Caught in caste trap

While the Khap panchayats –political groups that hunt down couples who marry outside their caste– threat looms large in northern states of India, taking stock of similar atrocities in the state reveals an even more well-knit network of ‘pure breed’ enthusiasts who work discreetly to maintain the caste decorum, reports Times of India (TOI).

Centred around rural areas of the state, these caste panchayats keep tabs on youngsters, ‘advise’ them not to marry outside their caste and also very often unleash violence on those who do not follow their orders.

TOI reports that Madhusudan, a Dalit teacher from Warangal town, does not set foot into his village, as he knows for sure that he will be hacked to death if he does, because he married a woman outside his caste about four years back.

Speaking to TOI, Madhusudan said that he would not violate the rules as the memories of the violence which followed his marriage are fresh in his mind.

“After our marriage we fled to Hyderabad fearing my wife’s community. But when we heard that my parents and siblings would be clubbed to death in our absence, my wife and I returned to the village only to be beaten to a pulp. My wife was abducted by her family and the goons beat me till both my legs got fractured,” Madhusudan told TOI, adding that he had not seen his wife till date after the abduction.

Organisations and activists who have been fighting for civil rights of people who marry outside their castes say that such a system has been in the state since decades.

“What is alarming is that the dictates of the ‘elders’ are in place even years after the incidence of violence,” said Wahid Rahman, secretary of a city based organisation, Kula Mirmulana Samithi which aids inter-caste marriages.

He added that he himself was persecuted for marrying a woman from a different caste and religion.

While the ‘elders’ are left untouched even by the local law and order authorities, the victims are left to defend themselves, TOI reports. While ‘annihilation of caste’ seems to be nowhere in the purview of even the law enforcers, the dictates of the ‘elders’ seem to make the law of the land.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2010.