Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma minces no words; he is clear what he is up to, howsoever heartless and callous it might be. The decision to crackdown on those allegedly involved in child marriages, which has shaken the state like a quake, is unprecedented. 

Over 4000 cases have been filed and close to 2500 people – including parents of brides, grooms, qazis and pujaris -- have been rounded up and put behind bars. Many disturbing pictures have emerged from the State – women rolling in front of police station distressed over the only earning member of the family in custody; wailing parents whose sons have married minor girls years ago and presently lodged in jails; young women with tiny-tots in tow seeking release of their husbands incarcerated in prisons.

The Assam clampdown, according to the Chief Minister, is due to the “alarming” results of the National Family Health Survey-5 which said that the State had an underage pregnancy rate of 11.7 % – significantly higher than the national average of 6.8%. Hence the police have been ordered to charge men marrying girls below 14 years of age under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and those marrying girls aged 14-18 under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. 

However, the incongruity of the government action is that each of the child marriage remains valid and it becomes voidable only when a contracting party to the marriage, who was a child at the time of marriage, files a petition in the court. It is not clear whether any contracting party has come forward to do so. 

It is no one’s contention that child marriages should be tolerated. The vice-like grip of this illegal and unconstitutional practice has to come to an end. Its continuance is an affront to a civilized society. But the change has to come not through a crackdown with retrospective effect that will only leave many families broken and in utter distress. Surveys show that the incidents of child marriages are on the decline, though it is not up to the desired level. Illiteracy and penury are the most common reasons for the continuance of this illegal practice. Rise in literacy and economic stability would put a leash on child marriages. 

Ironically, there are a few other States where the percentage of child marriages is higher than reported from Assam. Neither those states nor others have taken recourse to such a ‘war’ as resorted to by Assam. The State, under Chief Minister Sarma, has done it earlier too when detention centres were set up in some places for housing the alleged illegal immigrants, flouting Supreme Court directives in this regard. Now, two temporary prisons have come up to jail those arrested in child marriage cases. In both cases, Muslims have borne the brunt of the police action as most of those jailed are from that community. 

Breaking settled families, though they have come into being violating provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, without following due process of law, is anathema to a democratic country where rule of law prevails. Instead of punitive measures, the governments would do well in providing education, specially to girls, and creating awareness on the illegality of marrying off minors.