You know, i see this entire thing as a complete and total failure on Anandi's part.
I really believe that authoritarian measures and fear based tactics can only go so far (whether in governmental activities or in parenting matters)... after a while they are ineffective. The only real solution is for people to actively want to obey the law because they see how it benefits them and how it is a good thing ... not a hindrance.
My belief (based on what I saw yesterday and today) is that anandi goes around talking about child marriage based on what has happened to her. Her personal story. A lot of people will just mock her and see her as a one-off example of how child marriage can go awry, and nobody will really listen to her when there are several examples of good working child marriages in front of their eyes (e.g. lal singh and koyel, or jyoti's own parents, etc. etc. etc.). They have all grown up in child marriages and really see nothing wrong in them. Infact, anandi too might not have seen anything wrong in it, or processed it as an issue if she and jagya had had a happy marriage.
To hold up gulli as an example or someone else like gulli, is really ridiculous because the parents wont really see any benefit in someone who avoids marriage to become an assistant teacher in a school room in a village...nor was unmarried teacherji a great role model.
Within these cultures, marriage is a form of social protection, since anti-social elements prey on single women.. From this perspective, Jyoti's parents *were* thinking in the best interests of their daughter in terms of settling her in a well-to-do household. Now it may not be the way I would judge the best interest of my daughter, and it may not be the way that someone else would judge the best interest of their daughter ... but it was Jyoti's parents way. In addition, they were not selling her off, they were genuinely interested in seeing her married. (The law makes a distinction when it judges parents by the way -- if it is found that parents were selling her -- then parents are punished under child trafficking and child prostitution acts which can lead up to 10 years of life imprisonment -- but it is found that parents were genuinely marrying the girl -- then penalty is 2 years)
Complex ivory tower notions of how women are to have their own identity and how they have to blossom to their full potential to become teachers and social workers will have no impact on these people. What educated role models have they seen who are both married and successful? None.
What do they see? -- an unmarried teacherji? an abandoned and divorced anandi? a natha lady phooli with a graduate degree who now is a single mother working in a school? a teenage girl who is an assistant teacher in a school and still not married?
Tomorrow, if jyoti's parents died in a tractor accident somewhere, they would die peacefully knowing that the girl was "settled" rather than still unmarried and orphaned at the mercy of anti social elements.
Tomorrow, if jyoti's parents let her study and become successful, they need to know that they can find a man for her in their community -- we may say that she can have a love marriage, she may meet someone in her college, -- but from jyoti's parents mentality this may not be acceptable.
If anandi is to be successful in her agenda, she has to stop talking about her own personal story and tailor her marketing strategy in terms of benefits to the parents.
And for those who say that the fear of the law is the most potent medicine against child marriage ...and that parents will be scared because jyoti's parents will be arrested. I disagree. Since this is a serial, it works that way and I respect the storyline.
In real life, it is the other way around, within 48 hours of this, the groom's father would have arranged to have anandi and shiv assassinated (and he would have given these orders from jail). After that sarpanches, and district collectors would be scared to interfere in child marriages.
Dont you see IPS officers, and income tax officers being murdered in India? A handful of people who are really committed to the cause may give their life for it ... but other government officials may just prefer to turn a blind eye rather than take on the wrath of anti-social elements on themselves and their families.
Edited by tinoo - 13 years ago
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