It is no surprise how the powerful caste intellectuals find ways and means to justify their position, no matter how complex the incidence is.
Image: The Hindu
She is a senior journalist from NDTV. Got many awards and is known for ‘fair’ reporting from Andhra-Telangana states but one tweet actually said so many things which she might have been trying to hide under the pretext of being ‘progressive.’ The problem in this country is that ‘progressive’ have enjoyed the patronage of power for long and how they are compelled to defend things which will expose. ‘I am not justifying angry father’s killing away his daughter but it is also heartbreaking to see a daughter brought up with much love, wishing her father hangs to death, no mercy given. Can there be a worse punishment for dad,’ said Uma Sudhir in her tweet. Her husband T S Sudhir also wrote the same thing in a different way, ‘ Violence over inter-caste marriages is not justified but to look at it only through the prism of caste is not right. Madhavi’s family are goldsmiths, the boy she married work as a parcel boy at a Biryani point. Why won’t father feel aggrieved as his daughter’s choice’?
Two tweets are related to the case in Hyderabad where Madhavi, the young girl from a goldsmith family (jaati) and her husband Sandeep Dilda, a Dalit, both students were brutally attacked by her father in broad daylight. Madhavi is in a serious condition struggling for her life in the hospital.
The famous journalists are actually justifying the ‘pain’ of the father whose daughter chose a ‘pick up boy’ as a partner, against their izzat. When those who claim to be ‘writers’ and ‘intellectuals’ write such rubbish then it is more disturbing though it never surprises me how the powerful caste intellectuals find ways and means to justify their position. Agreed, parents normally are aggrieved in if their children take a different decision about marriage. No parents will welcome it unless they are unIndian in their thoughts and actions, thoroughly isolated from rest of the society. But does being aggrieved means going to the length of killing their children? So how can Uma and Sudhir condemn Khap Panchayats who are issuing farmans to control their children. I was wondering why was Pranay killed because he had all the traits as per Uma and Sudhir. Pranay, was educated as well as handsome and from a reasonably well to do family. Why was he killed? It is simple. Caste killed Pranay. Education, job, qualification does not matter except your caste.
Therefore, the second attack on two lovers in Hyderabad is nothing but a caste attack. Caste has such a dirty mind that it refuses to go away from our heart. Many of our friends wrote about how their lives matter but I say every life matters. This graded inequality is so powerful that it won’t allow even a Mala to marry a Madiga, a Chamar to marry a Balmiki or a Palla to marry a Pariah. The system is made so powerful that Baba Saheb Ambedkar had to call for its total annihilation which means the total abolition of the Brahmanical religion based on this. While I agree with the point that let us not call these marriages as project ‘annihilation of castes’ but it is also a fact that those who are doing so know each other and are consenting couples, which is a welcome sign.
I will not call these marriages as ‘inter-caste’ marriages. Marriage is not a ‘TRP’ project. It is your personal choice and I am sure as we grow, more boys and girls will opt for it. The society has been killing people since ages but it has not reduced. Our so-called activists may cry a lot but people will go and you can’t stop them unless you take one community to the moon and other to the ocean. If you are living together, these youths will rebel. Not everyone sails against the wind and those who do it have to face it. It is the failure of the state to protect them. We cannot stop asking questions about the role not played by our states. What are they doing to protect the individual’s life and liberty?
Baba Saheb Ambedkar said we are still not a society because we never respect an individual’s liberty and choices. Unless an individual is given right to decide about his or her fate, we can’t call ourselves a society. Thankfully, our Constitution acknowledged the rights of an individual but our societies and families have not allowed us to do so. The conflict between primitive ideas and the modern constitution is now clearly visible. A constitution which gave us all equal treatment but the jaati-minds would not agree to it. For them, your jaati matters more. As Madhav Rao felt or Madhavi’s father felt. These are caste killings plain and simple.
However, it is not that all such marriages are abused. The success of a marriage is not because of your being from the same community or different, otherwise, why would marriages fail in India despite the priests looking at your ‘kundalis’ and marriages being performed on ‘auspicious’ dates. Most of the Indian society, those who are either Hindus or semi Hindus or varnavadis, actually marry according to the advice of their priests and yet most marriages fail. You deem a marriage successful just because you see them riding the scooter together or participating in a marriage together but beyond that, there is a suffocation. It is also a fact that the so-called love marriages too are not based on any ideological grounds. They are the stories of ‘mills and boons’ so please do not bring any big ideological slant in them. They are simple middle-class fiction. Romantic partner, good looking (looks are too important in India) and obsession with fair skins. Once you marry whether inside the castes or outside it, love or without, you become husband and wife with a clearly defined division of labour. I have seen many who married on their own and after marriage have become typical husband and wife. Now, once you are just doing your duties, not much is expected from you.
The attempt to get legitimacy from parents and society is the most dangerous things and a honey trap. When the young fall in love particularly those from different castes, the biggest challenge for them is how to get their act legitimized. The constitution provides them but they return to Manusmriti. I am sure, no Manuwadi will ever agree to their children marrying outside their varna. They are getting exposed with their acts of desperation.
It is also important for us to speak up and guide our children that marriage is not ‘everything’ and that consenting sexual relationship may not necessarily end up in marriage. Sex and marriage in India are considered synonymous and that result in the biggest crisis of our time. When two young boys and girls enter into a relationship, it has two different narratives. Before entering into any relationship, it is important whether they want it to lead to marriage or not. The problems start from there. Secondly, unless the boys and girls are independent enough, not to look for ‘guidance’ from their ‘families’, only then they opt for it otherwise better not do it. We are witnessing this where children are committing suicide due to failure and rejection in love. It is time for a proactive approach to these issues.
Our society does not really allow you to be independent. This is my own personal experience of nearly 30 years. You live on edge and people will only come to you if you are ‘successful’. The false caste pride exists everywhere. It is doomed to fail but it will ruin the lives of our youths. While the media may make noise about it, people speak according to their caste locations and at the end, those who talk a bit of sense and reasoning are outdated and isolated. The age of technology is that you don’t work with the communities, their youth and children as that is a difficult task, it takes your time and does not give you much needed ‘publicity’. You only wake up when something happens and then these incidents provide an opportunity to everyone according to their convenience.
Last year we saw grand celebrations in London on Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle, a biracial American commoner. I watched the entire journey on BBC and it gave me a lot of insight why they remain far superior to us even today and I say it with conviction that Shashi Tharoor remains the biggest hypocrite in this case when talking about India. These anglicised brahmins who gained everything from the British want to portray themselves as a ‘superior’ race. Shashi Tharoor, your civilization is in the gutter. Please visit a Balmiki Basti or a sewage being cleaned. Your civilization is in the home of Pranay. Please meet his family and find out what is great about it. Your civilization is when the children in school refuse to eat mid-day meal cooked by the Dalit women. What rubbish these netas and ‘philosophers’ talk about. At least, at the Oxford, people listened to him and those like him clapped for him, but back home if we speak anything adverse, we face the music.
As I have said several times, India’s cultural crisis is severe. It will become further chaotic unless people think about it and find solutions together. Calling each other names is not going to solve anything. Asking children not to marry and look for love inside your castes, will not succeed and is no guarantee of a great marriage. What’s important is to strengthen individuals and their rights where the state must protect their choices.
Of course, marriage is not the end and can be broken if does not work. Once, the sanctity of marriage and sex is broken, India could become a much more humane society. Marriage within communities was purely a Brahmanical attempt to ensure purity of their castes. It is not going to help.
Those who plan ‘special’ children to maintain the purity and superiority of their race will not succeed at all. 21st century’s Ambedakrite youths are not going to accept the Brahmanical casteist dominance and will follow the path shown by him. Indian cannot call themselves a civilized nation as long as they have Dalits being killed in the gutter and in the name of castes.
The Indian state has failed. Political parties have failed. Our constitution has everything which protects the rights of the people to live according to their choice but those in charge of implementation have no respect for it. In their heart, they have Manusmriti and that is why the police fails to produce witnesses or make a foolproof case. Moreover, caste prejudices are so high in our administration and system that at the end of the day they make our constitution merely a book which has to be adored and worshipped but not implemented. Those who join our administration, police and any other government jobs, must be made to respect and follow the law of the land but also shed their own prejudices so that it is fairly implemented in the greater interest of democracy and justice.
The author is Vidya Bhushan Rawat, a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com