It was like a normal day in my fellowship. I was in my field to support teachers in the upcoming Shisha Chopal event. It was around half-past eleven. I was talking to the headmistress, Mrs Saroj Singh, of a primary school in Gurma, Robertsganj (Sonbhadra), when I saw a lady, in her late thirties, head straight to the headmistress’ office.
The lady looked anxious and scared. She entered the office with a transfer certificate in her hand and asked the headmistress to manipulate the date-of-birth (DOB) in the certificate. It was not a regular thing. No one asks to do it that openly. Out of curiosity, I asked her to show me the certificate. It named Gudiya (name changed), and it was showed her year of birth in 2006.
The headmistress asked her, “Why do you want to manipulate the DOB now, is there anything wrong with it?” Her reply was the most shocking thing for the headmistress and me. She said, “Gudiya is three months pregnant, and I want to change her DOB in the Aadhar card to show her as an 18-year-old. I do not want to get caught by any government officials.” It was something I had never heard of. The headmistress asked her more. Then we got to know the whole story.
Gudiya is a 14-years-old girl from Kamhari village married to an 18-year-old boy from the nearby Ghurma village. It was disturbing and shocking. A three months pregnant 14-year-old with an 18-year-old husband. What a mockery of laws and legislation! What were they trying to do?
I asked, “Why did you marry him off at such an early age?” She had no answer. The only thing she said was, “Gudiya’s mother was forcing me to get my son married to her daughter.”
After that conversation, the headmistress refused to manipulate and scolded her for illegally marrying her son off. I was quiet and shocked with a feeling of complete helplessness. All the knowledge and expertise were wasted at the moment. Whose fault is it? Who will be affected? The pregnant girl? The under-aged boy? The informally educated family members? Society? The Government? Who?
In the last few days, I studied the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojan (PMMVY) for an assignment. All those benefits of ₹6000 and antenatal care of the pregnant and lactating women under the scheme get mocked in one second. I was analyzing the challenges and reasons behind the third instalment pendency in the scheme after the delivery. But the overall aim of the scheme to decrease the mortality rate, increase the women’s nutrient level all got shattered. The women’s complications, the child’s birth risk, which could be decreased through schemes like PMVVY, all got compromised.
I must admit, societal mindset shift and behavioural change process is very complex. The government’s laws and schemes seem inefficient in front of cases like these. We, at Gandhi Fellowship, are constantly trying to identify the bright spots in communities to connect them with the mission of educating girls and decreasing the dropout rate. The change process will take a lot of time and effort from the outside.
We need to get rid of those orthodox approaches. We need to think from society’s perspective and design the policies and initiatives to reverse the behaviour pattern completely. I do not know the solution at this point, but I know that we are not discussing the darker picture, stories about the system’s failure, and the harsh societal truth. We need to discuss it more often. We need to build solutions out of them. We need to act with urgency to resolve the crisis.
I hope one day, it will all change!