S1-Day 25: God in Dirty Places: Inter-Caste Marriage

Among dozens of video clips that I come across and watch on social media platforms, one still stuck in my mind and sends shivers down my spine is a CCTV footage just outside a hospital in Telangana’s Nalgonda District where Pranay, a Dalit Christian, is murdered in broad daylight in front of his pregnant wife Amrutha, an "upper caste" girl.

Caste-based murders are declarations. Declaration made by the "dominant", that the evil structure of caste is here to stay, to be preserved and sustained at all odds; declaration that any threat to the purity of a community will not be tolerated but dealt mercilessly; declaration that the honour of my family/community is more precious than your "dirty" life and desires. As my friend Arvind Theodore puts it rightly in his article  ‘The Shulamite Lives On’, “[…] the adversaries do not have any qualms in identifying themselves as antagonists simply because it is seen as a divine and moral right to defend the purity and honour of one’s community.”

Endogamy is the norm of Indian society. Communities, dominant and even for that matter subaltern, insist on marriages within themselves. In doing so the caste system is respected and undisturbed. The most difficult thing for an Indian family to comprehend and accept is an inter-caste marriage and I confess to it. It is never about what the concerned partners want but always about what will the community/family say of this union. Same caste marriages are nurtured and propagated not just in our families but also in our churches. Sometime ago I came across a magazine, published by my diocese, that had a section for matrimonial advertisement where a passport size picture of the individuals, their details, and expectations for alliances were listed. Under those details the last one was “Caste preference” and some had mentioned “Nadar only,” some “Thevar only,” some “Adi Dravidar only,” while a few thankfully mentioned “Any caste” (good luck finding one!).

Jesus in the gospels goes against the understanding of blood- relations (caste is nothing but blood relations) of his times. In Matthew 12:46-50, when Jesus receives the message that his mother and brothers are waiting to speak to him his immediate response is a question. “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” This question of his critiques his very own community and culture that determines and considers family only in terms of blood-relations. There is no place, entry, space of acknowledgement and belongingness for the outsider. One does not hold the power to acknowledge anyone as family outside of the community. But Jesus dissents against that set boundary of familial relationships and says, “For whoever does the will of my God in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”    

Inter-caste relationships entail pain, torture, family and community ostracization and gruesome violence on individuals who go against the status quo. And one could only wish that all relationships and marriages had the tag “they lived happily ever after.” Yet, inter-caste relationships/marriages are not meaningless bonds; they too make subversive declarations. They have the power to disrupt, disturb, and dismantle the caste structure, they resist the idea of morality dictated by the powerful, and they protest the idea of purity and pollution. Lovers choose to be in such transgressive relationships knowingly, willingly all the while affirming that love cannot be dictated by any evil structure. 

Prayer

O God we remember that you created each of us in your own image. But we have created for ourselves our own boundaries in terms of our relationships, family and community. Help us as individuals, as a Church to break from such boundaries, to embrace those in an inter-caste marriage/relationships, and to call out, dismantle on those structures that victimize such lovers. We ask this prayer in your name. Amen.

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Author: Samuel Ragland Paul

About the Author: Samuel Ragland Paul graduated with Bachelor of Divinity from the United Theological College, Bangalore. He currently serves as a church worker of the Church of South India, Tirunelveli Diocese.