Enlightened mother foils minor daughter’s marriage

SANGLI, May 12: The 19th century playwright G B Deval wrote Sangeet Sharada, a musical play, blowing a lid off the custom of child marria...

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SANGLI, May 12: The 19th century playwright G B Deval wrote Sangeet Sharada, a musical play, blowing a lid off the custom of child marriage. Deval’s campaign later snowballed into a legislation banning child marriages, which then rightfully was known as the Sharada Act.

Yet decades after Deval, the tradition thrives unhindered especially in the remote, not-much-frequented corners of Maharashtra including Deval’s own Sangli district. Albeit, many such marriages just go unreported, voluntary organisations and police have thwarted a few of them in the past.

Joining the tribe for the good Samaritans for the underaged girls being forced to marry is Yashoda Bondre, an untutored farm labourer from Bahirewadi in Sangli’s difficult-to-access Shirala taluka who hardly knew anything about Deval or his the play Sangeet Sharada or had heard anyone talking on evils of child marriages.

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Yashoda rebelled against her family, sought police help against her own kith and kins, all to save her own 11-year-old from being married to a knavish person, last Sunday.

Wishing to get rid of his responsibilities “safely”, Yashoda’s husband Laxman had planned to marry off their 11-year-old daughter studying in 10th standard with Dashrath Kharade from the vicinity. Kharade who was after Laxman, bogging him down with `requests’ to marry his daughter, had assured the former of taking care of “all his worries”.

Laxman fixed the date and muhurta, the auspicious time, for the marriage without bothering requests from his wife to give a second thought to get his daughter married, and also his choice of the son-in-law.

Knowing Kharade’s credentials, Yashoda opposed the marriage, despite being told by her husband that it was an opportunity came of a golden platter since Kharade was ready to accept the bride sans a dowry. It would be difficult for them to marry off their daughter so easily in future, if this opportunity was wasted, she was told.

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Unconvinced, Yashoda managed to get in touch with Kasegaon police on the day of the marriage, last Sunday and stopped the ceremony. Police later booked her husband and brother-in-law.