited public outrages from different corners.
Opposition parties including the Congress, Asom Jatiya Parishad, All India United Democratic Front, etc criticized the action terming it an abuse of law for political gains.
Unmoved by the criticism, Sarma stated that the drive will continue. Now he insists on banning the practice of polygamy as a large section of Indian society believes that polygamy (Bigamy) has no place in a gender-sensitive modern society.
In fact, amidst the national debates on Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Sarma decided to go ahead with a new law banning polygamy, which is considered as an important component of the ‘one nation one rule’ policy.
The government is going to introduce a bill in the upcoming State legislative assembly session scheduled for September with an aim to prevent a male irrespective of his religion from marrying more than one spouse at a time.
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Sarma opined that the polygamy incidences are high in three districts of Barak valley along with some areas in Brahmaputra valley.
Men having multiple wives was a common practice in ancient India. However, after independence Special Marriage Act 1954 and Hindu Marriage Act 1955 were implemented, which outlawed the practice for the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs (with exceptions to some tribal communities and residents of Goa).
However, the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937 allows a Muslim man to marry up to four women at a time. Even the conversion to Islam (from other religions) permitted a man to have more than one wife.
The Supreme Court declared this kind of religious conversion as unconstitutional in 1995.
Earlier, the apex court outlawed the practice of Triple Talaq and the historic verdict in 2017 paved the way to challenge polygamy as being unilateral and unconstitutional.
Among the Muslim dominated countries namely Turkey and Tunisia have already banned the practice of polygamy.
Some nations like Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc allow polygamy with restrictions.
But nowhere on Earth, is a woman known to be allowed to endorse more than one spouse. We can mention here the example of Draupadi of Mahabharata era, where the divine princess of Panchal kingdom married five Pandavas namely Yudhishthira, Bheema, Arjun, Nakul and Sahdeva and lived with dignity and self-respects.