A country where 5% of the marriage are now inter-caste. We don’t know how much stereotype it had to break to bring up to this figure. First, recorded inter-caste marriage in modern India took place on 4 February 1889. On this date, Yashwant and Radha (alias Laxmi) were betrothed.
The inter-caste marriage is emerging but yet not popular in India because of the following broad reasons:
- Education and awareness
- Conservative thinking and mind set
- Lack of strict law and order
At first education is the prime source that can teach the society that no caste is great and all are equal. A person can marry with a person of choice belonging to any caste, creed or religion. Caste system is represented by a few holy and conservative people. These people teach us not to marry in other castes by stating that inter-caste or inter-religion marriages are against GOD’s wish.”
Ankit Saxena who was a photographer by profession and was in love with a girl belonging minority caste and the family of girl was against the affair between them. On Friday, 2 February 2018, when the girl was on the way to meet his boyfriend, she came to know that he is already dead.
According to Media, Girl’s maternal uncle was caught red handed after he slit the neck of boy (Ankit). Some media reports claims that girl’s father has killed the boy. According to boy’s family, the murder was pre-planned as both the families were present and murder happened just in front of their eyes. Boy’s mother was also beaten up and she was hospitalized after the incident.
Even in 21st century people do not have the free acceptance towards inter-caste marriage. Parents generally do not agree to such marriage because of the pressure from the society. This is the society which does not help the poor man and their sons and daughters during marriage. But the same society arrives to discourage inter-caste marriage. Obviously the whole society is not like that but off-course majority reflects the same.
There is ongoing process in which small section of society has accepted these form of marriage.
There are some common issues couples who go for inter-caste marriages face and their lives become more vulnerable:
- They lose contacts and communication with their family especially parents
- Due to threats and societal pressure, they often migrate to metro cities
- Our so-called villages courts – Panchayat/Khap Panchayat dictate their archaic religion rules
The first and foremost problem for the young couples is to persuade the society towards the acceptance of inter-caste marriage. Policy makers should run regular campaigns to convey and pursue the society that these marriages are as normal as intra-caste marriages. The police system and government have to ensure enough security so that they don’t have to migrate to other cities. They become odd example in the local area. The third and big problem of Panchayat/khap Panchayat is also disheartening for the inter-caste Couple. The Panchayat and mostly khap in Haryana are examples of using their own self-created unhuman punishment to these couple. The punishment include “tying to tree and throwing stone to new couple” or “running tractor over them is not a solution.
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This shows two important problems of our society. It’s a social disease which we have failed to arrest miserably. Our governments, police system and policymakers didn’t take the issue seriously due to political vote bank and surrendered before Muscle Power.
