A bill amending the Marriage Act, 2009, passed recently by the Rajasthan assembly mandating furnishing of information on child marriages within 30 days of the wedding, has led to a stormy debate between the BJP and the ruling Congress, with the BJP accusing the Ashok Gehlot government of “validating the social evil of child marriages.” Meanwhile, child rights activists said the government’s move was akin to bowing to jati panches — traditional caste groups similar to khap panchayats that are often seen as the backbone of child marriages and other regressive customs.

The Gehlot government has put forward a four-page clarification saying the Rajasthan Compulsory Registration of Marriages (Amendment) Bill was making only a “technical change” to the existing Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act, and was aimed at reaching out to more victims of child marriages. It does not make child marriage legal as “district collectors can take action against the offenders”, and is also in line with a Supreme Court ruling that has made registering marriage mandatory, it said.

The BJP has accused the Congress of undermining the central law that prohibits child marriages, but the state government said registration of child marriages would help in their faster annulment and help the government reach out to more victims, particularly widows. The government’s justification is that in the absence of a marriage certificate, a widow is often deprived of access to government schemes.

The government has also said registration would help it address the problem of child marriages and its impact on maternal and child health more effectively by dividing the state into different zones, depending on the number of registrations, and channel action accordingly.

Activists, however, said it would make it easier for people to conduct child marriages, and make it even more difficult for women to come forward to seek annulment as that would need a certificate of registration now.

According to the new law, the marriage registration officer will do the registration of child marriages at the block level, with a provision that if the girl’s age at the time of marriage was less than 18 years and the boy’s age was less than 21, her parents would have to inform the registration officer within 30 days by giving a memorandum in the prescribed format. Based on this, the registration officer would register it as child marriage. The Bill also adds a provision enabling a widow or a widower or their kin to register their marriage within 30 days of the death of the spouse or relative.

The BJP has reacted very sharply to the development, calling it regressive. Rajendra Rathore, deputy leader of the opposition in the Rajasthan assembly, said in 1927, the Sharda Act (Child Marriage Restraint Act) came into existence in Rajasthan, which was replaced by the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. “But it looks like Rajasthan is still in the hold of this regressive custom,” he said. The Bill was opposed not only by BJP MLAs but also by pro-Congress independent MLA Sanyam Lodha. It was passed by a voice vote.

Child rights activists who have spent years trying to rid the state of child marriages are the most upset. “This is undoing all years of hard work as it will only give rise to child marriages and related issues of sexual violence and teenage pregnancy. The only reason I see for the government to take a step like this is because they want to keep the jati panches happy. These groups are the backbone of child marriages who often punish families with a social boycott, and even monetarily, for not following the norm. They consider themselves courts in themselves, hold complete sway over villages and are useful to political parties during elections,” Kriti Bharti, managing director of the Saarthi Trust told ET.

Accusing the government of bringing in a “Taliban-like” law, Bharti, who has often worked against threats to rescue victims of child marriages, said the government should have taken advice from child rights activists or even informers of child marriages. “This is completely against women and ignores practical realities. They are saying this will make annulment of marriages easier but that’s not true. Forty-three of the 45 child marriages annulled in the country are from Rajasthan because we were at it for years,” Bharti said.

Bharti said traditions followed by several desert communities — such as a widely prevalent one where children from both paternal and maternal side are married off within 13 days of a death in the family — need to be understood while framing policies on child marriages. “Often such marriages take place where the relative has passed away, not in the girl or boy’s own village. The girl is often even younger than 5-8 years, and the gauna (going off to in-laws) happens after she hits puberty, which could be years later … Expecting her to track down her certificate years after the event, in a faraway place is unrealistic, and so is the expectation that she will have her certificate with her. The registration certificate is bound to be with parents who will do everything possible to not let the annulment happen. A girl can file for an annulment till she is 20 and she might end up crossing that in all this.”

She added that to stop child marriages, activists would often tell young women to approach any official in the government. “But now, instead of all government departments focussing only on stalling child marriages, one will be registering them, giving them a legitimacy that is shameful. This will also lead to more cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act as people might use registration as a cover to get girls in the family married to sexual offenders or rapists, particularly in cases of child abuse,” she said.

Sunita Devi Singh, a Rajasthan-based activist, said the 2009 law also had similar provisions, with a difference that parents had the responsibility to register the marriages. She explained that the original provision required mandatory registration of marriage within 30 days if the bride and bridegroom were under 21 years of age – the age criterion for both men and women being the same, but the amended version says the parents must register the marriage within 30 days of the wedding “if the bride is under 18 and the bridegroom is under 21”.

“There is no clear mechanism in the amendment suggesting the prosecution of illegal child marriages as the focus seems to be on registration alone, which is the problem,” she said, adding, National Crime Records Bureau data showed a rise of about 50% in cases of child marriage in India in 2020 compared with 2019. “This is why governments have to be careful while fiddling with laws,” she said.