RAJGARH: Thirteen-year-old Babita of Rajgarh district ’s Amla Road village has had her fourth engagement recently. The first had fetched her parents Rs 20,000 and latest Rs 80,000 - a four time hike.

This is a tradition of selling and reselling girls for a higher bid that has been in practice among the tribals and backward population in and around Rajgarh district. Babita’s was first engaged in 2008 with Madanlal of Karedi village. She was later engaged to Bhagwan of Dhaturia village, then Ramesh of Pipalkheda village and now, Ramcharan of Rupaheda village.

It is not clear as to what amount Madanlal- the first person who got engaged with the teen- paid to the girls father, but when the engagement broke – Bhagwan, the second fiancée paid Rs 24,000 as compensation to the first one.

“I paid Rs 24,000 to Madanlal of Karedi as a part of 'Jhagda' amount,” he told TOI. This is a buyout price a sort of settlement, he added.

When Ramesh-- the third bidder, came into the scene, he paid Rs 60,000 to girl’s father--- Rs 43,000 from this amount was returned to Bhagwan who had demanded Rs 48,000 as compensation.

But Ramesh too went out of favour when Ram Charan came in with a higher bid of Rs 80,000 to marry Babita.

Amid all this change in fiancées and financial transactions that involved her the teen had no say.

“I don’t know,” is all what, the coy little girl could tell TOI.

As per local traditions each of these fiancées where made to return the payment made by their predecessors (called Jhagda Todna) and often they have to pay additional money--which is fixed by the respective panchayats--in this case the story took a different turn when the third bidder was neither provided with bride nor with ‘Jhagda’ or compensation and he subsequently lodged a police complaint.

In a story similar to Babita, Rani, 16, of Hinotia village is a mother having a child married to Inder Singh Tawar of Raghunathgarh village. She was allegedly sold by her husband to someone else of the same village who is now pressurising to take her to his home. Now she is living at her mother’s home and making rounds of police station as she doesn’t want to go to someone else’s house.

Another victim, Moni’s case is worse, despite all odds the girl, who is from Sondhia community managed to pursue her studies and is studying in BA second year. She was engaged with Manohar when she was just 8. Her fiancée is not only illiterate but a person who was booked for petty thefts.

“I don’t want to marry a thief who is an illiterate,” Moni told TOI.

“The panchayat members of Manohar’s village have passed a diktat and sought that either we let him marry our daughter or pay him Rs 2 lakh,” Navrang Bai, the mother of victim said.

These girls are not alone, but almost all women belonging to the Tawar, Sondhia, Harijan and other communities from around 1,000 villages of the Rajgarh district that comes under more than half dozen police stations share a similar fate.

“This is the manifested form of the tradition naatra, wherein women are treated as commodities and are not only sold but resold several times in the name of tradition. She becomes the source of earning for her caretakers be it father or husband,” member of woman commission, Snehlata Upadhyay who is also the in charge of Rajgarh district told TOI.

“What needs to be done is creating awareness among women about their rights with the involvement of the community,” she added.

Rajgarh Kotwali, Kalipith, Khilchipur, Zeerapur, Chapiheda, Malabar are the police stations from where maximum such cases are reported.

Areas under the first four of these police stations are the stronghold of Tawars, while the rest has mixed population of Sondhia, Tawar and other communities.

Here the role of police is often limited to ensuring law and order and responding to the complaints received, the proportion of complaints made and actual issues is very large, as mostly panchayat’s diktat works, and it is only when it fails or there are some disputes related to settlement of ‘Jhagda’ amount that police complaint is made.

A total of 55 cases of various crimes which resulted due to the naatra have been registered in various police stations of the district between January 1, 2011 and April 30, 2013.

“Police deal with the symptoms and not the disease, i.e., when this problem manifests itself in various forms of crime be it violence or other, police take action as per rules. It is basically a social problem which needs to be addressed with collaboration of civil society and government agencies,” superintendent of police, Rajgarh, Sushant Saxena said.

“What is needed is basically education and awareness,” he added.

(Names of all the women in the story has been changed to conceal their identities)

