It has been over a week since Jish (name changed to protect privacy) arrived in India after completing his mandatory military service in Israel. He savours a lemon pie and ginger tea at a popular vegan bakery-cum-café located in the narrow market lane of Dharamkot, a misty village in Himachal Pradesh’s rain-washed pine forests. A popular destination among Israeli backpackers along the Hummus Trail, Dharamkot is about two-three kilometres uphill from Mcleodganj. “This is my second visit to India,” he says, just before setting off for his painting class — one of the ways he chooses to unwind in the Himalayan landscape.

He felt compelled to visit last year in May, hearing stories through the drumbeat of social media and his friends’ first-hand accounts. He stayed in the country for nearly five months, first alone, and then for two and half months with his wife. “I travelled mostly in the Himalayas on a motorcycle. I came to Dharamkot, then went to Manali’s Parvati Valley, and then to Ladakh. On my second visit to India, we [my wife and I] have come together,” says Jish, who has served his conscription term of two years in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)’s reserve military service.

Even as the former soldier made plans to travel, the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran left its mark on his life. “Since October 2023, we have lost many friends and many civilians. It’s like an endless war between two nations, the Jewish nation and the Arab nation. Just one month before Hamas attacked us in October 2023, I got engaged. I was on the battlefield. My fiancé prepared all the stuff, you know, the wedding dress, and so on. It’s difficult,” says 25-year-old Jish, who says he joined the IDF when he was 19.

Dharamkot is known as Mini Israel, because a number of Israelis flock here after they complete their conscription terms. Around 80,000 Israelis visit India annually, according to a paper, ‘Decoding the hummus trail of India: regaining the lost prudence’, published in 2022 in Anatolia, an international journal of tourism and hospitality research. “Last year, a little over 1 lakh foreign tourists visited Himachal. This included visitors from Europe, Canada, the U.S., and Israel among other countries,” says Bhanu Gupta, joint director at Himachal’s Tourism department.

This year, however, Dharamkot’s narrow, stone-paved roads lined by tall pine trees look relatively deserted. The influx of Israeli travellers has been skewed and uneven, according to local hospitality players. Yet, over the years, the steady footfall of foreign tourists has helped the economy of this tiny village, even as the locals worry about the adverse impact of drug-laced raves in the forest.

Trailing peace

Jish says he and his wife are “here to relax” and will soon head out on their hired bike to Delhi and onward to Rajasthan. In Dharamkot, “There are different courses, like music sessions, yoga, drawing, and painting — there are so many options to unwind. In India, unlike Israel, there is more peace and Nature, landscapes, and special people,” he says, as he grabs his belongings to move for his painting class in lower Dharamkot, run by residents largely through hired instructors. Charcoal painting and pencil sketching are popular among foreign tourists in this Himalayan village.

For Jish, the trip to India is more than just about travelling. “There is a strong and deep connection between Israel and India, like a religious connection and some shared values between these two nations. India is different from Western societies that are materialistic. The trust factor is what’s really attractive in India,” says Jish, who will soon start a course in Judaism philosophy in Israel this October. He will be in India until then.

The Hummus Trail gets its name from hummus — a Middle Eastern food traditionally made from cooked chickpeas, tahini (sesame paste), lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil. The trail has many cafés and restaurants catering to Israeli travellers. The route spans several places in the mighty mountains of the Himalayas, like Kasol, Old Manali, Rishikesh, and Ladakh. It stretches across Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi and Pushkar in Rajasthan, extending to South Goa, Gokarna and Hampi in Karnataka, and Vattakanal in Tamil Nadu.

Hodaya, 23, also from Israel, has come to Dharamkot with her friend, drawn by the popularity of the Hummus Trail. “Most Israelis follow the Shvil Hummus (Hummus Trail) route in India and Nepal, as it has many cafés with Hebrew menus, Israeli music, and food. I have been in India for about two months now, travelling between Manali, Leh, and Dharamkot. It’s relaxing here,” says Hodaya, who is set to return to Israel in a couple of days. Asked how she feels about the ongoing conflict, she shrugs it off with a smile, saying, “I am used to it, so I am not stressed anymore.”

Monetising Israeli tourism

The stone walls across Dharamkot are dotted with posters in Hebrew, alongside English. In lower Dharamkot, more accessible by road than the upper areas, the bulletin boards outside cafés, restaurants, roadside stalls, and homestays on the market stretch, serve as a news feed for different events for the village’s international community. There are wellness workshops, music and art events, community activities, and notices for parties.

Narender Pathania, 54, who runs an eight-room guest house in Dharamkot, points out that the flow of Israeli travellers has been unsteady for the past three years. The first lull, he says, was in 2023. That year, on October 7, Hamas-led Palestinian armed groups crossed into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people. 

Soon, the century-old Israel-Palestine conflict — one of the longest and most-violent in the world — escalated, as Israel intensified attacks on Palestine. At least 20,179 children were killed and 44,143 children injured as a direct result of attacks on Gaza between October 7, 2023, and October 7, 2025, according to a UN commission report released on June 23, 2026. “The current total is certainly higher. Thousands of children are feared to be buried under rubble. In the 300 days after the ceasefire was announced 300 more children were killed — one child every day with still hundreds more, injured,” according to UNICEF.

The tourists, Pathania says, further dropped after the US-Israel and Iran conflict broke out in February 2026. “Almost all of them had left when the war with Iran started. Now some have returned, but the flow is lower. All my rooms, which used to be packed during these days, are vacant. It eventually brings loss. Tourism is the primary livelihood for many in our village,” he says.

Pathania adds that Israelis’ Indian sojourn lasts several months, so they prefer budget-friendly homestays over expensive hotels. “Of late, tourists come with their children. Many cafés here cater specifically to the food preferences of Israelis. They visit Manali, Srinagar, Ladakh, and even trek to Chamba from here. They go to meditation centres, lean towards spirituality. Many lie in the lush green field for hours, just relaxing,” he adds.

Vivek Kumar hails from neighbouring Dharamshala, manages routine affairs at ’Dharamkot studio’ that offers pottery and ceramic courses in Dharamkot. He says, “Among the foreigners who come to us, Israelis make up the largest share. We have different courses ranging from five to 35 days. A minimum two-hour workshop is also available to experience the process of shaping wet clay into finished objects. Most of those who enrol with us are Israelis. In their country, these things are quite expensive, as I understand from speaking with them,” he says.

Sanjeev Gandhi, chief advisor to the Hotel and Restaurant Association, Smart City, Dharamshala, who himself runs Hotel Gandhi’s Paradise at Dharamkot, shares his experience on why Israelis are drawn to the town: “Most Israelis come carrying the weight of war and stress. They come to forget. What they value most about Dharamshala is the silence,” says Gandhi, recalling a number of them telling him that the biggest draw is that they don’t hear gunshots.

Not all Israelis need to serve conscription though. There are military exemptions for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, who constitute about 13% of the population. This has triggered protests in the past, also leading to some stress among communities.

Rage against the rave

The Hummus Trail, also notorious as the Hashish Trail, is a route taken for readily available cheap drugs, says the Anatolia paper. In June 2026, taking suo motu action, the Himachal Pradesh High Court directed the transfer of three senior officers, including the then Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police of Kullu district, in connection with the alleged nexus between officials and organisers of big-scale rave parties in Kullu district.

The drug issue was addressed in the 2007 Israeli-Canadian documentary Flipping Out, directed by Yoav Shamir. It follows Israeli soldiers after their discharge as they travel to India, exploring drug use and the psychological breakdowns some experience. The film also documents Israeli officials’ response, including a meeting between the then Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai and former soldiers.

Om Prakash Sharma, a former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer, who handled several enforcement operations in Himachal, Punjab, and Jammu-Kashmir, while he worked with the NCB’s Chandigarh zone from 2002 to 2007, asserts that cultivation of cannabis and opium in remote areas of Kullu district and Mandi district of Himachal continues unabated.

“The narcotics trade cannot survive unless there’s support from the socio-political and administrative strata. Foreigners have been found involved in the illicit drug trade,” he says, adding that regular Himachali people get involved because of “local poverty” and “easy money”. The modus operandi is simple — they throw money at people. They know that forest lands and even private lands are available for cultivation at a meagre sum, he says. “These people, usually with Nepalese and other labourers, then cultivate and harvest it, after which the networks of foreigners operate its trade. Foreigners have even been marrying local women as a part of their strategy as well.”

During his tenure, Sharma busted many drug deals, including 155 kilograms of charas (hashish) in Chandigarh, smuggled out of Kullu by Israeli, Czech Republic, and Indian (Kullu) nationals, and bound for Amsterdam in 2005. “During our operations, we had recovered the foreign strain of the cannabis seeds from some foreigners’ houses. That was a hybrid seed, which clearly points to the extent of foreign involvement in the illicit drug trade,” says Sharma, who has also served as convener-cum-advisor of the Himachal Pradesh Nasha Nivaran Board, formed to curb the drug menace.

“Rave parties in secluded forest areas are being organised in the name of tourism, which is not possible without the shelter of bigwigs and administrative machinery and local political patronage,” he adds.

Monika Pathania, former councillor of Dharamkot ward, which falls under Dharamshala Municipal Corporation, says, “People talk about rave parties happening here, but that’s simply not true. Such things don’t happen at all in the village. It could be happening in remote areas where police presence is minimal, but in Dharamkot and neighbouring Bhagsunag there are police check posts to keep a tab on unlawful activities.” She insists the village is only known for its meditation centres.

Ashwani Bamba, president of the Dharamsala Hotel and Restaurant Association, explains that Israelis tend to travel in groups and usually they prefer to spend less on accommodation, but are willing to indulge when it comes to food and, as he puts it, “Other things.” Recalling that things were different a decade or so ago, Bamba points out that then, drug consumption was open. Now, not so much.

Gandhi is worried that locals too are impacted by drugs. “We have been urging the locals and administration to create a joint team to tackle the drug menace,” he says.

For many young Israelis like Jish, Dharamkot is an escape from war, a holiday of healing and hash.

vikas.vasudeva@thehindu.co.in

Kojadmal Jat’s solar farm is different from those surrounding it. In Kundanpura, a village in Bassi block, nearly an hour’s drive east of Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital, the sight of fields dotted with rows of ground-mounted solar panels is now common. On 60-year-old Jat’s land, though, tender maize unfurls under the dark glass of the panels reflecting the afternoon light. The maize, in shades of pale yellow and green, fills a space that conventional solar farms leave barren.

Jat has been working with researchers of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) on an agrophotovoltaics (APV) project.

Also known as agrivoltaics or agriPV, this is a practice in which the same land is used for agriculture and solar power generation.

His farm is part of a pilot, spread across nearly 3 acres, roughly twice the size of a cricket ground. This is Rajasthan’s first farmer-owned APV, which generates 600 kW. The installation feeds enough electricity into a local grid to provide daytime irrigation power for around 250 farms.

In 2023, inspired by the growing solar-panel-covered fields of his neighbours, Jat exchanged the uncertainties of each harvest for the predictability of monthly income. His decision exposes a dilemma at the heart of the energy transition: should productive farmland generate food or electricity? Jat was anguished by this trade-off. “My farm was generating solar power, but at the end of the day, I am a farmer. I could not come to terms with the fact that I was no longer able to cultivate my land because of the solar panels.”

India ranks 102nd out of 123 countries, on the 2025 Global Hunger Index. Converting productive farmlands to solar power plants risks intensifying food insecurity.

APV works on the principle that partial shading from solar panels can reduce heat stress and evaporation while creating a more stable microclimate, potentially valuable for farming in dry and arid regions. Laxmi Sharma, a research associate with the ICRIER team, was assigned the job of helping Jat explore the APV model. “When we showed him that he could combine farming with solar energy generation, he was delighted by the prospect of being able to do both,” she recalls.

By diversifying farm income, the model reduces dependence on a single source of livelihood and strengthens resilience to both climatic and market risks. But the economics that make APV attractive also constrain its wider adoption. APV can increase farmers’ annual returns of roughly ₹3 lakh to ₹4 lakh per acre, but elevated mounting structures add nearly ₹35 lakh over a conventional installation. For many smallholder farmers, this is simply out of reach

Farmers as solar entrepreneurs

Jat had spent a lifetime farming before turning to solar energy. Through farming he was able to earn close to ₹40,000 a year, but with these panels, his annual income has increased nearly eightfold, to about ₹3 lakh.

In mid-2024, a young team of researchers in New Delhi set out to study the viability of a farmer-owned agrivoltaics model. “When we started, there were only around two dozen agrivoltaics pilots in India,” says Sharma, who joined ICRIER in 2024 for this project. “Most were led by academic institutions or private developers and very few were actually owned by farmers.”

In Madhya Pradesh, Anand Jain, an MTech graduate from IIT Roorkee and a farmer since the 1990s, had arrived at the same question from a different direction. He started studying agrivoltaic projects in Germany and other parts of Europe, collecting data on panel height, spacing, and the microclimate created beneath them.

“Because I am a farmer, I wanted to save every inch of my land,” he says. The panels, he reasoned, should adapt to the farm, not force the farm out.

His own experiment became an early example of the kind of farmer-led model that ICRIER would later seek to study more systematically.

The ICRIER team distilled its findings in an April 2025 report titled ‘Solar as a Third Crop to Augment Farmers’ Income’. They then set out to test this idea in the field.

Rajasthan was their natural choice because the State has India’s highest solar irradiation. It was among the leading implementers of the PM-KUSUM, a Central government scheme, which offers incentives to farmers using solar energy. The ICRIER team partnered with a grassroots organisation to find a farmer willing to test the model. Their search led them to Jat.

Taking the risk

Jat and his family were intrigued but cautious. “My first question was about trust,” he says. “We are often shown ambitious schemes and glossy promises, but when things go south, we are left to navigate the uncertainty and financial risk on our own,” recalls Shiv, 36, Jat’s son, who was closely involved with his father in the APV project.

The researchers, meanwhile, had their own doubts. They wanted to know whether Jat was serious enough about farming to continue cultivating the land for the next 25 years. “For us, Kojadmal was a stranger. For Kojadmal, we were just another group of experts. Trust had to be built through multiple conversations,” recalls Laxmi.

Jat and his son say that their experience with ICRIER’s earlier work made the difference. The team had already been working with farmers on a net-house project, and they had seen their efforts first-hand. “They didn’t just come and tell us about a plan, they were there, working with us and showing us what they were doing. I had seen their team’s hard work on the ground. That is what earned our trust,” says Shiv.

They worked through the technical and financial details together, but Jat knew that the final risk would still be his. “This wasn’t free money,” says Subhodeep Basu, a researcher at ICRIER, who worked on the ‘Solar as a Third Crop…’ study. If agrivoltaics were to create farmer-entrepreneurs rather than grant recipients, Jat had to invest in the project himself and share its risks.

Trusting the process

The next challenge lay in retrofitting an operational solar plant. “A lot of individual farmers told us, ‘We already have a steady source of income. If construction means losing energy revenue during that period, we’re not interested,’” recalls Subhodeep. Hence, instead of shutting down the entire plant, they retrofitted it, one inverter at a time, allowing the remaining sections to continue generating electricity. “That way we could minimise this energy loss,” says Subhodeep.

The ICRIER team decided to advise farmers on which crops were most likely to thrive beneath the panels, while leaving the final choice to them. They would shoulder the risk and reap the returns. Jat chose maize, hoping to grow it during the off season under the cooler microclimate created by the panels, when supplies were thin and prices higher. “In May, the heat made planting impossible but this year, we harvested an abundant maize crop with much less water. The panels have made it possible to farm where it was once impossible,” says Shiv.

With the engineering finalised and the crop chosen, the last question was whether the economics could make the model viable. Like the conventional solar project, 70% of the upfront cost would come from a commercial bank loan carrying an interest rate of 10.25%. For this pilot, the additional cost of retrofitting, i.e., ₹35.3 lakh, was provided by Kotak Mahindra through their CSR programme Kotak Karma.

The electricity generated by the plant would continue to flow into the grid, where Rajasthan’s distribution utility, Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd. (JVVNL), would purchase it at ₹3.14 per unit for 25 years. The plant would generate electricity every day of the year. “To understand the financial feasibility of the pilot, we modelled two scenarios, one with viability gap funding (VGF, a government scheme) and another without it,” adds Subhodeep. Without VGF, Jat would have had to wait nearly 12 years to recover his investment. With VGF covering part of the upfront cost, that wait was cut almost in half, to just over six years. The project also became substantially more rewarding as annual profits increased from ₹3.76 lakh to ₹4.48 lakh per acre, while the expected return on investment rose from 12% to 18%.

Between promise and scale

GIZ India, a German development agency that funded the project, found that 54% of the 1,700 farmers it engaged through workshops expressed interest in adopting agriPV systems.

Another farmer who had watched Jat’s project evolve from its earliest days admitted he had often imagined replicating it on his own land. “Kojadmal could take the risk,” he says. “I’d like to as well. I already have a ground-mounted solar plant. But I don’t have the appetite to take such a big loan or put in that kind of money.”

High capital costs continue to deter participation, says Ashok Gulati, an agricultural economist and professor at ICRIER. With lending rates hovering around 10.5%, the economics remain challenging for most farmers, he adds.

“Many state distribution companies remain reluctant to sign long-term power-purchase agreements because of financial stress or surplus power. Land approvals, bureaucratic delays and shifting policy guidelines have slowed implementation,” explains Gulati.

He also suggests that a credit guarantee backed by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) could make smaller agriPV projects easier to finance. But for now, no such financing window exists, a NABARD official confirmed. What does exist is a carefully structured repayment system that gives banks confidence to lend.

Jain sees the implementation gap from the ground. PM-KUSUM is a Central scheme, but execution is entirely at the State level. “There should be a single-window system under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), so farmers are not left navigating this maze on their own.”

He took more than nine months to get the power-purchase agreement done. Meters added another hidden cost: at around ₹5 lakh each, four meters meant ₹20 lakh before the plant could even begin generating returns. “How is this feasible for an ordinary farmer?” he asks.

Further, the paperwork carries a steep price: stamp duty on registered mortgage agreements for solar projects can run into lakhs of rupees, adding another upfront cost to an already capital-intensive investment.

Rajasthan’s energy department, however, says the process has been streamlined, with nodal officers, standardised procedures, simpler land acquisition processes and the shifting of implementation from the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation to power distribution companies. The State now has over 3,000 MW of installed solar capacity and daytime power reaching farmers across at least 22 districts. But that ease is not uniform across States. In Madhya Pradesh, Jain had to deal with three separate energy departments.

Even in Rajasthan, agriPV has no dedicated procurement pathway and must compete with conventional ground-mounted solar in tenders designed around lower-cost PV, despite its higher capital costs and added agricultural benefits.

The price of possibility

Financing is only one constraint. A senior NABARD official, speaking anonymously, says weak rural-grid capacity and concerns about absorbing decentralised solar power have made NABARD cautious about dedicated agriPV financing.

Rajasthan sanctions PM-KUSUM plants only where substations have capacity and is planning large-scale battery energy storage systems to absorb surplus daytime generation, though storage adds capital costs.

While PM-KUSUM has been in operation since 2019, there is no centralised monitoring or grievance redressal cell.

Gulati argues that the next phase of PM-KUSUM must strengthen the ecosystem that supports farmers by identifying crop varieties and establishing a centralised agriPV monitoring portal under MNRE to track project commissioning, power exports, and payment timelines. It must also create a single platform for grievance redressal and coordination among DISCOMs, state nodal agencies and implementation partners.

Shirish Garud, now a consultant with The Energy and Resources Institute and a former senior fellow and director, argues that India needs a dedicated Renewable Purchase Obligation for agrivoltaics.

While the Electricity Act, 2003, already requires distribution companies to procure a fixed share of their electricity from renewable sources, the mandate makes no distinction between conventional solar and agriPV.

Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, CEO, National Solar Energy Federation of India, says that for agriPV to move beyond pilots, India must first establish a clear definition of what constitutes an agriPV project. Unlike countries such as Germany, France and Japan, which have clear standards governing agrivoltaics, India does not yet have formal standards, technical benchmarks, or eligibility criteria.

The next priority is to build a robust evidence base. “We should now scale it across all agro-climatic regions and generate reliable data on agricultural productivity, solar generation, and project economics,” Pulipaka says.

Krishi Vigyan Kendras and agricultural universities, he says, should lead these demonstrations by training farmers in identifying locally suitable cropping patterns and building confidence in the technology.

Pulipaka says farmer-producer organisations and cooperatives are fundamental to this capital-intensive, knowledge-intensive model. “FPOs can aggregate farmers, build awareness, provide technical support, and make project implementation more efficient,” he adds.

vanitabhatnagar6@gmail.com

Sixteen-year-old Lakshmi’s voice travels through the streets of Mubarakpur. She sings in the Hindi-Bhojpuri strain of Chandauli, a district in Uttar Pradesh bordering Bihar. “Apne bojh bhale Papa, lihab utaare, hamra ke deb Papa, jite di ki maari. Kam hi umar mein Papa, kar na biyah ho,” (Papa, even if you get me married thinking I am your burden, you would have killed me while I am still alive. Papa, please don’t marry me off at such a young age).

Lakshmi wrote the song for her father when she was in Class 5. At the time, her marriage had been fixed, and she had wanted to study further. When Lakshmi first sang the song, her was not convinced by its message. Eventually, with intervention from anganwadi workers and the village pradhan, he agreed to pause her marriage. Today, the streets are lined with mud houses that feature painted messages on them, announcing the need for change. 

Seated on a mat below a tree, in Mubarakpur village, with her friends from neighbourhood villages, Lakshmi holds forth. The group has gathered for a programme to fight child marriage. “I want to become a social worker and stop other child marriages in the village,” she says. Lakshmi and her friends, all girls, are finding ways to resist, and educate those around them that it is a violation of the law.

According to a 2023 UNICEF report, India accounts for 34% of child brides across the world, meaning that one in three of the world’s child brides are in India. The same report points out that Uttar Pradesh is home to the highest number of child brides. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh together have half of the number of child brides in the country. 

In Mubarakpur, where the primary occupation is farming, on a hot afternoon, when nobody is on the streets, the brown of the mud houses is contrasted by the slogans written on the outside walls. Written in blue paint by the girls, is a Hindi slogan on one of the houses , saying, ‘Every house will light a lamp, and every child will go to school,’ and on the wall of another house in red, ‘Child marriage: not now, not ever.’

Chanchal, 17, smiles as Lakshmi sings her song. Her friend’s resounding voice pushes her to open up about her own story; “I had fallen sick when I was in Class 8. I could not go out for some time, and I could hear my family planning my marriage, referring to me as a ‘bojh’ (burden).” She is one of seven sisters.

In Chandauli district, which is near Varanasi, the percentage of women between 20 and 24 years who were married before age 18, stands at 17.2%, as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, recorded in 2019-2021. This was still an improvement from the previous round of the survey, when this stood at 33.7%, recorded in 2015-2016 as a part of NFHS-4. 

Rooted in taboos and expectations

Sunita Devi, an anganwadi worker, who herself got married before the age of 18, has been working proactively to stop child marriage in the village. With sindoor on her forehead, and carrying a register in her bag always, Ms Sunita says it wasn’t easy to get started. “Initially, everyone in the village would say that I am working on it because I have daughters and I want to stop them from getting married early,” she says.

But over the past few years, 6-7 child marriages have effectively been stopped in the village. She says, “We explain to the parents that the girl is still not mature, and if she has a child at such a young age, it can adversely impact both her health and her child’s health. Some agree, others get upset with us.” 

The girls quip that they have to ask their parents for “an extension” every few years. They also tell people around them that they can be arrested under the provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. 

Ruksana Begum, the pradhan, who is seated with Sunita, helping her keep track of children who are prone to child marriage in the register, says, “When we explain the dangers to parents, they say that they do not have enough money to take care of the girl. They are also scared that their daughter will meet someone outside their ‘biraadri’ (community), so they want to marry them young, before that can happen.” 

Despite the intervention, the girls say that nobody marries of their “own choice” or outside their own caste and religion. When anyone mentions the words “love marriage”, it is often in hushed tones. 

The need for support

Lakshmi points out that it helps that the anganwadi workers and their village pradhan are women, who can understand what they are going through. While the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) provides a framework to combat challenges such as child marriage among other issues such as child labour, implementation is being driven by a combination of anganwadi workers and ASHA workers, and village pradhans, who are receiving training from grassroots-level organisations. 

The ministry mandates the formation of a Child Welfare and Protection Committee (CW&PC) at the village level, accompanied by similar committees on the district and state level. However, a committee member said that they were inactive before they were provided with additional support and training. 

One such programme that is bridging this gap is ‘KAWACH’, run by British Asian Trust, in partnership with local organisations, which aims to ensure that frontline workers are supported, trained and backed by the structures they are already a part of. Dr Neelima Pandey, who heads the programme, says, “Frontline workers are often the first to know, and the most trusted to act. With the backing of key stakeholders and the right tools and empowerment, they can become a powerful force for child protection at the community level.” 

She adds that providing such support to frontline workers like anganwadi workers has led to a significant uptick in the identification and prevention of child marriage cases in the areas KAWACH operates in, which includes UP, Bihar, and West Bengal. 

In Rampur village, this coordination has been instrumental in curbing child marriage, points out Paras Nath Singh, the village head. Inside the gram panchayat office, a list of 11 members along with their phone numbers, has been stuck on an orange-painted wall. The list includes an anganwadi worker, an ASHA worker and even child members who are tasked with informing the committee when any other child they know is about to get married.

Since the committee has become active, Mr Singh too, has found ways of determining the prevalence of child marriage. He says, “Many parents come to us to change a girl’s age in her Aadhaar card from 15 or 16 to 18. This makes it obvious that they are planning a marriage.” 

The committee advises the parents and tells them that they will be ineligible for many government programmes if they marry their daughter young, including the “samuhik vivah” or mass wedding scheme, which also provides cash incentives but on the condition that they marry after 18. 

Financial pressures

In Ghatmapur village in the same district, Roshni (name changed to protect identity), steps out of her one-room house to the newly-established grocery shop in front of their home, in a black salwar suit. She has not only escaped child marriage, but also child labour. 

Extreme poverty pushed the family to agree to take up farm labour in Thane. Even Roshni, 16, and her younger brother went with their parents to work at a radish farm. Roshni’s mother says, “We did not have any other option because we have many children, and less money. But we went there and regretted it.” 

The family includes the couple and six children, of which three are daughters. The youngest child, a toddler, is asleep on the bed as Roshni keeps shooing away the mosquitoes. 

After returning back to their village, they planned to get Roshni married for want of better options. Fidgeting with her black dupatta, Roshni says, “One day, I was coming back from school and I saw a man sitting in the house. I had a suspicion that he had come for me… I went inside and started crying.” 

With the committee telling the family about the impacts of child marriage, as well as legal repercussions, and facilitating Roshni’s re-enrollment in school, they have put a pause to the idea for now. Now in Class 11, Roshni says she likes studying Biology and wants to become a doctor. 

In the Chandauli district headquarters, inside an office, Prabhat Kumar, who is the Child Marriage Prohibition Nodal officer, says that the issue is often monetary and that families tell officers that they will “break” due to the financial burden. He says that awareness of the law is still limited, and they are starting initiatives such as terming a village a “child-marriage free village” to inspire others to do the same.

Personal and professional battles

At a monthly remuneration of only Rs 8,000 per month for workers, which is lower than the state’s current minimum wage, anganwadi workers have numerous duties including pre-school education, keeping track of children and mothers’ health, and conducting home visits. But despite no additional monetary benefits from the government for the extra tasks they are assigned with, these women have resolved to proactively fight child marriage.

A recently-retired anganwadi worker, Lalmani, tears up when she says that she was left without any incentives, pension or benefits, since anganwadi workers are recognised as volunteers and not government employees. “Even after retirement, my family members say that it is in my nature to work towards social change,” she adds. 

In Naugarh, a block in Chandauli, which is surrounded by verdant forests, a group of anganwadi workers gather in a centre after their work for the day. When asked how many of them were married before the age of 18, almost all of them raise their hands, and start sharing their stories. “I got married at 11 because of monetary issues,” says one of them.

Having spent years on the field, they observe changes in patterns too, such as the fact that younger generations are forthcoming to inter-caste and inter-religious marriage, which is pushing parents to tighten their grip over children. 

Despite this, Renu Jaiswal says emphatically, “Maa hamesha maan jaati hai” (The mother always agrees). She adds, “Because she has been through it herself, and does not want her daughter to go through the same. Explaining to fathers is the hardest.” 

Now 50, she recalls her marriage at 15, which was arranged by her family. This was before the 2006 Act. “I really wanted to study and become something but I was married in Class 10 and couldn’t continue. Many times, over the years, I wanted financial independence because I had to depend on my husband even for ₹10.” Eventually, she became an anganwadi worker in 2004. And now, she does not want anyone to go through the same. 

The workers point out that they are often threatened by families for getting “too involved in family affairs”. But this is where backing from the block and district officials helps them. When someone is not agreeing and going ahead with the marriage, they alert the local police stations too. However, this is a last resort, as the aim is not to shame families but to make them understand the cons of child marriage, they say. 

Hopeful futures

As the child representative of the Child Welfare and Protection Committee (CW&PC) Lakshmi, she is half-way to her dream of becoming a social worker and helping those around her. “One of my friends’ marriages got fixed. She asked me ‘you help everybody, will you help me too?’” Lakshmi informed the committee who counselled her friend’s family until they could stop it too. 

Now, both Lakshmi and Chanchal are studying in Class 12 and are known as champions in their schools for fighting child marriage. Chanchal, who wants to become a District Magistrate to “find solutions” to her district’s problems, was even given the opportunity to take over as the UP State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, as part of an annual tradition, in 2024. 

Her eyes light up when she recalls this day, the first time that she travelled to Lucknow. She even issued an order on a child rights issue, after receiving a complaint. With hope in her voice, she says, “Since that day, the path to becoming a DM, and addressing issues such as child marriage, has become even clearer to me.”