On Child Marriage: Or Arguments towards its Legalisation

The institution of marriage is recognised by a majority of humanity in almost all the hospitable parts of the globe as particularly conducive to the sustenance and propagation of the race in a manner as holistic as is humanly possible. Where it combines, it leaves a legacy to be carried forward; where it sunders, it creates a bridge that brings together. That matrimony has survived and that it will regardless of infidelity, prostitution, rape, violence and sundry other forms of emotional and psychosomatic attyachaar is proof enough of the vitality and vivacity of the force which keeps it so, and will in the ages to come.

To matrimony is wedded another institution, another great and abiding collection of men and their kind: the family. As a carrier of both virtù and virtue, the repository of culture, goodness and light and the bearer of the wisdom of generations, the accumulated worth of countless minds, the family is undoubtedly the single most vital instrument for the propagation of marriage and all its attendant virtues, baby diapers and paternity leave included. Marriage builds from and to family and family evolves to marriage, and so on and so forth goes the circle of life, one into the other, ying to yang and so all along.

Considering, therefore, the centrality of marriage, and family, to the current order of being and well nigh to the order of things yet to come, it may not, thus, be irrelevant to prescribe the same - the former; precursor to the latter - as vital and essential in all senses of the word to humans in all walks of life, age, sex and monthly income regardless. These conditions withstanding, it will not, then, be aimless to suggest and propose the same as particularly beneficial and, indeed, as altogether complementary to the holistic development and growth of that characteristic class of humans so loved and hated by others in all ages: adolescents.

Indeed, for though there be laws against the same in almost all major principalities of the world, it can, with good reason, be demonstrated that these same are more or less the monstrous outgrowths of certain obsolete, misguided and, at their best, eminently Puritanical notions of propriety and acceptable sexual behaviour for humans of that particular age, eleven or twelve to nineteen - the age group generally classed and classified as adolescent. There will, I know, be marked opposition to this idea and some may go as far as evoking morality and tradition against my name, but to them and the like I can only advise a more critical scrutiny into the ways of the world and the sundry manners in which they are constructed and presented, the forms of interaction which govern our kind’s interactions with each other and limit our horizon.

Any talk of law, therefore, must not preclude the factuality that laws too are societal constructs, of and by the chosen few in power over and above the rest in subservience and as such reflect, or at least attempt to, the necessities of that particular people in that age and time, these necessities in themselves being contingent upon these forces - the chosen few - which conspire to define, guide and ossify the course of history. As times change, so do these defining forces and the necessities which typify them and which they in turn seek to define: so, then, must the laws which attempt through a series of checks and regulations to consolidate and propagate these forces and necessities.

My arguments for the legalisation of child marriage are founded on precisely these premises: that matrimony as an abiding human institution aids the reproduction and sustenance of the race and that the laws which have come to govern its legality are based on outdated models of interaction, acceptability and intercourse. In opening this institution to those currently deemed not of age, society will not only put itself in greater sync with a tradition as old as civilisation and, by all means, closer to the customs of the animal world of which we humans are but more stylized and evolved members but also take yet another giant leap towards resolving so many of the concerns and debilitating humours which are supposed to stem from that fastidious and wayward sect of specialized homo sapiens, adolescents.

By allowing them to interact, mingle and freely consort with any that they choose, members of this clan will not only develop and discover affinities and respects early in the walk of life, but will also learn tolerance and temperance, those two qualities which any in the married state will readily acknowledge as its most crucial gifts and which in any case would do our temperamental adolescents a world of good. To those who are likely to question this proposal on grounds of health and body development and the adverse affects of early pregnancy on the same, may I be allowed to highlight the ready availability and widespread use of contraceptives, preventive and abortive, and of the culpability of adolescents to in any case submit to their passions - and often in a fashion altogether regrettable. Under the protective yoke of matrimony, these passions would be legalised and, under the expert and helpful guidance of guardians, given an acceptable outlet in as healthy a manner as possible.

This last is the final founding premise of the argument, that as young, hot-blooded souls most teenagers and adolescents are wont to acts of passions which in the current moral and ethical setup are looked down upon as regrettable and unfortunate. That these passions, classed commonly as love, find their way to fruition is not any more the stuff of Shakespeare and fairy tale romances: love does conquer all, though khaps, of course, are never too far behind. To guide these passions then, and to provide those victim to them an acceptable outlet, matrimony is the only true and tested answer, a solution that in the form of this modest proposal must be acceptable to all but the staunchest of the traditionalist liberals.

It must be. Indeed, for considering the significance those with a more orthodox bend of mind have steadily been gaining these past few decades within this secular, democratic and socialist republic of India, these needs must be adopted as the necessary compromise between them and the liberal. In any case, it must be readily acknowledged that given our existing setup, the so-called licentious and eminently promiscuous behaviour of our teenagers and adolescents merits no other solution that would not involve blood.

There is, of course, one that would absolve them of the guilt of sin that currently a la olde albatross hangs across their necks and clear the situation remarkably. Cutting through all those outdated norms and principles which in defense of a fabricated morality usurp the throne of tradition and uphold a restricting and well nigh ritualised mode of interaction and intercourse, society could move towards a more open and inclusive model of interaction wherein the existing biases against love and its demands would no longer be valid. The trappings of traditional restraint, upheld only as homage to a dead ideal, can all be cut through and free love - an idea not as new as it may seem - may be embraced without the hesitations and prejudices which have attended it so long. Hostility, violence and all other such jealousies contingent on convention and normatively can be slowly weeded out till they truly become what they are, relics of a order past its vitality. Love and its demands, emotional and physical, could be allowed their own course, limited by constraints purely of practicality: health and finance.

But this is only what could be. Given, yes, given our existing moral and ethical setup, we have, as this humble commentator has taken pains to expline, naught but one solution: marriage, a resolution at once traditional and modern. For the benefit of the race, then, and of futurity still to come, let this be the word to go by: marriage.

The Wasteland

Three years. End to end, three whole years: words, words, words! Three whole years, nothing but words…

Words dead and gone, old as time, the mark of age stark upon them; words newly come into being, fresh from the eternal forge, glowing with light of an eager race rushing, pushing onwards on its brutal march to glory; words pregnant, in limbo, still to come and full of promise of change, transition to a new reality. Words all; on words, in words, through words: the dance of words, the play of words; inexorable- forwards, backwards, the unceasing laughter, protest and gloom of language, words; capable and not, nothing to say, recording all; trapped in themselves, striving to break; always, yet never – words…

Nothing but words. Life, action, reduced to words, seen through words, through rose tinted, blood stained, sepia coloured words. Words a power, a force: mesmerising, enchanting, revolting, infuriating, ever present; the seed of life, the noose of death – all colour, all blood, all being, all, words.

Yet, what now? What of words? Nothing but words, nothing but a hack. A hack. Prostituting words for figures, figures on papers, papers as words – conceived and exchanged as words. Even so, even if not, even then a web, an illusion: a mask to hide, a mirror to conceal – conceal yet reveal, expose in the revelation and yet conceal. Papered all along, papered still; words on paper, papered words, run of the mill. What difference? Words.

Three whole years. A waste. Caught, trapped, useless for all but words. Big and heavy, small and trite, words all, a binding plight. Three whole years a journey on, first to the shrine and now beyond. The shrine? Airy, ethereal, full of light – yet, all of words contrived. Slowly the change, the darkening heart, a sanctum hollow, exposed at last. Hollow words, hollow life, saying much, saying all. Doing? Might, might…

A happy plight? Beyond? Again. Again, two more: two more, and more, and more beyond. No shrine this time, no journey long. A waste still, a waste ever more…

Yet, of hope some is born…

On Literature

Sometimes, I really do hate my brother. Hate him with a vengeance. Sometimes, he’s so goddamned to the point!

We were on our way to the airport, stuck in a jam in some hilly, upper middle-class suburb of Mumbai. One of those rare moments of bhai-chara when the two of us were actually talking without trying to ridicule the other. About literature, my future with it. For once Bhaisaheb had deigned to leave aside his condescension about the matter and approach it openly. A real chat.

“Yeah, I understand all that and I think if you work on it you can make out something good on those lines, but I’ve been thinking – and thinking as in not to make fun of it but seriously – what’s the use of all this? As in, what practical purpose does it solve?”

“Well, I think it’s not as much a matter of a utilitarian purpose as a choice. Just as people choose to do engineering or economics, people choose to do literature as well. Not just because there might be a career attached to it, but because they want to. For its own sake you know. I mean, everything doesn’t have to have a purpose.”

“But we are talking of a purpose here. It’s all very nice to sit and read and do all that stuff you’ve told me – analyse and discuss and stuff – but how does it help anybody or anything? How does it, in fact, help you?”

“Well, you see, the thing is that it’s not as much a tangible help as an intangible change in attitude and perception. When you can analyse things better, you become a sort of a better human being, better not necessarily in a goody-goody sense but as a person better equipped to handle the social realities of the day, better to distinguish in the given context right from wrong and to see the ways in which all of it come to be. In that sense, there’s not much of a divorce between literary theoretical and their practical application in the world of everyday reality and interactions.”

“Hmm…okay. But, the flowery language apart, why literature? Or how literature? What makes literature special as a career or a pursuit that any of this cannot be accomplished out of it?”

There it was. For all I was worth, I couldn’t think of a convincing enough answer. How is any of this – analytical skills, social commitment and so on – specific to literature alone?

It’s not.

One has only to look out and around to see that it’s not. Nobody in my family, for instance, has pursued literature as a career, yet almost all of them are as good debaters and, by their respective ideologies, social critics as any I’ve met. Come to think of it, even within the English literary and critical tradition, an overwhelming majority of writers, theorists and critics were never just in the business of pure literature. Chaucer, ‘Father of English Literature’, was a government servant and served the Crown in many capacities; Sidney, author of one of the first critical treatises in the language, was an active and ambitious courtier who fell to wounds in war; Milton, last of the poets, was forever first a republican and public officer; Dryden, first amongst the wits, was a practicing playwright and heavily enmeshed in the political machinations of the day; Fielding, great amongst novelists, was also a barrister at law and had a life-long connection with law enforcement; Blake, fieriest of Romantics, belonged to the working class and earned much of his living through his engraving business; Arnold, middle-class champion for beauty and light, was primarily a school inspector; Eliot, first amongst the Modernists, critic and poet, worked for years in a bank. The list goes on and on. Of course, we have a Pope, a Shelley, a Tennyson and a Wilde, but still, all of them professed some aim or goal for which their talents were occupied. Rare in this long history are figures like Gray, University dons who wrote a few poems and vanished almost without trace…

Yet, that alone seems the province of literature today. The ivory tower is not as much a tower now as a university campus, a place to meet, debate, lecture, critique and go back home to safety. Of course, there’s nothing wrong in any of this and in itself teaching is as good and rewarding a career as any, but still, the problem of purpose, of speciality, remains unresolved. What purpose does a literary training achieve?

Precious little, seeing the way things are.

Modern literary practice engenders the illusion of purpose, of a socially oriented goal which can through literature and literary pursuits alone be accomplished. We like to believe we have a purpose, an almost semi-divine sanction to carry out our activities within the sacred precincts of our universities without the need to justify it to those outside the know. This carries on regardless of the cultural materialism of recent years; indeed, it carries on regardless of ideology, for whether it be the propagation of beauty and light, a war against the philistines of commerce and science, or the battle for social justice and equity, the consolidation of isms and ists, literary practice remains by and large an eminently self-absorbed and self-fulfilling network of complex and dynamic interfaces and interactions, none of which actually predicate any obligation on its part to result in any tangible contribution or alteration to the exteriority from which it perennially draws.

Much of this can also be seen reflected in the ways in which we fashion ourselves as a class. Common prejudice holds students, scholars and professors of literature as all indefatigable writers (preferably poets, poetry being the call of the soul and we literary types being such soulful people), an elite class of scribblers who write, talk and walk a sufficiently chastised and sophisticated language. Yet, even a general survey across many of the literary bastions of the day – and most certainly in this University of Delhi – will in my opinion overturn this prejudice: few are those who write and fewer still who choose to take it seriously – and even then they’re amateurs. Few, too, are those who choose literature as a career, as active, professional writers or as revealers of its sacred mysteries, teachers. For many of these latter too, much of the writing that they indulge in is in the creation of papers and commentaries, critiques upon works, or on critiques on works. Undoubtedly, this requires ingenuity and much hard work and perseverance and is in keeping with their professional calling; but, it is still secondary if one were to conceive literary production in terms of (so-called) creative work being primary and critical commentary on it secondary.

Yet, even these are not specific to or concomitant upon a literary training.

Indeed, for even though disciplines have by and large been ossified, there exist individuals who’ve managed to bridge the disciplinary divide and produce works or ideas of considerable worth. Nothing, for example, stops an eager and curious engineering graduate from picking up a Derrida or Joyce off the shelf and adding those to the stores of his/her knowledge. Nothing, certainly nothing, stops such a person from writing or declaiming, from entering, as it were, the traditional strongholds of literature and its scholars (and our ongoing experience with Indian Literature in English demonstrates as much): the doors of knowledge, of literature and literary theory, cannot be barred by the mere eventuality of admission and discipline and this would’ve been so even if it were not for inter-disciplinarity in higher education, a move which had, and still has, the potential to widen our horizons but which, sadly, seems to have been co-opted into the existing order of pedagogy. One has, after all, only to pick up – or download, as the case is increasingly getting to be – and read so that with perseverance and without tangible guidance one can actually master, or at least gain considerable insight into, any literary theory, school or work one chooses to delve into.

On the other hand, those who pursue literature cannot as easily skip into another discipline. Of course, this is characteristic to not just literature but to all that comes under the umbrella of humanities: those in the sciences, and perhaps commerce, can easily jump into the humanities but those in humanities face greater difficulties in engaging the sciences, leave alone other disciplines within their own rubric. Literary training especially has this particular isolating effect: from anthropology and sociology to psychology and politics, our tools and criticism draw much from the entire spectrum of humanities and as such only heighten that sense of sufficiency, of being capable in a special way, that characterises in varying degrees almost all in the profession.

Yet, there really is nothing special about it, about us. Opinion formation, theorisation, contextualisation and decentring, none of these are solely the province of a literary training. Scholars of history and political science can be as aware of social realities and acute in their criticism as the best of our cultural materialists. Competent graduates of science and economics too can engage the best of us in well-informed discussions on the merits of a classic, or the shortcomings of a school. Few there are amongst us, however, who’d be able to engage them on their ground, to converse intelligibly in their professed language, the subject their first choice. No more can literature produce uomini universali.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily cause for grief. A literary training was never in any case the sole guide to a rounded personality and though its professors and practitioners have gained somewhat of a presumption, it remains still only an addendum, not the sole goal in sight. This is neither to deny the advantages of such a training nor to negate its (social) potential: even if as a narrow trickle, the tangible fallouts of socially committed literary criticism can be seen and are certainly better than nothing at all.

Fact, however, remains that trickle or not, there really is nothing special, nothing remotely exalted or specific to any of it and that given the inclination, anybody from any other subject could easily master all that we hold dear and think specific. While it’s flattering to think of as being in a sense member to an inclusive and open profession or pursuit, it’s also disturbingly unnerving as a thought that takes away anything specific, anything special, anything that’d actually mark you and all your perseverance and effort, all your achievements, as distinct – and distinct not in terms of the actuality but the progression up to it, the difficulty or impossibility of that progression – from those of others in other fields.

Oh yes, sometimes, I really do hate my brother.

Semesters Sequestered

Subject since its inception to an abiding public controversy, the issue of the implementation of the semester system in Delhi University remains highly contentious with its barebones still shrouded in mystery. This is of note, for the contention is not just in its alleged “autocratic” implementation but also the manner in which the entire project was conceived and then, soon after, opposed by sections of the academic fraternity. Both betray disturbing trends in our policies for and politics of higher education in India.

Cleared by the University’s Academic Council last year, the semester system promises to radically alter our entire experience of education. Putting aside considerations of nostalgia and for tradition – which in a welfare state committed to holistic well being of its citizens should be of no mean significance – the most important question here is why change. Let this by no means be considered an invective against change: to do so would be naïve and against the current urgent need for inclusive socio-economic development retrograde. What is being asked instead is why change for the sake of change or, perhaps worse, for the sake of a top-heavy international model?

Indeed, not a little of the onus in this matter seems to be to bring our system at par with so-called international models of excellence. That what is international is more often than not Western is common knowledge. What we need to ask ourselves is whether we want to blindly exult in imitation of these models or combine these examples with our legacies and resources to create models of excellence – and excellence not as a superiority to be attained but as a quality specific to milieu – suited for our needs.

The answers need to come from all quarters. In voicing dissent DUTA does not represent all; it silences within even as it protests against autocracy from the top. Yes, the concerns it raises are for the most just, but the tone is too often of irritation at the prospect of increased workload – not, as one would’ve expected, regarding the quality of education. Of course the two are linked, but for that matter the administrative staff – or their union, for individual voices are seldom heard – have till now maintained a studied silence regarding the obvious increase in their workload. What is of greater concern, however, is the disquieting silence of DUSU and other student organisations on the matter. The University, at least ostensibly, is meant for students and not vice versa and in claiming to be their representatives these bodies should address all issues carrying the potential of impacting their education and training in a major way.

What is needed, therefore, is that we move away from a top-heavy, exclusive framework which institutionalises agency to and for a few functionaries to an inclusive and consensual model which takes into account all possible shareholders. The role of surveys and of direct interaction between shareholders in open debates is of no mean importance in this. Students’ Unions too need to be rejuvenated and herein those who claim to be liberals must engender and maintain a sustained campaign for giving student politics a pertinence which as of now it seems to be completely devoid of. Of course this will be no mean task and miracles cannot be expected, but still, given our current biases it has become imperative to make democracy more democratic. To do otherwise would only be to further a policy of estrangement and conflict.

A Miser, to his Mistress

Excerpts from a (Dramatised) Monologue

“Ah me, ah me, a pretty pass to be in! Oh, to be sure, to be sure, a pretty pretty pass to be in! All the world’s a stage and we misers but sidekicks on it…

What else? Don’t, and be maligned. Steel your heart and loosen the strings, and still be maligned! Ah me, ah me! What to do, where to go?

Go? Ah yes, go…that’s what I’m here for, am I not? Go, yes. But why? A surprise? Oh, a pox on it, a pox on these plaugy surprises when you know you won’t be welcome! Still, the heart’s a heart and welcome or not it will have its due. Oh well…go, for all you’re worth go…

But how?

Hmm…a pretty pretty pass to be sure! Oh, to be sure, to be sure! This or that? Hark! What’s that? Oh no, that’ll not do. Goes the wrong way and would only mean more. Hmm…should I? But that’d be 10 whole rupees– more likely than not 15. What’s the time? Hmm…she said it’d start at 9 and she has another one later. I suppose I do have time. Don’t quite need to be rash. Yes, that’s the word, rash. No need to be rash.

Ah! Here it is! Hmm…this will be just fine. Just fine. A fiver from here and then 15 from the depot, window seat all along. Nice and convenient. Just the way it should be. Hmm…

Oh dear, it’s so slow. The dratted idiots steer like the wind in the morning! Why doesn’t he push the paddle! Oh dear, oh dear…it’s been fifteen minutes already and we aren’t even out on the road. Heaven bless me! It’ll take at least an hour from the depot to there and by this rate it’d take at least half an hour to the depot itself! Dear, dear…that’ll be an hour and a half at least! What if…what if she leaves?

Oh heavens, yes, what if she leaves! What if it’s all done and over with and she goes back before I’m there? No, no, all of it can’t be over so soon. It’s bound to take some time, all that meeting and policy making and deciding and lord knows what! She can’t be over with it so soon!

But not exactly soon, is it? An hour and a half…good heavens, and here’s the road already! Oh, decide, decide! Getting down would be 5 till the station and lord knows how many after– about 20 I suppose! Total of 25. Hmm…and just 20 here. 5 bucks, 5 whole rupees. Not to forget the 5 wasted if I do. 10 bucks then. 10 rupees. Measure for measure, a pound of love, cut in the heart! 10 bucks? 10 bucks! 10 bucks?”

And he got down.