Clash of values: Paying a price for love across caste barriers

by Abhay Vaidya It’s been some time now that a simmering ‘clash of civilisations’ has been silently straining at the social fabric of India, with caste and community loyalties, on one side, and the aspirations of Indian youth, on the other. Over the last two decades, India’s economy has been opening up, the size of the middle class has been expanding and the nation is increasingly embracing a youthful profile with two-thirds of its population under 35. Inevitably, our young adults are leaving their villages, towns and cities behind and moving out to other places for higher education and employment. They feel more confident and empowered than the previous generations. Consequently, the chances of inter-caste/inter-religious or inter-community love affairs are much higher than before. The future from thereon is not always as rosy as one would like it to be because the mindset in Indian families has not kept pace with the changing times. [caption id=“attachment_226678” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Irrespective of whether the family head is  semi-literate or a scientist, caste and community loyalties take strong precedence over the choices made by a son or daughter at the time of marriage. AFP Photo”]  [/caption] On 20 February, Asha Shinde, a 25-year-old medical social worker at a Pune hospital, suffered a brutal death when she was hit fatally by an iron rod on the head while asleep at home. Soon after, her 65-year-old father Shankar, a farmer, surrendered before the police, taking responsibility for the murder. Shankar was firmly opposed to his defiant daughter’s insistence on marrying a person from another caste with whom she was in love. Police say that Shankar felt no remorse about the murder. This isolated case of “honour killing” in Maharashtra resulted in an outrage as the state is known more for its pioneering role in the social reforms movement in India. At the same time, this was yet another pointer to rising tensions in Indian families over the issue of marriage. In another case, a father who is a well-known scientist and claims to subscribe to Gandhian ideology, disowned his daughter after she decided to marry her Muslim boyfriend. Enormous efforts were made to convince the daughter that she was making a huge mistake. But when she was adamant, the father decided that the family had no choice but to disown the errant daughter. Elsewhere, a retired university professor emotionally blackmailed his son to force him to marry a girl from within the community. The father simply stopped taking his medicines for diabetes and blood pressure and risked hospitalisation till his son — an upwardly mobile IT programmer — gave in. “What face will I show my biradari (community) if you marry someone from outside our community?” was all that he said while opposing his son’s intention to marry a girl of his choice. The settings are different but the stories more or less the same. Irrespective of whether the family head is a semi-literate farmer, a scientist or an academic, in a large number of cases across India, caste and community loyalties take strong precedence over the choices made by a son or daughter at the time of marriage. Elders insist that the subject of marriage be left to their wisdom and often completely disregard the choices made by their children. The love affair then either blooms or blows out; culminates into a marriage or a disaster depending on who between the two is made of sterner stuff. The youth TV channel, Channel V has a reality show called Love Kiya Toh Darna Kya where young couples in love confront their parents on camera and seek their approval for marriage. Some fathers have actually gone violent when taken by surprise by their son’s inter-caste/inter-community affair. It was a situation arising out parental opposition to their son’s love affair that is suspected to have led to the bizarre Juhi Prasad murder in Pune in October 2011.  Juhi was the fiancée of a young corporate executive and was allegedly  murdered by the executive’s longtime girlfriend. While the Satara honour killing and the Juhi murder case are extreme examples of a disastrous situation arising out of complicated relationships, the fact is that an intense churning is taking place within Indian society. India’s young are adapting to new values and mindsets when it comes to their individual behaviour but feel trapped in an environment where caste and community considerations take precedence. Our society will need to come to terms with this reality, sooner than later.