Let’s suppose you are attending an Indian Inter caste wedding. Most of the noises you hear around you are people speaking about the bride and the groom.
Let me be more specific all they are asking each other is that – ‘Is the bride of the same caste?’ or maybe ‘Is the groom of our caste or lower class?’. Why is still Inter caste marriage treated as a taboo in our society?
Is this the lack of knowledge about being open-minded and accepting the people and not their caste or is it the caste system that is truly respected and been accepted in the society for pride.
According to the India Human Development Survey, only 5% of Indian marriages are inter-cast.
If we get through the real-life situations of individuals, we can see that the families are the main reason for not accepting their children in getting married to a person who doesn’t belong to their cast.
Last year in one of the articles of Times of India an anonymous man stated that he has been in a relationship with a woman for 4 years and wants to marry her but they belong to different castes and that’s a bar for them and when the girl’s parents got to know about their relationship, they stopped speaking to her and warned her that they would make her leave her job and she would be grounded forever.
Now the girl wants to end the relationship because she is afraid of losing her parents.
What one can do in these kinds of situations? It becomes challenging for the children to choose between the person they love and also their family.
Also, individuals end up self-harming themselves and taking their lives away. We have been listening and watching news where the couple commits suicide or either one of them takes their life away because the family did not accept their relationship. Sometimes it also happens that if the children go against the family and get married, the family seeks revenge.
A case was been witnessed in Miryalguda where a man struck an opportunity to kill his son-in-law just because he did not belong to the same/upper caste. The son-in-law was attacked and killed on the spot. These kinds of events horrify people and leave them in distress if they want to marry a person who belongs to other caste and family becomes a barrier.
But also, in the past few years, inter-caste marriages are gaining more acceptance in society due to increasing education, the standard of living, employment, and also the economic background of the individuals.
We can also see that the state governments and also the central government are taking a step ahead in supporting inter-caste marriages. Like for example, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the government grants a cash award for all the inter-caste couples and the Supreme court of India stated that inter-cast marriages are in the national interest and there is no bar.
So, all I can say is that if you are taking a decision let it be wise and fight for it if you think you deserve it and do not end up making stupid choices like harming yourself or others in the process.
We all need to grow up and start thinking broadly about the caste system prevailing and how we can make it an advantage or disadvantage in shaping our lives right for a better living.
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