On the Assam crackdown on child marriages

In recent weeks, Assam, a state of India, has made 3000 arrests of people who were involved in child marriage. 

BUT suddenly, the woke junta started putting out news articles like how cruel they are to punish people who did child marriages 2-8 years ago. 

Just like after squatting they say, oh, we have been squatting for over a decade, this is our home now. 

NO, if the original act is illegal, the subsequent persistence of the illegal act does not make the original act legal. That original act, and all subsequent acts are illegal and need to be punished cumulatively. 

That original squatting, and all subsequent years, come under squatting only. Its not "home for 10 years". it is "Persistent and malicious Illegal occupation" for 10 years. 

I didn't pay attention to the news reports because that is what woke junta does. 

Why was Assam doing this? 

Assam's Infant and Mortality rates are among the worst in the country. 

31% of all marriages in Assam are UNDERAGE. Some children are less than 14 years of age at the time of marriage. This leads to high IMR and MMR. 

The National Family health Survey - 5, whose report was released in May 2022, clearly mentioned that underage marriages lead to high rates of IMR and MMR. (Infant and maternal mortality rates). 

A neighboring state, Arunachal, was much worse at the end of NFHS -3 - over a decade ago. From there to NFHS - 5, Arunachal is now one of the country's best states on IMR and MMR. Both Arunachal and Rajasthan have done massive work on child marriage prohibition and both states have been successful in improving their public health and fertility metrics. The children are healthier. Not just IMR, but mortality <5 years is also better. 

The Case 

Today, apparently, the Guwahati HC Bench of Justice Suman Shyam gave a ruling in which it mentioned: 

What is the POCSO here? Merely because POCSO is added, does it mean the judges will not see what is there?

"What do you want to get by custodial interrogation? Either he (accused men) has married or he has not, either it's a case of child marriage or its not.. for that is it necessary to have custodial interrogation?" asked the bench as six people submitted their bail application.

"If there is a marriage taking place in violation of statutory provisions, law will take its own course...but the punishment is two years and these are matters that have been taking place for a long time." said the court.

"This (crackdown on child marriage) is causing havoc in the lives of the people. There are children, there are family members, there are old people... This (child marriage) may not be a good idea, obviously this may be a bad idea, but we will give our views when the right time comes." said the judge.

My humble submission to the judges: 

Not my place to teach you the law, BUT:

A. Sexual Intercourse with a child less than 14 years of age is the textbook definition of Childhood Sexual Abuse - POCSO.

B. POCSO defines a child as a person less than 18 years of age. Ergo, ALL cases of child marriage come under POCSO, not just those of children under 14. (Therefore, non bailable) - you cannot give bails to people who are charged under POCSO using your own discretion. 

C. It has not "always been happening". Marrying a child and having sex with a child is not a passive action. It is DONE. It is a conscious act. The perpetrator knows that the child is underage. People giving their tacit acceptance to an illegal act should introspect whether they are the right people for chairs that require them to uphold the law.

Also, thank you for making me read the full POCSO Act.

And now for my honest opinion: 

What is weird is not these arrests and the application of POCSO. What is weird is that a judge wants to give his tacit approval to an illegal act. It is disturbing family lives, therefore we must not arrest criminals who married children? Wow! I am sooo impressed. 

A judge has to uphold the law. 

Everytime i decide to not lose my cool over things that don't directly concern me, the judiciary drops to a new low. Now will the CJI amend the constitution to allow underage marriages? He has already spoken about the need to reduce the marriageable age of girls.

Here is my view on that - 18 means that a girl can be legally married off before she completes her graduation (at the age of 20). A boy's marriageable age at 21 ensures that a child has had the chance to complete their education at least up to the undergraduate level. 

The age of 18 should be raised to 20, not lowered. So that girls who are forced to marry early at least can tell their parents (as many girls in Rajasthan have done) that they can call the police to the wedding. 

Also, I have been the girl who had a marriage rishta at the age of 15 and had someone come see her at the age of 19. I was then in Undergrad 2nd year. I had to fight to complete my undergrad degree. The boy's side wanted the marriage immediately and didnt think a girl should complete her degree. 

The law was not on my side. 

Later, I saw many girls use the law to convince their parents to let them complete their education. 

If parents feel that women's safety is an issue, the way to deal with that is to give self-defence training to the girls, and to stand up to every smart ass demeaning women - including the smartass who just made 1000 crores showing women as objects. 

If you watch a woman getting demeaned on screen, look the other side when someone is troubling a girl in the bus or train, and think that marrying off your girl early will protect her from rape by strangers - I have no words. 

#StopChildMarriage

On Linked In Content Creation

Today, I learnt a really important lesson.

A content creator whose posts I used to value and read wrote a stray positive comment on a post that was really... well, underwhelming.

However, this post came up on my feed and seeing the creator's name, some time was spent on it before realising that this was not adding value.

Since there is no way to tell LI that we like the POSTS of a content creator but not their likes, the only thing to do would be to unfollow the creator and manually go back to their content once a week or so.

Lesson for the day:

If you are a content creator of value, it is equally important to pay attention to your likes and comments - because they will also come up in people's feed as your activity.

Thoughts on Reading the Geeta - I

जब हम कोई कविता पढ़ते हैं, तो कविता अपना रस पाठक को सहजत: ही दे देती है। किन्तु फिर हम उसकी संदर्भ सहित व्याख्या करने में लग जाते हैं, और कविता पढ़ना एक सरस क्रिया से पीड़ा बन जाती है। 

गीता का भी ऐसा ही है। गीता स्वयं अपना संदेश सरल भाषा में देती है। किन्तु हम गीता को छोड़, उसकी व्याख्या पढ़ने के पीछे पड़ जाते हैं। आश्चर्य की बात यह है कि भगवान स्वयं कहते हैं, सब कुछ मुझ में है और मुझ से बाहर कुछ नहीं, और इस सत्य की खोज हम सत्य के बाहर करते हैं। क्यूँ? 

गीता को पढ़ना श्री कृष्ण के महात्म्य को पढ़ना नहीं है। गीता अध्यात्म की पठन पुस्तिका (textbook) है। सांख्य, ज्ञान, कर्म आदि योग उस में पढ़ने को सरल भाषा में मिलते हैं। 

कितनी अजीब बात है न, कि हमारे देश की नदियों का उद्गम तो एक स्थान पर होता ही है, उनका गंतव्य भी एक ही सागर है। परंतु इन दो सम बिंदुओं के बीच की यात्रा पूरी करने के लिए, हर नदी का पथ अलग है। इस पथ पर, हर नदी अलग-अलग गाँव की तृष्णा की तृप्ति करती है। हर नदी की यात्रा उपयोगी भी है और महत्वपूर्ण भी। 

ऐसा ही अध्यात्म के मार्गों का भी है। गीता हर मार्ग को समझाती है। नदी की तरह, हम अपना मार्ग चुनते हैं। 

******* 

A poem is delightful to the reader. It is a thing of beauty. But then, we start "analysing" the poem and answering questions about alliterations, word forms, metaphors, etc. That is the precise point at which reading poetry goes from being a pleasurable experience to an absolute pain. 

It is the same with the Bhagwad Geeta. It shares its message in a relatively simple language. But instead of reading the book, we hanker after its various "explanations". This, when surprisingly, the book itself states - All truth is in me and there is no truth outside what I am about to tell you. - Why do we do this? 

To read the Geeta is not to read the pontification of a God. It is the textbook of spiritual practice. It explains Sankhya, Karma Yog, Dhyan Yog, etc. in simple language. 

Have you ever noticed that in India, most rivers originate from the same source (watersheds in the Himalayas)? What is even more surprising is that their destination is also the same - the Bay of Bengal. 

So, with exactly the same source and the same destination, the path of each river is different. On its path, each river irrigates and waters different villages. Each of these paths is important and productive. 

It is the same with our paths to spirituality. They originate and culminate at the same place. But the path is different for each one. And they are all correct paths. They all add value. 

Book Review: Three and a half murders by Salil Desai

 

So, this is a book about a grumpy inspector, his team, and a murder-suicide that turns out to be something else. 

The review is not going to be kind, so disclaimer - some of my disappointment might be coming from the "national bestseller" tag on top of the book cover.  

The plot is good, but long drawn. Some empty hooks could have been avoided because they neither added to the story nor to the story telling. It's like following the formula of detective fiction - to throw in a few red herrings. The other rule of detective fiction that the book follows is to take the reader along on the detection journey. That ploy makes some things very evident and then the red herrings thrown to confuse that part of the plot become boring for the reader. The twist at the end is not adequately explained and the reader has to do some thinking of their own to put the pieces together. 

The characters are pasty and Inspector Saralkar is not likeable. The era of socially awkward detectives who are geniuses is over. Long gone. And even those socially awkward detectives did not treat their immediate families and their friends/associates with disdain. The way around social awkwardness is to not have a family. But treating one's junior with abject disrespect is just not done. 

Oh, and we never really get to the "genius" part of the misunderstood genius that Saralkar is. The detection is painfully slow and procedural. The insights come to the reader before they come to Saralkar at times, and the reader is not a genius of any order. 

The story telling is great. It holds the reader's interest all through. So, the length of the book does not hurt as much as it would have otherwise. 

This is the third book in a series, but after reading the book, one felt the need to make a mental note to not pick up any more content of this series, national bestseller or not.