Lack of Inter-faith Marriages — a reflection of our Indian Society
Written this long blog after the controversy of Tanishq ad (under ekVatan Campaign). The ad showed a pregnant Hindu woman escorted by her Muslim mother in law to her baby shower ceremony. Our society perceived this ad as a promotion of love-jihad. This is how our society reacted to it and a company like Tanishq needs to withdraw the ad.
If we think this is the only one off issue, then we are wrong. As there was one more recent Zomato controversy — Customer cancels Zomato order over Muslim delivery boy. Although here, Zomato stand by their employee and supported him.
Above controversies, talks about two important points :-
- Political Environment in India
- Importance of Marriages in India — Marriages are restricted and challenged
Mostly, We normally have marriage within caste and religion.
- As per research, only 6.1% marriages were inter-caste and 2.7% inter-religion.
- Although India has been developed in the last few decades but still inter caste or inter religion marriages have not increased much. Research report has mentioned that 1.6% to 2.7% increase in interfaith marriages from 1981 to 2005.
Challenges mentioned by these reports :-
1. Individual Level
We think a lot before marrying a girl from different caste or religion, because we are used to society guidelines/rules and perceptions. We feel guilty when we go against those society rules.
2. Family Level
In India, we focus a lot on family and family plays a very important role in our life — Be it a decision of education, occupation, food, school etc. We have all seen three idiots movie and seen how family decides the crucial decisions in various lifestages.
Family has lot of options to punish or throttle us, as they have a lot of influence on our life — violence ( here is one incident of this ), plays with Indian laws ( laws related to rape, abduction and kidnapping ) to break the marriages.
3. Society Level
a) Violence — Khap panchayat case of Seema is an example of violence by society.
b) Non Violent — People from village bycott the couple or the family who are standing for the couple ( inter caste or inter religion marriage ) — Samajik Bhaishkar.
Political Organisations are also involved these days — Love Jihad. Love Jihad is a conspiracy where a muslim guy get married to a hindu girl so that he can get hindu girl do religion conversion and increase muslim population.
In one article written by Charu gupta in 2009, she compared this Love jihad with 1920s Arya Samaj Campaign — “Aurton ki loot”, “Hindu striyon k loot ke karan”.
These kind of campaigns are not only against religious community but also against women due to two reasons :-
- These campaign assume that woman are innocent and they cannot take decision of their own. So, when they are stuck under some conspiracy and thats why they have taken the decision to marry some guy of other religion/caste.
- These campaign gives a message to society that respect of any family comes only from Women. The decision taken by men in a family doesn't bring any impact on family reputation but from women who take decisions.
Above points can be inferred from the Charu Gupta report, where in 1925, Hindu Sabha organised volunteer corps of Hindu men in Banaras to prevent Hindu women from eloping with Muslim men.Even In allhadbad and jaunpur, notices were put for Hindu men to keep an eye on their family women and prevent interaction with muslim men.
If we think this has changed since 1925, then its also not true. Recently scroll.in has taken interview for Rajasthan bajrang dal leader where that leader has mentioned about informal intelligence network he has cultivated in courts, tehsil offices and marriage registration offices, largely made of clerks and lawyers, to tip him off inter-faith marriages.
India Legal System — Special Marriage Act 1954 :-
In our legal system, we have one law which can solve this problem — Special Marriage act — 1954. In this act, couple from two religions can marry without any caste/religion conversion. But this act has lot of loopholes, which families/society exploit
- Notice needs to be given for 30 days
- They need to publish this in public post — newspaper etc., so that if anyone has any problem- they can inform to the court
The above loopholes are being exploited by families to delay the marriage
Recently, a couple is fighting in court to remove the above clauses from the Special Marriage Act — 1954
Not only this act, but also, if Hindu marries non-hindu, he/she cannot inherit ancestral property. This shows that couples doesn't need to fight against society, family but also against law.
Educated Husband or state development is also not helping the inter-faith marriages. In developed state like Tamil Nadu — 97% marriages happen within caste whereas less developed state like Orissa is having 88% marriages happening within same caste.
This is because our society is structured in a way where in rural/urban India — Dalit & muslims people stays in segregated areas. Due to this inter faith marriages not happening, our society is facing lot of issues.
Genetic Diversity issues :-
Caste importance came 3000 years back and people are getting married in same caste. The consequence of this is lack of diverse genetic diversity. As per scroll.in, Indian caste degree of differentiation of genes are 3 times greater than among european groups separated by similar distances. This means that we are recycling same genes since years and this shows that if there is a genetic defect in one caste then it is going to continue due to marriages within the same caste.
For example, in many hospitals in Tamil Nadu, doctors ask the caste before giving anesthesia, not because they are casteist. This is because in caste — Arya Vysya Chettiyar, they are fatally allergic to anesthesia. The people of this caste are doing within caste marriages as they want to preserve their assets within them.
This lack of intercaste marriages is reflection of our society where we don’t interact much across various castes.
Lot of NGOs are working towards this issue and one of them is Love commandos.
There are lot of positive stories shared by various research where people who have done interfaith marriages and are celebrating almost all festivals in India — Be it Eid, Holi, Diwali, Christmas etc.
This can only happen when our society thoughts going to change from intercaste marriage to inter human marriages.