MANY LOVE stories in India meet a brutal and tragic end because of inter-religion or even inter-caste marriages. Religion and caste play a major role in arranged marriages as also in love marriages. The reference is to the latest incident in J&K.
The incident:
“Rajneesh was a small trader from Jammu often going on business trips to Srinagar. He fell in love with a girl and married her. The marriage was between a Hindu and a Muslim. After, a month of their marriage, Rajneesh was found dead in police custody apparently being asked by the girl’s father who is a police officer to convert to Islam or face death and he chose the latter “
This murder would not have happened if Rajneesh had fallen in love with someone from his own religion. His mistake, he fell for someone who is a human being just like anyone of us, his mistake that he fulfilled his commitment to her by marrying her courageously. This is not an isolated incident. Many cases come to limelight everyday in India and there is no end.
Many of us in our day to day lives have experienced such things. Religion or even caste matters a lot in the hearts and minds of many of us even today.
I agree that somewhere in our world, it means a lot to marry within his or her own religion but why discourage or murder others who do it.
Indian history is replete with instances that reflect the kind of openness our culture and history preaches. Akbar is an historical example of a secularist ruler who married a Hindu. Late Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia are a classic and living example of marriage beyond oceans and religions and in a way, today a majority of India accepts her as an “Indian bahu”. Humans were humans first and then came their faiths and beliefs.
Times have changed. We can’t hold onto our orthodox ideology anymore. If one feels it’s wrong, he/she shouldn’t encourage it but one has no right to punish people whose destiny takes them away from the usual track. I think our society should not oppose anything like this if two people are willing to go for it without any pressure.
Love is eternal. It is beyond religion, caste or community issues. This notion is not part of our lives. Instead, we have grown up in a society where we have been taught that people in a particular community are the best and one should stay away from others, one should fall in love with people within their own caste or community only and deviating from this means you won’t be accepted by society.
Think about your lives so far and how many times you have come across people who you started liking and later when you realized, they were from some other caste, religion or even region, you immediately stopped giving weightage to that emotion. It’s a fact! That thing exists in our society and I am okay if it remains within a person and they go the usual way. I myself might do the same. My only concern is why kill people in the name of inter-caste or inter-religion marriage if they can accommodate each other’s culture and traditions in their own lives. If it’s okay for them, why should the social system be against such a thing?
Live and let others live, with love and not hatred!
I will quote the famous lines of a song by Ziggy Marley that says
“All my days I've been searching, to find out what this life is worth
through the books and bibles of time I've made up my mind
I don't condemn, I don't convert, this is a calling have you heard
bring all the lovers to the fold, cause no one is gonna lose their soul
Love is my religion, Love is my religion, Love is my religion”
This is strictly my personal opinion and is not meant to favour or blame any particular caste or community or person. This is a view on the sociological pattern that exists in our society today and is triggered by some reports I read in the paper the other day
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