Please link up the following comments from another thread and proceed. I find lots of emotionalism going into law-laying exercise. However it is important that all citizens must learn to lay down a healthy and balanced law which is a result of deep thinking and reasoning, and not merely emotional appeals. This is more important for Muslims because in further developing of Sharia law, role of the common Muslim man/woman  is important.

COMMENTS

·         While rushing for a job, I am hurriedly posting this. I wish J.M.Kaja Mohideen saheb had posted his comments under the thread where the matter was already being discussed. His presentation is balanced and perfect and is on an important issue. I had written something more and compiled a list of cases where high courts have helped individuals going away from the expressed provisions of law. I was however kept engaged with non-issues on ideological front by the likes of Secular Logic etc. and could not complete my work. Glad to see that a man of competence of Mr. Mohideen sb has taken the initiative. I will request him to persist with his presence on this website especially on legal and administrative issues affecting the community in particular and all communities in general. Given time I shall post more on this topic.

By Manzoorul Haque - 7/27/2012 1:02:18 AM

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·         I agree with Mr Kaja Mohideen. There are too many naive assumptions that we make. For example the assumption that if the minimum ages is fixed as 18, it will ensure that the Girl has completed +2 when the opposite is true. If we give importance to a Girl's education, automatically the average age at which a girl marries will go up. We are therefore approaching the problem from the wrong end much like Sanjay Gandhi did for birth control. The answer to many social social evils is women's education and empowerment.

As Manzoorul Haque Sb pointed out quite elaborately, merely enacting a law will only create problems without solving any.

By Naseer Ahmed - 7/26/2012 9:05:02 PM

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·         While congratulating Dr.Darez or any other District Collector in Tamil Nadu, for their efforts to stop Child Marriages and strict implementation of the Prohibition of Child Marriages Act 2006, I would like to express a word of caution. The new Act replaces the old, Child Marriages restraint Act 1939, which is popularly known as Sarada Act. Balya vivag was prevalent among Hindu brethren and the act came into force. ( In that sense Islam never allowed child marriages but insisted a child should at least attain puberty, a physical condition of ready for procreation.)

In the old Act, the minimum age was fixed first, as fourteen, then fifteen and then eighteen. Only in 1978, Hindu Marriages act was amended to fix the Marriageable age,21 for male and 18 for female. The Sharia remained the same. Many Islamic countries who are signatories to the convention of child rights have increased the age to 18. It was easier for them as the Islamic family law was codified for them. India is a state party to the convention. So it enacted the new act repealing the old act. Now Indian Muslims are confused, pulled between Sharia which allowed puberty as marriageable age and common law of the land which prohibits. Progressive Muslims think the marriageable age should be increased to 18. How to increase? That is one reason for advocating codification of Sharia law. Muslims need to be educated, sensitized, advised and counseled.

The new Act contemplates many preventive measures. Under section 16 of the Act, the Child Marriage prohibition officer shall, educate, sensitise, advise and counsel the parties and prevent such marriage. In spite of such preventive measures, if the parties, contracts or conducts or solemnize the marriage, under section 9, the groom has committed an offence of contracting a child marriage and under section 10, the others have committed other offences. Then only punitive action can be taken. Our, overzealous District Administration seems to be enjoying the so called raids. When successfully prevented, why arrest the, to be groom and the victim child and produce her before the child welfare committee, who dutifully, lodge the child in a Govt. home. Dear Collectors have you ever visited those homes? Why take away the traumatized girl from her known environment. There are cases where the female members were also arrested when the act specifically prohibits such arrests. District administration should not terrorise or traumatize the citizens. I wonder how many of the District Collectors rush with their team to extend any of the beneficial schemes to the public in general and minority in particular in the same zeal. The point is, the people, whether they are Hindus or Muslims, feel humiliated, insulted and discriminated. Let us first take firm preventive measures. Though there is nothing communal in the incident, the action is excessive.

We are also facing a situation, where infatuated children in teens are running away from home and get pregnant at early age. If treated as Minors and handed over to parents, their safety is doubted ; many at times the girls do not want to go with the parents; their condition contemplates care and kindness therefore, the Govt. homes are not conducive; some of the High courts have decided that in that situation, the husband is the guardian as the marriage is only voidable; in a case of a Muslim minor girl, the Delhi High court said, the marriageable age is puberty, therefore handed over the minor to the husband (here the parents contended that it is a child marriage); one court wondered why not reduce the majority age from 18 to 17 as the children of these days are capable taking decision at an early age. Law alone will not do wonders. The society is to be educated on many things.

By J.M.Kaja Mohideen, - 7/26/2012 12:50:41 PM

I have some interesting thing to share with all those who have given their reaction for this article. A friend of my father, employed as a teacher in a school, gave his daughter in marriage after she completed her SSLC (class XI) in the late 1960s. Unfortunately, her husband who was in govenrment service, took seriously ill and died all of a sudden within a couple of years of the marriage, when the lady was pregnant. Since the lady had completed her SSLC course, the goverment provided her a job on compassionate ground. This enabled her to stand on her own leg without depending on her poor father, who had three more daughters. Recently she got her daughter married after she completed her degree course and is now on the verge of retirement. But for her school final course she would'nt have got the job and would have been forced to depend either on her father and inlaws for the rest of her life. If she had completed a degree course she would have been obsorbed as an officer.

In another incident, a friend of mine employed in a public sector undertaking, passed away all of a sudden when he was just 45, leaving wife and five young children, including two daughters. The Public sector undertaking came forword to provide job to his wife on compassionate ground, but was terribly shocked to learn that she had studied only upto class IV and had got married at a very young age. The officials and the trade union  tried their level best in absorbing the lady as an attender, but even for this she should have studied upto class VIII. She had to suffer and suffer for making both the ends meet and provide education to all her children. It was struggle and struggle for her for the next three decades.

All those who support that the marriageable age of the girls could be less than 18 should learn a lesson from these two incidents.

For God's sake dont give one lame excuse or the other for fixing the marriageable age below 18. This is my humble request to every member of the community.