eelan Kolhi, 18, lives with her poor parents in the Chandar Kolhi village, located 15 kilometres southwest of Badin on the Badin-Karachi road. In January 2021, her parents had married her to Rooplo Kolhi, then 18. Parsad Maharaj, an unregistered local pundit, had solemnised their marriage in the presence of dozens of people from the two villages.

Four days later, Rooplo sent her back to her parents with a letter. It said, “I don’t like your daughter any longer. I want to be rid of this (marriage). I need a divorce, today.”

Leelan’s mother, Radha Kolhi, 54, says, “There is no educated person in this village. So we sent the paper to a person in another village for reading. Once we learnt what he had written, the ground slipped from under our feet. We realised that our daughter could never remarry. She has a long life ahead of her.”

In vain, Leelan’s father, Ratno Kolhi, 62, has made several attempts through community elders, to persuade Rooplo to take his daughter back. Since the day she arrived at her parents’ home, Leelan has been labelled a divorcee. Rooplo has remarried.

The horrors of

underage marriage

According to the Sindh Hindus Marriage (Amendment) Act 2018, the minimum age of the bride and groom at the time of marriage should be 18 years. Also, the pundit who solemnises a marriage must be registered with the government. However, in many cases, these requirements are disregarded. Consequently, many girls and women go through the pain of underage marriage.

Social and human rights activist Chowan Kumar says, “In Sindh, we do not have enough registered pundits. For a fee of a few hundred rupees, they (unregistered pundits) solemnise illegal marriages. They neither ascertain the ages of the bride and the groom, nor provide marriage registration certificates. The newlyweds and their families are advised to keep mum.”

“In case of a separation, when the court demands a marriage registration certificate and the affected party fails to submit it, the court dismisses the case straightaway. Among many scheduled caste Hindu clans, if a family moves a court or appeals to the police, especially in the matter of a girl’s divorce, the community boycotts that family and they are considered disgraced,” he adds.

Divorce and

remarriage

Jiwo Kolhi, now in her mid-forties, was verbally divorced by her husband, Shobo Kolhi, 15 years ago. She has been living in a hut near her parent’s village Chandar Kolhi, with her two children, 19-year-old daughter, Jamna, and 15-year-old son, Mukesh.

She says, “From the very first day, my alcoholic husband would beat me in front of my in-laws. I kept silent as my parents had instructed me to do so. One day when he was beating me with an iron rod, my six-month-old daughter, who was in my lap at the time, got injured and died. He sent me to my parents’ house the next day, saying I lacked character. He never returned.

“I initially stayed at my parents house. Then I made a separate mud hut here, away from the village because the people in my parents’ village insisted that they send me away and threatened them with social boycott. Since then, I have been living here with my children and working as a farm labourer. Together, we earn Rs 300 a day.“

Most of the interviewed women (60 percent) said the reason for their mental stress was underage marriage. Many said they had abusive partners.

Advocate Chandar Kolhi, who practices at the Mithi district court, says that these Hindu tribes are prisoners of an outdated culture they are not ready to give up. “The law allows every divorced woman to remarry. They also have the right to terminate abusive marriages at any stage. However, we live in a male-dominated society where many women are not treated well. It has been very challenging to get them their rights in the society. A man marrying a divorced woman also has to face tough sanctions.

The suicides

Pakistan has a scheduled caste Hindu population of 849,614 according to the 2017 census. The 4.18 million Hindus living in Sindh make up 8.73 percent of its total population. The province also has the highest suicide rate in the country.

According to a report released by Sindh police in 2019, 586 women, most of them from the Hindu community, committed suicide in the province between January 2014 and June 2019.

According to another report by the Sindh Mental Health Authority, in 2021, Badin recorded the second-highest suicide rate in Sindh, followed by Tharparkar.

To help with the anxiety experienced by the female Hindu population, a mobile application by the name Pareshan was launched by researchers at the Aga Khan University. However, it has failed so far to have a significant impact.

Ashfaque Jamali, the research coordinator, says that the sample studied by a team from Aga Khan Foundation in district Badin painted a disturbing picture. “Our team interviewed 360 persons all over the district. It found 150 women affected by mental disease. A majority of the women belonged to scheduled Hindu castes.”

He says, “Most of the interviewed women (60 percent) said the reason for their mental stress was underage marriage. Many of them had abusive partners. Twenty percent of the women felt that they were disturbed because their husbands had abandoned them. They were spending miserable lives as divorcees who could never remarry.”

Lack of awareness

More than 90 percent of Sindh’s Hindu population belongs to the scheduled castes. The literacy rate is abysmally low. Most girls have never been to a school or received education. The reasons for this are primarily poverty and social discrimination.

Advocate Chandar Kolhi, along with a team of a young volunteers from Tharparkar, has been raising awareness among scheduled caste Hindu communities in Badin, Umerkot and Mirpurkhas districts about the importance of awareness.

Chandar Kolhi says, “The people face many social problems including poverty, illiteracy, outdated customs and social discrimination. They do not seem interested in learning about the importance of this law.”

“Lack of implementation of the Sindh Hindu Marriage Amendment Act 2018 is ruining their lives. Women are the prime victims in this. The government should work on implementing the law as soon as possible to improve the lives of Sindh’s scheduled Hindu communities,” he adds.

The writer is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Sindh, and he can be reached at abbaskhaskheli110 @gmail.com