BENGALURU: Last week, my househelp told me she won’t be able to attend work for a couple of days as her niece was in labour. When she came back, I enquired about the new mother’s health. She told me that her niece was barely 16. She had been married off by her parents when she failed in her Class nine exams. She had become pregnant twice and lost both babies owing to malnourishment.
According to the 2021 report of UNFPA(UNICEF Global Programme to EndChild Marriage), India is home to the largest number of child brides in the world: 223 million child brides – a third of the global total. While it is illegal for girls under the age of 18 to marry in India, estimates suggest that at least 1.5 million girls under age 18 get married in India each year.
Moreover, according to 2020 data, Karnataka was in the top place when it came to child marriages reported. We have to note that many of these go unreported as they take place in interior rural pockets and are considered ‘normal’. I keep coming across reports of child marriages every other day. While combing through early Kannada literature, we come across various references to child marriage.
The very first published Indie-Kannada play Iggappa Heggade Vivaha Prahasana (1887) portrays a man in his 60s who has married twice and lost both his wives, goes on to marry a girl child from a poor family who has not even stepped into her teens. In 1894, Rodda Thirumalaraya wrote a book on the importance of education for women. Sudarshana, a magazine that came out in 1886, published articles on the issues related to child marriage.
Social reformer Venkata Rango Katti once saw a 9-year-old child widow whose head was shaved being forcefully separated from other girls of her age. Seeing her weep inconsolably pushed him to start a movement against ill-treatment of child widows.
In 1884, Saraswathas of erstwhile Madras brought in some reforms regarding child marriage and widow remarriage in the community. (Ref: Hosagannada Arunodaya by Dr Srinivasa Havanoor); in Indiarabai (1889), the very first Kannada novel with a social theme by Gulvadi Vekata Rao, the protagonist is married off by her mother to a rich man even before attaining puberty.
In urban communities, the living conditions of the workforce that strives every day to keep everything running smoothly are blatantly disregarded. The glaring gap between the choices available for the city-bred, educated women and the women in the labour class speaks for itself. If you start asking questions, you will find out that most of these women were married off in their mid-teens, gave birth early and have fully grown kids in their late 20s.
They will tell you stories of many of their relatives in villages still being married off as minors. The health complications that result from such marriages can be fatal. I recalled my househelp asking me if she should get her own daughter married when she failed the PU exams. I had strongly discouraged her, urged her daughter to write exams again.Now, her kid is pursuing her final-year degree.