The Patel community has imposed a brutal boycott on 17 ‘Nai’ (barber) families of the Bhutavad village in Bhiloda taluka, even cutting off electricity to their homes, physical attacks through stone pelting and the threat of eviction from the village. Their ‘crime’? A month earlier a young Nai married, by choice a woman from the dominant Patel community and since then the social boycott has made the entire Nai community misrerable.

According to the parents of the young man, Sachin Nai and the girl, a girl belonging to the more privileged, Chowdhary (Patel) community had eloped and married a few months ago without informing either side of the families. “But a few days ago, Sachin contacted the family and appeared in front of Gandhinagar police station. But since then my son has not been able to contact his family,” said Subash Nai, father of Sachi to the New Indian Express.

“On December 9, I received the marriage certificate by post. As soon as the people in the village came to know of this marriage, they boycotted 17 families of our community and are constantly pressurising us to send the girl back else they will not let even a single family stay in the village. They have also cut off our electricity and pelted stones at the house,” he further said. Prabhudas who is one of the members of the 17 boycotted families said, “They have stopped selling milk and other groceries to the Nai families, children are not allowed to attend school, and even a pregnant woman is treated badly.”

“We tried to talk to upper caste males, they are adamant on not allowing us to live in the village,” she alleged and demanded that the district administration should intervene,” Prabhudas said.District Collector Narendra Meena said, “On Wednesday evening, the issue was brought to my knowledge. I have instructed the SDM and local officers to address the issue within 24 hours.”

Who are the Nais?

Nais (the barber caste), also known as Sain/Sen, is a generic term for occupational castes of barbers. The name is said to be derived from the Sanskrit word nāpita (नापित).  In modern times Nai in northern India refer to themselves as “Sain” instead of Nai. The Nai caste has been listed as an Other Backward Classes in various regions of India including the state of Gujarat. These include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Delhi NCR, Goa, Jharkand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tripura,, Uttarachal, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal.

The traditional occupation of Nais is barbering. The barber also has duties in connection with births, marriages and other festive occasions. Typically and ironically, the Hindu caste order, while having utilitarian even ‘customary’ roles for individuals like barbers from the more depressed castes, is still rigid and exclusionary when it comes to marriage and co-habitation as the plight of these 17 families from Bhiloda reveals. Nais even at times, act as the ‘Brahmin’s assistant’, and perform marriages for the lower castes, who cannot employ a Brahmin!!

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The post How caste hegemony has meant boycott for 17 families over inter-caste marriage: Gujarat appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On December 14, the Eknath Shinde led Maharashtra government issued a Government Resolution (GR) to the tune that a Committee headed by the state’s Women and Child Development Minister and BJP leader Mangal Prabhat Lodha will gather “detailed information about couples in interfaith and inter-caste marriages and maternal families of the women involved if they are estranged. The Committee will also oversee district-level initiatives for women in such marriages who may be estranged from their maternal families so that assistance can be provided, if needed, the resolution stated.”

The move clearly meant to police the private lives of individuals apart from stigmatising and targeting minority populations has drawn widespread criticism and opposition.

Many social organizations in the state have opposed this decision of the government calling it ‘moral policing’ and infringement of people’s right to privacy. They have raised concern that this data will be misused to monitor potential inter-caste and interfaith marriages and to discourage the same with the apprehension that such couples could be harassed. They also state that the government is ignoring real issues being faced by women in the state and should instead focus on effective implementation of laws against domestic violence and crimes against women.

Maharashtra Mahila Parishad has stated that the government does not have the right to interfere in the lives of people and nor to discipline them in any manner. By forming this committee, the government is invading people’s privacy and impinging their right to privacy. The letter points out that for any matrimonial dispute that may arise in interfaith or inter-caste marriages that may require counselling and other assistance, there are adequate grievance redressal mechanisms and organizations to provide the same. “By Collecting data, the government intends to target particular communities”. The letter states that instead the government should look at why domestic violence is prevalent in those marriages which are arranged and where both families are in agreement over the match.

Stree Mukti Andolan Sampark Samiti in its letter has stated people who endorse democracy ought to oppose this resolution by the state government and the committee that is being sought to be formed. It further states that the GR is an insult to the Constitutional provisions which bestow individual freedoms upon adults, women and men alike. To fight the caste system and to prevent communal disharmony, inter caste and inter faith marriages are a way out and this has been endorsed by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar as well.

In case people in such interfaith and inter-caste marriages are facing any issues, they are free to use the existing state machinery to redress the same. In order to ensure that laws relating to domestic violence and crimes against women are implemented effectively, the state needs to empower its agencies and create awareness about the same. The letter states that instead of doing this, the government is infringing people’s constitutional and fundamental rights and freedoms. “in reality, this so-called ‘platform’ is a misuse of the system to invade people’s privacy.

The letter has raised concerns that this data that will be collected will be used to monitor women and to shut any attempts at inter caste and inter faith marriages to keep the so-called “purity” of their castes and religions intact. The Samiti has termed this exercise of the Maharashtra government as ‘moral policing’ and one that has no legal sanction and has called for the cancellation of this GR. The letter states that Ministers wh9o have no idea about the real issues being faced by women have issued this resolution and they do not deserve to hold their post. This letter has been endorsed by Akhil Bhartiya Janvadi Mahila Sanghatna, Bhartiya Mahila Federation, Nari Samta Manch, Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat.

Political Opposition

The decision has also been opposed across party lines in the opposition. Samajwadi Party leader and Bhiwandi MLA Rais Shaikh has said that they will challenge the decision in court, “This GR is propaganda before elections. It is the concerned minister’s personal beliefs that are reflected in the GR. This school of thought divides society,” he said.

NCP leader Jitendra Awhad took to Twitter to express his dissent, “What’s this rubbish of committee to check inter caste/religion marriages? Who is govt to spy on who marries whom? In liberal Maharashtra this a retrograde, nauseating step. Which way is progressive #Maharashtra heading towards. Stay away from people’s pvt life. This is anti-constitutional and encroaching into fundamental rights and law commission has taken strong objection (sic)”. He further said that the decision to marry anyone is a personal decision and the government cannot have a say in it. This will only strengthen the caste system, he added.

Congress Maharashtra spokesperson, Sachin Sawant said, “This decision is part of a political agenda of the state government. This amounted to putting a strain on the state administration at the cost of the taxpayers’ money to further a political agenda”.

About the Committee

The intention of the government is to “provide a platform for these women and their families to access counselling, and communicate or resolve issues.” The Committee will also study policies at the Central and state levels, welfare schemes and laws regarding the issue.

On November 19, Minister Lodha had directed the State Women’s Commissioner to set up a special squad to identify women who have married without support from their maternal families, and are estranged from them, and extend support and protection if needed. This was done in light of the murder of Vasai resident Shraddha Walkar in Delhi allegedly by her partner Aaftab Poonawala, reported Indian Express.

The Committee is assigned with the task to hold regular meetings with district officials on the issue and to review work on seven parameters, mainly to collect information on registered and unregistered intercaste and interfaith marriages; on such marriages that have taken place in religious places of worship; and on those that have taken place after elopement [of the couple]. Further, data will also be collected from the stamp duty and registrar offices; contact newly married women involved as well as their maternal families; find if they are in touch with each other; obtain the addresses of the women’s maternal families in cases where they are estranged and contact the parents in such cases; and take the help of counsellors for parents who are “unwilling” [to resume contact], reported IE.

Background on Inter-Caste Unions

Maharashtra has had a long history of progressive thought that has backed such unions. Dr. Bhimrao  Ambedkar’s way of thinking about the evils of caste, community and gender discrimination, was evidenced in the Constitutional provisions and subsequent laws like the Special Marriages Act. During the colonial period, Babasaheb Ambedkar was in direct contact with the women who were acutely suffering of his own community and seen the realities of caste discrimination in day-to-day life as an insider belonging to the caste of untouchable community. He had made attempts to erase the stratification among the castes by promoting inter caste and inter community marriages, secularising the society we live in. He actually prescribed inter-caste marriage as the real remedy for the abolition of caste and for India to move towards a caste-less, equality driven society. Criminalising of every inter faith relationship awaiting the State’s blessings, and discouraging assertion of women voices is against the Constitutional vision that Babasaheb dreamt of.

State incentives for inter-faith marriages:

Several states, including Maharashtra have been moving up the path of social reforms attempting to encourage the idea of a caste less society, one that Babasaheb envisaged to liberate men and women from the shackles of regressive notions and critical religious texts. The State of Maharashtra had planned to provide special concessions such as fee waiver to the children born out of inter caste and inter-religion marriages. In 2018, the Social Justice Minister of Maharashtra had said that the couples where spouses are from different religions or castes have to face various problems, including social boycott and the threat of honour killing and hence, besides other aspects, a law in place will focus on what kind of protection can be given to the couples who are facing such threat. Honour is in the attempt to achieve that glory by encouraging States to come up with incentives to encourage inter faith unions. The Act and the Ordinance aims to take ten steps backward against the spirit of national unity and fraternity.

The Right to Love campaign run by Sushant Asha and Abhijit K in Maharashtra, both journalists cum social activists, helps inter religious couples facing opposition to avail protection by police, legal help to get marriage registered, counselling to deal with the mental pressure and also in finding job opportunities. With such laws in place impinging on your free will and right to conscience, the significance of the work and efforts put in by such individuals becomes even more stark.

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The post M’tra Govt’s move to set up “Commission” on inter-caste, interfaith marriages strongly opposed by women’s groups, Opposition appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Tamil Nadu government has recently announced that it has ended the practice of issuing “class-based community certificates” to children of ‘inter-caste’ couples. The New Indian Express reported that henceforth “children of parents who belong to different castes will get community certificates mentioning the caste of either of their parents”. This will be in compliance of a recent order issued by the Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare Department. 

According to the news report, this is expected to benefit BC (‘backward class’) and MBC (‘most backward class’) couples, and “provide relief to partners” if one of them belongs to the Arunthathiyar SC community, that has faced unending dircrimination even decade after Independence. According to a 2019 report in TNIE the community’s ‘caste-based’ job was to dispose of the echil elai (used banana leaf plates) at the functions organised by other caste people. Most of the Arunthathiyars were also deprived of the benefits of reservation, and survived by doing jobs that others did not want to do.

Arunthathiyar are the ‘lowest’ group and are often refered to as the ‘Dalits of the Dalits’ stated a report by the International Dalit Solidarity Network. According to the IDSN report, “Almost all manual scavenging (sanitary) work is done by Arunthathiyar; they comprise the majority of those subject to illegal ‘bonded’ labour, often through usurious loans; an overwhelming majority of untouchability practices are practised on them (even by other Dalits); 95% are landless; and Arunthathiyar women are disproportionately affected by sexual exploitation. When Arunthathiyar complain, it often brings a backlash from the dominant community. Arunthidiyars receive less than 10% of employment and education reservations (to correlate with their proportion of the Dalit population, this should be at least 30%); they are under represented on committees concerned with Dalit welfare and rights and those committees do not function properly. They are under-represented in local government (even when elected they are dominated by others so that Arunthathiyar wards/areas of the village miss out).”

The TNIE stated that, “To encourage inter-caste marriages, the State government in 1975 allowed children of such couples to be identified with either the community of the father or mother. Besides changing the conventional practice of identifying children with their father’s caste, the move was aimed at encouraging men to marry women from ‘lower’ castes.” 

Now, the TN government has announced that community certificates would be issued based on a “declaration submitted by the parents, and the declaration would be applicable to all children of the couple”. As per a Government Order issued in 1975, a marriage between people belonging to any two categories among BC, SC, ST and FC, would be considered as an inter-caste marriage. The news report added that “children of inter-caste couples have been issued community certificates mentioning the four classes — BC, SC, ST and FC — without mentioning caste.”

It was in 1989, that the State government divided Backward Classes into BC and MBC, creating a new category with additional reservation benefits in education and employment. Marriages between people belonging to BC and MBC categories were also recognised as inter-caste marriages. However, “Revenue officials refused to issue MBC certificates to their children since both BC and MBC castes were listed as a Backward Class in 1975,” reported TNIE. It explained that when a BC man marries an MBC woman, their children are entitled to MBC certificates, “However, since both castes were listed as BC in 1975, such requests were turned down by Revenue authorities, and resulted in multiple litigations in the High Court.” In 2009, a separate sub-quota was introduced for Arunthathiyars in the SC category. Hence, when a woman of the Arunthathiyar caste marries an MBC/BC/FC man, their children are given SC certificates, instead of SC (Arunthathiyar), which gets preference in the SC quota. The news report quoted a  senior revenue official explaining, “The government did not recognise ‘castes’ in 1975 just to eliminate the caste-based differences. Now, children of inter-caste couples will get certificates as per the latest community classification mentioning their castes.” 

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The evil nature of man came to light last week when an incident from Karanataka’s Gadag district was reported. A couple was stoned to death, allegedly by the family members of the girl over their inter-caste marriage, something that the girl’s family had disapproved right from the beginning, reported Times Now.

The victims, Ramesh Madar and GangammaLamani got married a little over four years ago and were parents to two children. Gangamma belonged to the Lamani community while Ramesh belonged to the Dalit community.

The couple, who worked as labourers, had left their native village Lakkalakatti and moved to Shivamogga. They were asked never to return by the village elders, but they visited the village on November 6. Spotting them on a road, some people from the Lambani community attacked the couple and later stoned them to death, the police said.

“Our investigations are on. There’s a progress in the case, which we cannot disclose at this point,” said a police officer at the Gajendragad police station. The police have not come up with a clear picture. Ruling out honour killing, they say that the death was a result of personal enmity between Ramesh and Ravi, Gangamma’s brother.

This is just another case in the long list of such disgusting crimes fuelled by communal disharmony. In September this year, a 20-year-old Dalit youth from Bhadesa area of Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh was set ablaze by the relatives of a girl whom he was in a relationship with.

In the same month, a 19-year-old tribal woman from Madhya Pradesh was allegedly beaten up and paraded half-naked by the members of her own community for being in love with a man from another tribe.

In June, a pregnant 21-year-old woman was shot dead, allegedly by her teenage brothers in Indore for marrying outside her caste.
 

How the government is helping

The veins of the caste system are immensely wide-spread and deep-rooted in our society. But there have been attempts to slowly educate and create awareness regarding acceptance of inter-caste marriages, so that innocent lives are not lost in the name of caste.

According to the reports by India Human Development Survey (IHDS), at present only 5% marriage are of inter-caste/religion nature – which suggests there is an urgent need of promoting such marriages through incentives.

In June 2019, the Madras High Court in a judgement endorsed inter-caste marriages saying that it is the only panacea to root out the evil of the caste system.

While extending incentives to couples entering in an inter-caste marriage, Maharashtra Social Justice Minister Rajkumar Badole had said that inter-caste marriages were the most effective ways to break the shackles of caste hierarchy. Maharashtra offers incentives of Rs. 2.5 lakh to inter-caste couples who wed at mass marriage ceremonies organised by the Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Samata Pratishthan (DBASP).

The Odisha government doubled its incentive amount from ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh, which will be given to couples irrespective of their economic status. Between 2010 and 2016, 4100 couples who married outside their caste received these cash incentives. The couples can use the money to purchase land or household things.

The Bihar and Haryana governments pay Rs. 1 lakh to people who marry outside the caste. In Himachal Pradesh, the incentive was enhanced from Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 75,000.

In Karnataka, inter-caste couples can get Rs. 3 lakh if the wife is from a Scheduled Caste community and Rs. 2 lakh if the husband is.

However, though the schemes are in place, not all is rosy for couples in such marriages. Firstly, not many are aware about such incentives being offered by the government. Secondly, owing to bureaucracy and red-tapism, couples who do apply for the benefits have to end up waiting for a couple of years, till the time-limit to avail said benefits expire and they’re left in the lurch.

Thus, incentives and mere protection from assaulters are not enough to eradicate this evil caste system. The government may have measures in place, but the implementation of these measures, dissemination of their benefits and continued education against such barbaric acts is of utmost importance to secure and encourage the future of couples in such a union.

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The post ‘Caste’ing evil: Inter-caste couple killed 4 years after marriage in K’taka appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“In the FIR, the 19-year-old Priyanka Shete has mentioned that her family has been threatening to kill her as she wants to get married to a person who belongs to lower caste. We have registered an FIR against three persons of her family and further investigation is underway,” the police said.

FIR has been registered under sections 344 (wrongful confinement for ten or more days), 352 (assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication).

Shete’s counsel, Advocate Nitin Satpute, said that the police did not make arrangements for her security despite receiving a request. “What we see here is a clear violation of the Supreme Court’s order in the Lata Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh case. In any situation where a couple comes under threat for planning an inter-caste marriage, it is the duty of the state to protect their lives. Nobody can stop their marriage. In fact, the government offers Rs. 50,000 for inter-caste marriages, especially if the groom belongs to the lower caste. But the police here seemed least bothered to protect this couple, forcing us to approach the court,” Satpute said.

Earlier Ms Shete had sought protection under Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees personal liberty to every citizen, because her family was opposed to their relationship.
 

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A vacation bench of Justices M.S. Karnik and R.I. Chagla was hearing a petition filed by Shete through her counsel Nitin Satpute.

Shete, a 2nd year Law student, belongs to the Maratha community and fell in love with Aghwade, who is from the Maang (Matang) caste, during her studies. They had decided to get married after Aghwade attained the legally marriageable age.

The petition states that Shete’s parents are against inter-caste marriages and they tortured her when they came to know about her affair with a lower caste boy. It further states that Shete’s family threatened to kill the couple if she continued to meet him. Shete has further alleged that she was tortured so badly that she tried to commit suicide by consuming a lot of medicines on February 26.

Shete was then admitted to the Pavna Hospital at Pune where, after receiving necessary treatment, the hospital’s doctors referred the matter to the Talegaon police station as a medico-legal case. However, it was alleged that the police did not take any action. Later, in March, the petitioner’s parents recounted the entire matter to the petitioner’s paternal uncle who is an advocate. Allegedly, her uncle got infuriated at the petitioner and threatened her by brandishing a handmade (Katta) illegal firearm. He allegedly threatened to kill her “if she failed to break all relation with the lower caste Maang (Matang) boy.”

Thereafter, the petitioner was restrained from studying law. On April 27, when her parents tried to forcibly take her to Tamil Nadu, she ran away and contacted Aghwade.

The petitioner states that she has no faith left in the police machinery. She has sought action against her father and uncle. Further, she seeks protection of her Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 of the constitution. She has even pleaded for police protection for her partner and his family.

The state government told the bench to direct Shete to make a specific complaint at the police station. Accordingly, the bench directed a officer from the Talegaon MIDC police station to look into the allegations and ensure the petitioner’s safety.

Such instances are not the first of its kind in India, a land of diversity wherein a rigid caste hierarchy is unfortunately yet ingrained.

India has a long history of ‘honour’ killings, where couples are murdered for falling in love outside their communities. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), between 2014 and 2015 alone, the number of honour killings in India increased by 798%. There have been more than 300 cases of honor killing from 2014 to 2016 with 251 cases in 2015 alone.

States such as Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are leading in such extra-judicial killings. Even in Haryana, where the infamous khap panchayats rule, such cases are often seen.

It is significant to note that such a heinous and regressive crime is not the monopoly of any particular religion. Though dominated by the Hindu Brahminical society, honor killings have taken place even in Christians and Muslims.

In a patriarchal society like India, women are considered as the torchbearers of honour of the family. Any attempts by them to assert their rights is seen as an attack on the culture and norms of the community. Thus, when a woman decides to fall in love beyond the social barriers of caste and class, it enrages her family. In India, regrettably, social status is given so much importance that such families prefer killing their daughters and/or their husbands so as to preserve their prestige in the society. Apart from curbing a woman’s individuality,  such crimes reinforces the caste hierarchy in our country.

In 2006, the Supreme Court in a judgement had called such cases of honor killing ‘barbaric.’ However, till date, there are no separate laws for such an atrocious crime. Those found guilty are tried under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, usually for homicide and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

India urgently needs new laws to tackle this growing culture of ‘honor crimes’ which are nothing but patriarchal crimes against love and an attempt to control a woman’s sexuality and choices.
 
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Whilst in other countries an increase in education levels correlates with a decrease in endogamous marriages–marriages within a specific social, ethnic or caste group for the purpose of entrenching community boundaries–the education levels of individuals in India appear to have no bearing on the likelihood of marrying someone from a different caste, according to a new study.

The education level of the groom’s mother is the leading determinant of an inter-caste marriage: The better educated the groom’s mother, the higher the chances of an inter-caste marriage.

These are the findings of a 2017 study by the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi, which used data from the latest round (2011-12) of the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS-II) to examine the impact of education on one of India’s most resilient caste-based practices.
This is the first time a study has looked at the impact of education on inter-caste marriages in India, highlighting stark contrasts with other countries. Studies on “out-marriages” have been conducted before in other countries, such as the US and Brazil, but they were on racial and ethnic lines.

The Indian institution of arranged marriages, and consequently the unique decision-making role played by parents in pairing potential spouses, is a significant reason for differences with other countries. Any analysis on education’s impact on the prevalence of inter-caste marriages therefore “must consider parental attributes along with individual ones”, the study said.

Out-marriages have typically been seen as a measure of social cohesion and a key indicator of assimilation between various social groups, particularly in the US.

Marrying outside rigid caste boundaries that an individual is born into remains taboo in most parts of India, which can lead to social ostracism and even inter-family/community violence. This despite attempts–such as enshrining individual rights in the constitution and affirmative action policies–to reduce caste discrimination since Independence.

In recent weeks, media reports of a caste-killing in Telangana sent shockwaves around the country. Pranay Kumar, 23, was attacked in broad daylight with a machete while leaving a local hospital with his pregnant wife. The murder was allegedly arranged by an upper-caste father unhappy at his daughter’s marriage to a Dalit man–he reportedly paid a hitman Rs 15 lakh as the first installment.

Individuals lack agency in their own marriage decisions
A 10-year increase in the education level of the groom’s mother produces a 1.8% increase in the probability of inter-caste marriage, equal to 36% of the sample mean, according to the study. An increase in the education levels of the groom, bride or other parents show no significant impact.

Why is the groom’s mother most influential in determining her son’s marriage outcomes?

A better educated mother makes a household more gender-balanced and tends to yield more bargaining and decision-making power, the study suggested.

Mothers in developing countries also tend to be more responsive to their child’s needs, using any available resources in their interests, compared to fathers who are more likely to spend on adult goods, such as tobacco and liquor. Hence, they are more likely to support a son’s preference for an inter-caste marriage, if the social cost is not too high, the study stated.

These two factors combined mean there is a higher likelihood of an inter-caste marriage.

However, the same cannot be said for the bride’s mother. She is less likely to support an inter-caste marriage, as a bride’s family generally bears more stigma than the groom’s in a marriage that transverses caste boundaries.

Academics look to to ‘honour killings’–largely perpetrated by the bride’s family, in which either the bride or both of the spouses are killed–for anecdotal evidence of this relationship. Families and close relatives are still the “main players in the marriage market in India”, holding inordinate levels of decision-making power, said the study.

As many as 73% of respondents to the IDHS-II survey said their marriages were arranged; of those who had chosen their partners, 34% still only met their future spouse for the first time on their wedding day.

This also holds true for inter-caste marriages, where 63% did not meet before their wedding day, indicating that the majority of these couples barely knew each other before, limiting the extent to which these could be viewed as “love matches”.

While 27% of women surveyed believe they chose their own partner, they may have had negligible roles in the decision-making process, and this number could be exaggerated, the study said.

Further, 98% couples in inter-caste marriages also lived with parents after marriage, reinforcing the idea that these marriages are sanctioned by both families, rather than a rebellion against the machinations of the Indian marriage market.

Economic development has not produced more inter-caste marriages
“Caste endogamy it appears, is much more pervasive than expected in the face of economic development and the expansion of market forces,” the study said.

Though the accepted belief is that arranged marriages decrease and out-marriages increase as a result of social changes enforced by industrialisation, education and urbanisation–known as the modernisation theory–the low-rate in inter-caste marriages in India refutes this trend.
There has been no increase in the rate of inter-caste marriages over time, and during a period when urbanisation increased in India, remaining at roughly 5% between 1970-2012.

The average for 2000-2012 is marginally higher than 1971-80 and 1981-90 but not statistically different from the previous decade, 1990-2000, the study said.

No more than 11% of Indians lived in urban areas in 1901, compared to 34% (460 million) in 2018–a figure which is predicted to rise to 600 million by 2030, according to this 2018 United Nations report.

Trend In The Rate of Inter-Caste Marriages, 1970-2011

Source: Whose Education Matters? An Analysis of Inter-Caste Marriages in India

Indeed, metropolitan areas have a lower rate of inter-caste marriages (4.9%), compared to 5.2% in rural areas.

The comparative economic status of both families at the time of marriage also had no effect on the rate of inter-caste marriages, with the rate actually going down as household assets and income levels increase.

Richest households by assets had an inter-caste marriage rate of 4.0%, compared to 5.9% for the poorest.

Whether the husband’s family had the same, better, or worse status than the wife’s family at the time of marriage had no bearing on the inter-caste marriage rate.

Far from being love marriages, inter-caste marriages then are most likely to be optimum and family-sanctioned matches that serve as a form of status exchange in the established marriage market.

Discrimination still exists, however, and there can be a premium attached to income and class.

Interest in inter-caste-marriage was found to increase with income among scheduled castes (low-caste groups) but decrease with income among high-caste groups, according to this 2016 survey of 1,070 upper-caste females from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

(Sanghera is a writer and researcher with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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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

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Today, DrAmbedkar’s warning is coming true. India is at the cross roads. It may be declared as one of the most dangerous countries to visit but the fact is for a huge number of Dalits and Adivasis in this country, the society has been a nightmare. Every day, we witness such cruelty for which words are not enough but the last four years have only strengthen those forces who have perpetuated the caste crime. Prior to that, there was a bit of acceptance and guilty conscience feeling but now it is more as a right and show of absolute disregard towards the democratic constitutional norms. I have always maintained that this country has given youth a right to vote and elect our prime minister or our government which we all feel extremely proud of, yet the youth in this country decide who to love, what to eat and what to wear and who to marry ? In the last four years, these issues have been aggravated. The entire campaign against self-arranged marriages in this country in the name of ‘Love Jehad’ was basically nothing but to stop parents supporting any such marriage. Parents do not support intercastes, inter-faith marriages except for a very tiny minority who stand with the choice of their children but a majority do not accept it.  Most of them accept after several years when they become ‘grand-parents’. Here too, the case has not merely a caste bias but patriarchical element too. If the girl is a caste Hindu while the boy a Dalit, the acceptance is difficult. You have to change. The humiliation is complete. I know a friend from Tamilnadu, now settled in Delhi, faced this dilemma. His sister fell in love with a Brahmin boy. The marriage was to be solemnized in Chennai and the entire family went there. The Brahmin family did not allow the bride’s maternal uncles to ‘perform’ the ‘kanyadanam’, instead they asked their own people to do it. The bride’s family was kept completely isolated during the marriage ceremony. They all return with deep resentment though the girl got what she wanted. She even compelled her mother to give her dowry. Many times, our youngsters want to get everything even at the cost of humiliating their parents. These marriages do not have a clear understanding of social cultural situation and hence after the temptation is over, they face the brutal realities of our life.

There are two important cases where the victims are the Dalits. One officer of the Indian Police Service in Uttar Pradesh committed suicide just a few days back. Though not much was heard about him but Surendra Das, Superintended Police, Kanpur took poison and died. According to news reports his marital life was not running well. His wife was a doctor and belonged to the so-called upper caste community. It was also reported that he searched on Google the pattern to commit suicide. The marital discord resulted in his suicide reflect the uneven nature of relationship between a person belonging to the Dalit community and that from the other castes.

Every year many young couples are butchered to death by the false pride of the castes. These shameful murders in the name of protection of ‘caste identity’ or its supremacy is the biggest threat that India has and unless we resolve to become a social democracy, our political democracy would be in a peril and just for the name sake. India is a hugely diverse country with multiple languages, religion and regions yet there are certain common traits right from the north to south, from east to west, between the Hindus and the Muslims, the Christians or Sikhs and that is the culture of caste supremacy and a hatred against the Dalits. All religions and regions of India have castes and practice the pernicious caste system and untouchability. The hatred towards those who challenge the basic supremacy of the caste system is enormous and they face the death penalty.

 Murder to protect caste pride
Pranay and Amrutha were in love since 2011 when both of them were students.Pranay belonged to Christian community though his Mala identity remained with him. The girl belonged to Vaishya or Bania community and her father was a realtor. They got married on January 31^stand  were planning to settle abroad. Pranay had done is B.Tech and his brother was doing his MBBS in Ukraine. The 24 year old Pranay and his wife decided to stay put because of the pregnancy of Amrutha.  On 14^th September when Pranay and Amrutha were going to the doctor for the her medical check-up, a person attacked him from the back and killed him on the spot.Amrutha had always feared about the same as she was threatened by her father MaruthiRao and her uncle yet despite their opposition and protest she decided to be with Pranay showed that love will always conquer hatred.

MaruthiRao is a Bania or Vaishya caste person. Remember, a few months back how they opposed author KanchaIllaih for his remark about the community. For several days, they were abusing him and were really seeking his blood. Political leaders used the opportunity to fan the protest. Children were asked to urinate on Illiah’s photograph and women shoeing his photograph. Today, MaruthiRao killed his daughter to protect his caste pride. He has no shame in doing so. We don’t know what is left for him or whether he is too much confident of getting thing done in the courts. It also reflects the dirty Indian minds who are caste supremacists and refuse to change. Our education, our economic growths havenot change our attitude towards life. We remain deeply a psychic society unready to accept the growing changes in the society. Have we heard any Hindu organisations, Babas, SanghParivar, Hindu Mahasabha, Spritual leaders speaking against this heinous crime ? Will the Banias or Vaishyas as they are called in Telangana, speak up against this murder and isolate like Rao?
When KanchaIllaih was attacked, most of the political leaders did not come in support of him. They felt he crossed the limit. Many felt that they have business and work with all the communities so cannot annoy them. Even today, I can bet, most of the Hindus will have the same attitude. They will not speak thing openly but they would definitely justify the act of MaruthiRao. Let us see how this case moves ahead.

MaruthiRao as reported in the newspaper justified his act and admitted doing so. The New Indian Express reported on the issue“During interrogation, MaruthiRao reportedly told police that Pranay and his daughter were in a relation from class IX. When the couple were in intermediate, they had reportedly run away. “I managed to bring her back. I did not want to trouble Pranay, so I did not file a case against him,” he is reported to have said.  According to police sources, MaruthiRao also said, “I love my daughter very much, but I am not interested in her love marriage with Pranay.’

I tried to convince her several times, but she did not listen to me. I am more concerned about my status in the society than my daughter. I am not worried about killing Pranay. I was prepared to go to jail and planned the murder.” Both the duo and the contract killers were nabbed in the city. Police also found that MaruthiRao had forced DrJyoti, who was treating Amruthavarshini, to abort her child. He reportedly offered a huge sum for the exchange of favor.”
http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2018/sep/16/nalgonda-honour-killing-father-in-law-three-others-detained-over-dalit-youths-murder-1872550.html
 
Amrutha knew her father’s attempt to stop her friendship with Pranay. After marriage, she was aware of the threat to the love of her life but somehow they were unable to do so. You can’t trust the administration and police to protect you once you challenge the social norms. Pranay lost his life to absurd and rigid social norms of India prescribed the Manu and now justified by numerous babas and their political chelas just for the sake of their vote bank. A politics of hatred has emerged out of these love affairs. The term Love Jehad was created to hound the Muslims but the fact is that the Hindutva’s followers do not want people to mingle beyond their castes. The varna dharma has caste supremacy based on the purity of their sex. They don’t want children outside the wedlock of their own castes and maintain the purity of their ‘blood’. The entire issue of purity is nothing but concept of racial supremacy which has not got exposed.

The slogan Hindus must unite is very easy and the easiest factor for them is to keep on their anti-Muslim ranting. How will the Hindu dharma get united when it does not allow people to marry beyond their castes? Will prime ministerNarendraModi, Amit Shah, RSS or art of living Baba speak on these issues as why our youngsters are being butchered in brutal manners. All those who are worried of Hindu dharma must speak up against such butchery. You have killed Pranay but more than that you have killed your daughter and her happiness. The psychological scars that she must have been facing today of this barbaric act would take a lot of time and courage to fill.

Amrutha is courageous which is why she chose her love over the money and everything that her father had offered. Love transcends everything.

According to The Newsminute report
“When they knew that I was talking to him, my uncle manhandled me,” she said. Speaking to the channel, Amrutha said that she had known Pranay since 2011 and that the two of them were planning to go abroad and settle there soon. However, they postponed their plans when they came to know about the pregnancy. She further added that she will not abort the fetus and said, “I will keep the baby with me as his gift.”
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/only-my-father-capable-doing-amrutha-wife-murdered-telangana-dalit-man-88381
 
Will Amrutha emulate Kausalya
The stories such as Amrutha and Pranay are plenty in this country. The loveless country never wants young couples to enjoy their life and fun. Already, our lives are filled with troubles and hatred and whatever time and opportunity that we get to make love is consumed in worries of future and social acceptability. Youngsters have been killed for just being in love as their parents felt their caste supremacy was important and must remain pure and intact. Marriage beyond caste and religion actually threaten their ‘purity’ and hence they have no shame in even killing their own children.

In March 2014, we saw one of the most brutal murder of Shankar who happened to be a Dalit, for falling in love with Kausalya who belonged to a powerful OBCs who resented her affair with Shankar even when Shankar’s parents had accepted her. Kaushalya’s parents and other relatives hatched a conspiracy and murdered Shankar in the broad daylight in a busy street of Coimbatore city. Again the murder was very brutal but Kaushalya stood up with Shankar’s family and fighting to get her parents punished. She has shown exemplary courage in fighting against this social evil and today she has become a role model in Tamilnadu, a voice of reason fighting against caste discrimination.

Amrutha has the biggest challenge. She has to take care of herself besides standing with the parents of Pranay. We wish her strength and hope that she will see that the murderers are prosecuted and brought to justice. I salute her for her stand and I hope she remains on that solidly like Kauslya. They are far superior to those women who have seen such cases and yet surrendered to their families and kept their mouth shut. There are many such stories where compromises are done.

I wont say don’t love as being in love is the most dangerous thing today but I would definitely advice the young couples to ensure that they are economically independent and are not depended on their families. Please never trust your families. The problem is once they marry they feel that they are safe and the parents would accept them. It is not that simple. In most of the cases, it seems, the girls are in touch with their parents particularly mothers or others. In our caste based society, women don’t have any say and hence mothers mostly become part of the project that father hatch. It is sad but reality of our time. Things have not changed in India that way where parents could respect your choices beyond caste identities.

Let us hope that the criminals like Maruthi Rao get severest punishment but we need to do much more than this and not merely been reacting to them. It is time when we focus on the social and cultural crisis that India suffer from and try to resolve it. Politicians and governments won’t do it for sure. Power will never touch these issues. Only an awakened society can do it. As love bloom in the air, hatred will disappear and caste supremacy will have to go and that is the reason why we are afraid off. India’s current crisis revolves around its anti-democratic society which does not allow its children to enjoy life for the fear of losing the caste purity. Only a complete annihilation of caste will ensure success of our democracy but will caste supremacists be ready for it ?

Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter @freetohumanity Email: vbrawat@gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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Bhubaneshwar: In a bid to encourage inter-caste marriage in the state, the Odisha Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe development minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi announced a hiked incentive of Rs. 2.5 lakh from Rs. 1 lakh on Wednesday.
 
The incentive was increased to keep pace with the times and encourage more inter-caste marriages for social equality and removing untouchability, the minister said.
 
“Odisha had last time increased the amount from `50,000 to `1 lakh in 2017. A marriage in which one of the spouses belonged to the Scheduled Caste and the other belonged to a non-Scheduled Caste would be considered for the incentive. According to the rule, the couple shall have to apply for sanction and will have to execute a bond,” reported The Asian Age.
 
“The couple has to refund the amount within a year if the marriage ends in divorce within five years,” a government official said in the report.
 
“The incentive amount would be deposited in a joint account of the couple in any nationalised bank and they would be able to withdraw the amount only after three years of marriage, he said,” reported The Business Standard.
 
“The amount would be given to the beneficiaries, irrespective of their economic background. Majhi said they can purchase land or other household articles with the money,” the report added.
 
In 2015, The proposal to encourage inter-caste marriages was first discussed in the meeting of the Scheduled Caste Welfare Advisory board under the chairmanship of state chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
 
In 2017-18 fiscal, as many as 543 couples availed the benefit, for which the state government spent Rs. 2.65 crore as an incentive. Similarly, 3,800 married couples availed the incentives under the provision in the last five years. The maximum number of married couples to get the benefits were from Balasore district followed by Cuttack and Jagatsinghpur districts.
 
At least 17 per cent of the state’s population belongs to SC.
 
What PM Modi had announced in 2017
The Dr. Ambedkar scheme for social Integration through inter-caste marriage’ was started in 2013 by the then UPA government led by Congress. The target was to provide a monetary incentive to at least 500 such inter-caste couples per year. As per rules, such couples whose total annual income does not exceed Rs. 5 lakh are eligible to get a one-time incentive of Rs. 2.5 lakh from the Centre. The scheme was for all couples where either the bride or the bridegroom is a Dalit. The other pre-conditions were that it should be their first marriage, and it should be registered under the Hindu Marriages Act, with the proposal being submitted within a year of marriage, Financial Express had reported in 2017.
 
The scheme fared poorly as only five out of the promised 500 couples received the sum and only the Hindu marriages were eligible, rejecting cases under Special Marriages Act.
 
“As against an annual target of 500 couples, merely five were given the sum in 2014-15. In 2015-16, only 72 of the 522 couples who applied were approved, while 45 of the 736 applications were cleared in 2016-17. This year, of the 409 proposals it has received so far, the social justice ministry has cleared only 74 couples. According to officials, the low approval rate is often due to the fact that the couples don’t meet all the pre-conditions. For instance, only intermarriages registered under the Hindu Marriage Act are eligible, disregarding the several cases registered under the Special Marriages Act,” the report stated.
 
The report added that the scheme’s stated purpose was to counter the Hindu practice of marrying on the “traditional grounds of jatis (castes) and up-jatis (sub-castes).” The idea is derived from the teachings of Babasaheb Ambedkar, who said that caste and endogamy (the custom of marrying within one’s own community) are the same things. He had noted that “Prohibition, or rather the absence of intermarriage — endogamy, to be concise — is the only one that can be called the essence of caste” and advocated “fusion” through intermarriage (exogamy).
 
Other Indian states and their incentives
Haryana had announced a similar scheme in January 2018 with a Rs. 1.01 lakh incentive. “In Haryana, beneficiaries of the Mukhyamantri Samajik Samarsta Antarjatiya Vivah Shagun Yojana could apply for incentives for inter-caste marriage within three years from the date of their marriage instead of one year, earlier. Under the scheme, a grant of Rs 1.01 lakh was given to a Scheduled Caste person of Haryana who married a non-Scheduled Caste person. The scheme was launched to promote communal harmony and for encouraging inter-caste marriages,” the Indian Express reported.
 
Rajasthan government was one of the first to incentivize inter-caste marriages under the Dr. Savita Ben Ambedkar Inter-caste Marriage Scheme in 2006, offering financial help to couples who break caste walls. “The initial incentive was Rs. 50000, which rose to Rs. 5 lakh.
But Rajasthan later put conditions to curb an increase in the number of fake marriages and divorces under the inter-caste marriage scheme. “In a notification, the government said inter-caste marriages would be allowed only up to 35 years, and the couple would be entitled to only half the incentive money. The remaining would be kept as a fixed deposit in a joint account in a nationalised bank and could be claimed only after 8 years of marriage to ensure that the marriage was still on,” Outlook reported.
 
Only 5 per cent Indians have had an inter-caste marriage
A 2014 study revealed that only five per cent of Indians said they had married a person from a different caste. The study had surveyed 42,000 households and was seen as the first direct estimate of inter-caste marriages in India.
 
“The India Human Development Survey (IHDS), conducted by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland, also reported that 30 per cent of rural and 20 per cent of urban households said they practised untouchability. The IHDS is the largest non-government, pan-Indian household survey. It covers over 42,000 households, representative by class and social group. Its findings, yet to be made public, were shared exclusively with The Hindu. When married women aged between 15 and 49 were asked if theirs was an inter-caste marriage, just 5.4 per cent said yes, the proportion being marginally higher for urban over rural India. There was no change in this proportion from the previous round of the IHDS (2004-05). Inter-caste marriages were rarest in Madhya Pradesh (under 1 per cent) and most common in Gujarat and Bihar (over 11 per cent),” reported The Hindu.
 
Caste-based rigidity in Indian marriages continues to have a tight grip on the social hierarchy in the country.
 
In states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya and Tamil Nadu, 95 per cent were found to have married within their own caste. States like Punjab, Sikkim, Goa and Kerala fared better, with 80 per cent marrying within their own caste, a 2005-06 report by National Family Health Survey (NFHS-III) said.
 
 “There is no definite data available on inter-caste marriages since the Centre did not release the caste data from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census. One such study, by researchers K Das and others, analyses caste information of 43,102 ever-married couples as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-III) (2005-06) data. It pegs the percentage of inter-caste marriages in India at about 11 per cent,” Indian Express reported.
 
“A more recent paper (September 2017) by researchers at the Indian Statistical Institute, using data from the Indian Human Development Survey and National Sample Survey 2011-12, shows that the education level of people doesn’t have any direct co-relation with them choosing a partner from outside their own caste,” The report added.
 
Silver lining?
A pan-India poll titled “Pulse of the Nation,” conducted by Inshorts, an online news application, captured the views of 1.3 lakh netizens on marriage ‘to understand the changing opinions of millennials about the institution of Indian marriages.’
 
“In the survey, 8 out of 10 Indian citizens did not mind inter-caste marriages with over 70 per cent males saying that they do not think their partners should change their maiden names. Interestingly, more than 50 per cent respondents were from tier 2 and 3 cities,” Indiatimes reported.
 

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