At least 2,700 individuals, largely males, have been arrested since late January for such marriages throughout the poorest districts within the Indian border state of Assam, in keeping with its chief minister. The actions led to scenes of wailing girls. Police used batons and tear gasoline in opposition to feminine protesters. Several individuals killed themselves, in keeping with native reports.

Critics say the state authorities is exploiting the already waning follow of underage marriage to sow concern for political ends. Underage marriage, they are saying, whereas problematic, is usually a consequence of poverty, and imprisoning people is not going to resolve it.

“I married him out of my free will. … [Now] there is no point in living if he continues to be jailed,” mentioned a 19-year-old lady trying to find her husband and cradling her child outdoors Assam’s distant Matia detention middle. “I don’t know why the government is punishing us. Is it because we are Muslims?”

When the girl was three months shy of 18, India’s authorized age of marriage for ladies, she married Akher, a 20-year-old building painter from Satgaon, Assam. Her single mom, unable to afford sufficient meals, noticed the proposal as a blessing for his or her household of 5 kids, 4 of them daughters. The younger lady was capable of ship new garments to her mom for the Muslim vacation of Eid, beforehand an unimaginable buy. “My mother couldn’t take care of me the way my husband can,” she mentioned.

In February, 5 males got here to their new dwelling stating that they had been conducting a well being survey for the native hospital, the younger lady mentioned. Three days later, the identical males got here again to arrest Akher and detained him 75 miles away. Nearby jails had been already stuffed to capability with others arrested for underage marriages.

After she traveled to see him, the younger lady was swept up into a crowd contained in the Matia detention middle. An iron gate separated the determined households from the imprisoned, and the girl needed to shout above the others to her husband 10 toes away.

“All I could make out in the noise was, ‘Please get me out of here’ and ‘I miss my son,’” she mentioned, with ache in her eyes.

(The Washington Post is withholding the names of the affected girls as a result of they had been minors on the time of marriage and is figuring out the boys solely by their first names to keep away from not directly figuring out their wives.)

Over the previous month, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has championed his crackdown, giving frequent updates on the count of arrests. He has mentioned the arrests would partly goal spouses who had been now above the authorized age of marriage however had not been after they had been wed. Nearly 100 of the arrested were girls, Sarma mentioned.

Some critics allege that Sarma is exploiting faith for political acquire. “He wants to be seen as the savior of Hindus and the biggest enemy of Muslims. This he knows is going to help him create a fan base beyond Assam borders,” mentioned Sherman Ali Ahmed, an unbiased legislator in Assam.

But Sarma has mentioned in a tweet, “The arrests in Assam [are] not done after verifying their religious affiliations.”

Other critics have questioned whether or not the crackdown is required in any respect. Across Indian social teams, the typical age of marriage has been persistently rising. In the Eighties, greater than half of Indian girls of their teenagers had been married earlier than the authorized age, in keeping with the National Family Health Survey. Now, it’s fewer than a fourth.

“Underage marriage is simply not the single most important issue facing women today,” mentioned Mary John, a former professor at Delhi’s Center for Women’s Development Studies who has performed in depth statistical analysis on India’s underage marriages.

Researchers say underage marriage is a symptom of poverty and shouldn’t be handled as against the law. Since many ladies have slim prospects for training and a job, households are keen to get their daughters married younger, particularly as a result of dowries — cost often produced from the bride’s household to the groom’s — are decrease for underage ladies.

“Early marriage exists in a country where marriage is the single source of security for women,” John mentioned. “There is an economic logic.”

Assam’s feminine underage marriage charge of 32 p.c is above the nationwide charge of 23 p.c, according to the National Family Health Survey.

Nationally, somewhat underneath 1 / 4 of Hindu girls marry earlier than the authorized age and somewhat over 1 / 4 of Muslim girls do, in keeping with John’s analysis. Other studies have found poverty to be extra prevalent amongst India’s Muslims in contrast with different social teams.

While Assamese Hindu girls marry earlier than 18 at roughly the nationwide charge for Hindu girls, Muslim girls within the state marry beneath the authorized age at nearly double Muslim girls’s charge nationally, in keeping with John’s analysis. The prevalence of poverty amongst Muslims within the state can be significantly excessive.

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The toll on the poor is multilayered. Just after the arrests started, rumors unfold on WhatsApp that native well being employees had revealed the main points of underage marriages to the police, which the employees and native cops denied. But the rumor promoted concern amongst girls. Health employees cited a dip in girls in search of medical consideration.

“It took us years of hard work … to get rural women to hospitals for delivery,” mentioned one well being employee. “We lost decades of hard work and goodwill we built in these remote villages because of this crackdown.”

Arrests concentrated in Muslim areas

The northeastern Indian state of Assam was additionally the battleground over a campaign by the ruling celebration to confirm citizenship data, which drew accusations that it will disproportionately goal Muslims and contributed to nationwide protests in 2019.

Many of the underage marriage arrests had been concentrated in Assam’s Muslim-majority districts, comparable to Dhurbi.

A senior police officer in Dhurbi, Aparna Natarajan, mentioned the drive was “secularized” to “declare village by village child-marriage free.”

In one of many few affected Hindu-majority districts, Kokrajhar, a head police officer mentioned that a lot of the arrests there have been additionally of Muslims.

Mofidul Islam, an Islamic preacher in Dhurbi who solemnizes weddings, often known as a qazi, mentioned he believes underage marriage takes place as a type of “sexual protection.”

“In big cities, we often hear about women getting raped, which I believe is a much bigger issue than early marriage,” he mentioned. “In our villages, there is no such thing as rape … because we marry our boys and girls at a young age.”

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Legal specialists say the federal government is unlikely to win many convictions. India’s youngster marriage legislation deems the act of marrying beneath grownup age unlawful, however the marriage itself is legitimate till both celebration annuls it as soon as they attain maturity.

Justices on Assam’s High Court expressed concern in regards to the occasions in February after they launched a number of of the arrested on bail. “This is causing havoc in the private life of people,” the courtroom mentioned. “[Child marriage] may not be a good idea — obviously it is a bad idea — but we will give our views when the right time comes.”

Anant Gupta in New Delhi contributed to this report.