DESERT ROSE

Women in Kachchh are finding their footing between tradition and transition

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

Rabari Manju could very well be a spy. The 23-year-old is on a secret mission in her village in central Kachchh, Gujarat, and has already prevented 20 child marriages. Discreetly.

"I keep an eye out for freshly printed wedding cards circulating in the villages," she says. "If it is going to be held in the fields, then it is most likely a child marriage. I immediately alert the authorities." She also collects information about girls who have dropped out of school and tries to persuade their families to let them continue their education. "Sometimes, I face hostility, but I try my best," she says.

Manju's mission is as much a social initiative as it is personal. She does not want another girl to have an experience like hers. She was betrothed to a boy when she was two years old in a custom called saata baata, where her brother was betrothed to her fiancé's sister. Later, her schooling was cut short as her fiancé, too, was in the same school.

Manju belongs to a pastoral community where child marriages, though illegal, are fairly common. And, it is a practice prevalent across villages in Kachchh. In Bhadroi village close to Anjar town, ten teenaged girls are attending classes at an anganwadi where the Kutch Mahila Sanghatan is running a learning centre. Almost all of them are dropouts, and married. Some were betrothed when they were just three.