Daily Times

Thousands of women in Assam have taken to the streets to protest the state’s crackdown on child marriages, claiming that the law disproportionately targets Muslims, who are typically exempt from the state policy on child marriage under the Muslim Personal Law. Led by Chief Minister Biswas Sarma, a member of the BJP who has been pushing for a uniform civil code that applies to all citizens, the state has arrested over 2500 people so far.

While it is true that child marriage is associated with poorer life outcomes, especially for young girls who are kept from pursuing other choices, an abrupt crackdown on the practice is unlikely to change the complex socio-cultural structure that perpetuates child marriage. What’s even more concerning, however, is that women in Assam, India’s poorest province, have now been left to their own devices, with no reliable source of income as the arrests have mainly targeted the primary breadwinners in their families.

The crackdown also falls in line with BJP’s plans for a Uniform Civil Code, a policy that has informed the party’s ideology since they were first elected. Right-wing rhetoric in the country has consistently called for a common personal law that critics believe is intended to counter the ‘regressive’ personal laws of Muslims. Triple talaq, the practice of instant divorce that is prevalent among Muslims has already been criminalised by the Modi government.

However, others argue that BJP’s anti-personal law stance does not reflect an exclusive bias against Muslims since a staggeringly large country such as India has numerous other communities that follow their laws. States have been making their own laws since the 1970s. Property and inheritance laws, for instance, vary by state with north-eastern Christian-majority states such as Nagaland making their laws based on custom rather than religion.

It is unclear whether the recent crackdown in Assam symbolises the state’s disdain for Muslims or whether it is simply an attempt at eliminating a primitive practice that continues to persist despite being illegal. Either way, it would be in the BJP’s best interest to consider the cultural sensitivities of the communities these laws affect before they cause irreversible damage to the women left behind. *