You know, i see this entire thing as a complete and total failure on Anandi's part.
I have read many posts arguing the reverse & I tend to agree with THEM.WHY is it a total & complete failure?The child marriage WAS prevented.The children were saved the ignominy of a child marriage.Both sets of CRIMINALLY liable parents are in jail.Even Jyoti-as YOU wanted-is installed in Badi Haveli...So by WHAT standard do you dub Anandi's actions as complete & total failure??
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.
Well IF you are right,then ALL nations that have Penal codes,police,judicial systems and jails are barking up the wrong tree FOR YEARS! What YOU suggest is impractical, sentimental, time consuming and Utopian in the EXTREME.Till the prevailing conditions change to suit your narrow vision,all child marriages,widow abandonment,female feutuscide should be ALLOWED because coercive laws-IN YOUR opinion-don't work in the long term-it doesn't bother you HOW many lives are lost or ruined till that ideal state becomes a reality?? NEVER MIND THAT-so long as the laws are NON-Coercive!! Should we really MAKE NICE and request the rapists to PLEASE not rape us?
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.
I would think that having gone through the trauma herself Anandi is the MOST qualified to talk about it. She IS now educated,rich AND powerful-she is using all that to fight a crime of which SHE was a victim-so WHY shouldn't she talk about it? She IS qualified.Or would you prefer that only "qualified social worker" can talk to villagers??
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.
YOUR own prejudice is showing.You have SUCH a distasteful opinion of teachers who work in village schools.Hopefully their parents will be less blindered and see a daughter who is happy,a teacher,she is employed and perhaps financially supporting the very parents who were willing to be rid of them even illegally.
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)
THIS is SO regressive,it doesn't even merit a response.(BTW=Marrying off your under age daughter to the son of a rich man IS tantamount to selling your daughter in MY view)
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.
WHY is it so important to you that the examples they see must be successful MARRIED women?Single women are as devoted & as enthusiastic about wanting a better life as are married ones! So teachers AND social workers are disqualified-Do you want Durga Mata to come and do the job-we'll just sit twiddling our thumbs and sneer LOFTILY at teachers & social worker till divine intervention!
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?
TWADDLED! I hope they see better-women working-not just their marital status
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.
That is a silly self serving hypothesis.You think,if they died tomorrow not knowing if their child may be thrown out for becoming a widow or for being "barren",they would die PEACEFULLY?
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.
AND SO? Because her PARENTS mentality will not accept a possibly happier future,Jyoti must ACCEPT a "no future"...APPALLING PROCESS OF "THOUGHT"!!
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.
Addressed above
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.
You said you are a foreigner,that you've lived in India for TWENTY years? Do you think India is a banana republic where petty criminals order hits.Do you KNOW the power that sarpanchs & DCs wield in RURAL India??
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.
YES,we do see honest IPS,IT officers being murdered-to your foreigner's jaundiced eye it signals the end of ALL honest officials,To hopeful Indian eyes it is a signal that more of such honest officials will carry on the work started by their felled colleagues. It is a matter of perception-you see a glass half empty,most of us see it as a glass half full.
Before you preach non coercive laws for INDIA-give us an example of a country that survives on such absurdities.
DRAT! I WANTED TO BE POLITE BUT I'VE RARELY READ AN OPINION SO DIVORCED FROM THE GROUND REALITIES AND SO TRITE!
Edited by znursingh - 13 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
