‘I was a baby bride at 11 months’
Overcoming dire threats, 19-year-old Santadevi Meghwal, a child marriage victim, fought to get her wedding annulled. She tells Helen Roberts how her case is inspiring other girls in the community to reclaim their lives
Santadevi Meghwal was worried and scared. Seated in her grandmother’s modest two-bedroom home in Jodhpur, a city in the state of Rajasthan in north-western India, she kept wringing her hands, fearing for the safety of her parents in their village Rohicha Kallan, about 70km away.
The 19-year-old woman had reason to be. The powerful khap panchayat, a selfappointed council of male village elders, had passed a diktat: Pay a fine of Rs1.6 million (Dh89,583) or face the consequences.
Her crime: when she turned 18, she refused to live with the man, nine years her senior, with whom her parents had got her married when she was just 11 months old.
Her decision incensed the village elders who believed that she had broken tradition and brought shame to the community.
The consequences of not paying the fine were severe: the family would be excommunicated and could end up losing their home.
‘I was extremely worried about the reactions of the khap panchayat and the people supporting their decision, because they think we did something wrong,’ says Santadevi. ‘I also received threats that I would be harmed if I did not go to live with the man I’d ‘married’ when I was a baby.’
The village elders said the fine would be revoked if she returned to live with her in-laws. ‘But I was determined that I would never live with that man,’ says the teenager, whose dream is to be a teacher and settle down much later with a man of her choice.
Santadevi’s life turned topsy-turvy four years ago when one day, while chatting with her friends, she got the jolt of her life. ‘My friends and I were having a girly chat,’ she says. ‘I said my dream was to become a teacher then get married and have a family of my own.’
A friend then told her that she was already married. ‘We all know that. Your husband is that guy there,’ she was told, her friends pointing to a man who was standing a little distance away.
‘I couldn’t believe my ears. I thought she was joking, but she kept insisting and a few other friends too agreed with her.’
In tears, Santadevi ran back home and asked her parents if what her friends said was true. She was in for another shock. ‘What they told me devastated me,’ she says.
‘They said I’d been married when I was 11 months old to Saanval Ram, a neighbour, who was nine years old at the time.
‘I’d heard of child marriages, but I’d never even dreamt that I would be a victim of that ridiculous custom. I never imagined my parents would do that to me. It was such a shock. My mother told me I’d been one of 42 children married that day in 1997.’
Too shocked to react, she cried herself to sleep that night. ‘I really didn’t know what to do,’ she says. ‘But I was sure I would not live with him. He was not the kind of man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. He isn’t well read and used to often tease me while on my way to school.’
Although the marriage of a girl under 18 and a boy under 21 is prohibited in India, and child marriage has been illegal since 1929, many rural families across the country still follow the practice.
A census in 2011 (the most recent accurate figures) revealed that 1.6 million children were married between 2000 and 2010 in Rajasthan alone. The United Nations declared Rajasthan the state with the second-highest number of child marriages in India after Jharkhand.
The phenomenon of child marriage is not restricted to India alone. Several countries continue to record cases of
‘I was sure I WOULD NOT live with him. He was not the KIND OF MAN I wanted to spend my LIFE with. He isn’t WELL READ and used to often TEASE ME on my way to SCHOOL’
children being married at a very young age. The highest rate of child marriage is in Bangladesh, where two out of every three girls marry before they turn 18, followed by India, Nepal and Afghanistan.
The international group Girls Not Brides estimates that annually, 15 million girls are married before the age of 18 worldwide.
‘My elder sister Gangadevi was also a child bride,’ says Santadevi. ‘And I know that she suffered a lot.’
According to reports, Gangadevi’s in-laws ill-treated her and threw her out of their house four years into the marriage. While the reasons for ill-treatment are not known, Santadevi says her sister is now happily married to another man and lives nearby. ‘However, when I heard that I too was a child bride, I refused to follow this outdated, archaic and illogical tradition.’
Initially, Santadevi hoped her marriage was just a customary ritual that did not have to be taken seriously. ‘So I told my parents that we could just forget about it and get on with our lives,’ she says. ‘I wanted to be free and have a life of my own.
‘But I was taken aback when my parents, particularly my mother, appeared very serious about the marriage and told me that I should follow through with the commitment and go to live with my husband and in-laws as soon as I turned 18.’
The teenager argued, cried, pleaded and begged her parents to make arrangements to cancel the wedding and allow her to live her life.
‘He was in his late 20s, worked as a labourer, and was not the kind of person I would have agreed to marry,’ she says. ‘But my parents were insistent and I was devastated.’
Santadevi believes that the reason her parents insisted she remain committed to the marriage was because they were scared of the khap panchayat. ‘They insisted I stick with the arrangement or our family would have to face the wrath of the local people,’ she says.
An unelected body, the khap panchayat is known to pass harsh and controversial judgements when people appear to break tradition, and refuse to conform with medieval practices or follow their diktats. Most recently, a khap panchayat in Haryana, another state in northern India, ordered a woman to be raped because her brother had eloped with a married woman.
‘They piled pressure on me to go and live with my husband,’ says Santadevi.
Luckily, her father decided to support her. ‘He works as a labourer in the fields and fully backed my decision to study and get a job,’ she says. ‘He is very supportive of all that I do.’ And while he couldn’t help her get out of the marriage, ‘he promised to stand by me in whatever decision I take’.
Desperate to find someone who could help her, Santadevi approached a teacher in her school and confided in her. ‘I told her that I want to study, get a job and then get married. I asked her if she could help me.’
The move paid off. The teacher had heard about anti-child marriage campaigner Kriti Bharti, 26, and her Saarthi Trust based in Jodhpur, which worked to help child brides. ‘My teacher showed me an article that had appeared in a newspaper where Kriti had helped Laxmi Sargara, the first woman in India to annul her child marriage in 2012,’ says Santadevi. ‘She told me to contact Kriti who would surely help me.’
However, Santadevi had no clue how to contact Kriti. ‘I printed a photo of her and kept it under my pillow, hoping and praying every night that she would somehow come and rescue me from the predicament I was in,’ she says, with childlike innocence.
Although she was desperate for a solution to the mess she was in, ‘I was also too scared of the repercussions and the consequences of my actions on my family and parents’.
To make matters worse, almost overnight everyone in the village seemed to know about her marriage and several people started to taunt her about it, asking when she would go to join her husband.
‘My life was hell,’ she says. ‘People would poke fun at me for having married a man much older than me. Even Saanval started following me to school, harassing and pestering me to live with him in his house because I was his wife.
‘He was very disrespectful. He used to say to me, “Where will you go? You will have no choice but to join your husband, me.” He would tell everyone I was his wife. It was becoming very scary. All I wanted to do was study and get a job and have a normal life, but he was making my life miserable.’
Finally, last April, Santadevi plucked the courage to go online to learn more about Kriti. She found the social worker’s telephone number, contacted her and told her about her problem. ‘I also decided to go to my grandmother’s house in Jodhpur, which is a large town and where [I could meet Kriti] to discuss how to move forward.’
So in May, Santadevi jumped on to a bus to Jodhpur.
‘I had to leave, I had no choice,’ she says. ‘It was appalling that my marriage had
‘He was very DISRESPECTFUL. He used to say to me, “Where will YOU GO? You will have NO CHOICE but to join your husband, ME.” He would tell everyone I was his WIFE’
been kept hidden from me all these years. Village elders were telling my father to send me to my in-laws, and he was helpless. I was not going to sit back and have my life taken away from me.
‘I kept giving excuses and refused to go to their house, but the pressure was mounting, I was threatened and told I’d be forcibly taken away. That’s when I knew I had to leave. I had to meet Kriti.’
Kriti welcomed Santadevi into her home and promised to help her. She called Santadevi’s father, Padmaram Meghwal, 45, and told him of his daughter’s wishes and assured him that she would take care of her. ‘I also explained to her parents what was going to happen,’ says Kriti. ‘They were scared but I counselled and advised them.
‘Parents in this area are generally apprehensive about going down such roads because of the humiliation and the consequences of being ostracised from the community. They are terrified of standing up to tradition and for the sake of peace, they do as they’re told by the village elders.’
Kriti managed to persuade Santadevi’s parents that a marriage annulment in Jodhpur’s Family Court would be the best course of action.
However, as soon as Kriti applied for an annulment, news spread around Santadevi’s village. The khap panchayat – a kangaroo court – quickly imposed a fine on Santadevi and her family and banished them from the community for attempting to annul the marriage and going against tradition.
To salvage the situation, Kriti, who has experience dealing with panchayats, met with its members in the hope of arriving at a mutually acceptable arrangement.
‘Unfortunately, the members of these panchayats are very traditional and stuck in their ways,’ Kriti says. ‘I knew I had a job on hand – to make them see sense – and I had to try.
‘I met with them several times to counsel and guide them. I even managed to convince some of them to support the annulment and thankfully that was enough. Once one of the men are convinced, the rest often follow suit.’
But the judicial system is slow and complex and the annulment case was long and arduous. As each hearing was postponed – often due to unavailability of the respondent – Kriti’s life was also in danger. She received death threats and Santadevi’s husband warned her that she could be harmed to be taught a lesson.
‘I have been doing this job for many years,’ says Kriti. ‘We have got 27 child marriages annulled and I’ve stopped many from happening, so I am used to the death and rape threats. It’s part of the job.’
The social worker refused to give up. Over the last six months, she spent her own money to fight the case in court. ‘I was determined to get her marriage annulled.’
Finally, at 3pm on October 20, the Family Court annulled Santadevi’s marriage. ‘I’m still overwhelmed,’ she says. ‘I never imagined this day would come. I cannot thank Kriti enough, she has saved my life and I owe her so much.’
Santadevi’s success story spread across the community and she has now become a beacon of hope for young girls in similar situations. ‘I want to show them that we can stand up for our rights. I want other girls in Rajasthan to know they do not have to join their in-laws and that they can claim back their lives.’
Santadevi is still not allowed to return to her village and live with her parents, but she is getting on with her studies and still hopes to become a teacher. She also hopes to find a husband, but for now she wants to enjoy her new-found freedom.
☞ For more information on Kriti and her child marriage campaign, visit saarthitrust.com.
‘I have been doing this for YEARS. We have got 27 child marriages ANNULLED and I’ve STOPPED many others, so I am USED TO the death and rape THREATS. It’s part of the job’