KPs inter-caste marriages can be reduced

 

Why inter-caste marriages are the talk of our community? Each time you receive a marriage invitation card you start thinking of this is an inter-caste marriage. After the mass exodus, in the year 1990, our people fled to various parts of the country, and outside, for safety and livelihood. That time we made our survival our first priority. It was really a bad time for all of us. We were living in tents in Jammu camps and Delhi, waiting in long queues for groceries and food grains.

Yet, as a member of the community I feel proud today when I see that most of us survived the typhoon. Not only we survived but we rose up to different positions and our children got settled in many big MNCS after getting engineering degrees or MBAS or MBBS from various colleges in India. Our children moved to foreign countries for better prospective.

As we moved to different places we started looking for our identity. We tried to be part of bigger communities. We interacted with them tried to pick up their food habits and customs. In our homeland we were always feeling low about ourselves. We, as a community, would literally worship any other people who were non-Kashmiri speaking. Our mothers and grandmothers were fed up with the system we were in. The moment we got access to move, we started mixing up and appreciated anything about them.

Maybe this was because our political say in Kashmir had taken a back seat. We had become timid and coward under the influence of the bigger community. There are several reasons behind inter-caste marriages and now it has reached international marriages. We appreciate these international marriages much more because we are touching alien shores. These marriages are performed with much fanfare and all Vedic traditions we flaunt in these. We take much pride in our grooms and brides as they are ahead of Hindi by speaking English. Pray God for their sanctity of vows.

I may list some of the few reasons which according to me are the following:

The first is that we left our mother tongue of which we were never proud of. In fact in Kashmir itself I remember how we were feeling low in self-esteem if, in college, we were speaking our mother tongue. We had this lingering sense of inferiority right from Kashmir itself. So the first thing we gave up was our divine language. When you lose your mother tongue you lose yourself as you can't express fully. So there comes out a lacuna and we try to fill those gaps. All of us have become more or less Hindi and English speaking persons besides the languages we pick up from the places we get settled. We tried to fit in any situations here and there, not understanding the repercussions later. One more thing is that when a Kashmir Pandit meets another, the introduction starts as: Are you a migrant? Are you Kashmir speaking? If you are non-Kashmiri speaking and non-migrant, you are in A category. When you are Kashmir speaking, but non migrant, you are B category and C category is Kashmir speaking migrant Pandit. Not only this, there are sub classes also like which city and which country we live.

Language is a major status symbol for us. Hindi and English speaking are the people with good status. We are not proud of our roots. We are the purest of pure Sanskrit-speaking Saraswat Brahmins. Our Kashmiri is Sanskritized Kaeshur.

Secondly, we lost interaction with our relatives and the community. Although it is commendable for our society that everywhere we go we have made our community committees and made. Devsthans, but how many of us are in full attendance is another question. We prefer to interact with other communities than ours. Again our way back home complexes. We hate to be recognized as kaeshir Battas. We do not keep social gatherings where we should involve our youth.

Our elders should leave the community affairs to the youngsters wherever they are. The

interaction may help us to understand our culture in a better way. 

The third reason is Teknion. Oh good God, it takes years to match all the 36 gunas. We get stuck at them so badly that our children find their own matches to avoid the length of that period. We have such huge discussions on those gunas. Actually, both the parties start foul-mouthing each other on their Pandit jee. The Tekni matching, I agree, should be there but to what extent we have to do that, we have to keep a watch. It takes years to get suitable matches.

The fourth thing that is needed is to change is our value system which is not valid in today's times. We are interfering too much in our married children's life. We always treat them like small babies. Treat them like adults. We don't allow them to grow independently. We still remember our days when Jigri or Kakni and Babalal would always give their sermons and the rest would follow. Those days were different as girls and boys were getting married at a very young age. They were not very educated, or girls were not working. Then came an era of Bhabi and Boboojee where girls were educated, even working, but sermons were delivered on them regularly. It was a twilight era and so adjustments and compromises were made. Time is changing very fast. Humans are evolving. Our girls are becoming career-oriented and are earning resources for the family. Boys, though career oriented, yet now are completely independent, confident adults. Girls and boys complement one another. They are, in a way, equivalent in every sense. Girls are bread- winners. They are achievers. They are in the corporate world. Families have to give them equal status and no distinction between a boy and a girl which they find easily by marrying in another community. Our people still give sermons and advices which, these days, are called interferences. We have to change this. Our value system has to be revisited. We have to open up to the fact that the Maharaja culture is no more required. It is equality time and equations of our old systems need to be changed.

In our society when a daughter-in-law comes to a house all of us start giving advises on any topic. I know so many who were crying during their youth that MILS and husbands control them and suppress their voices. If anything goes wrong in the family they were made responsible. The new bride will always be under their courtesy. She was treated as a glorified maid. As a member of the community, not only the MIL but other family members, including her husband, also, would rule the roost. It was prevalent. The DILs of the house were abandoned to go for outings or for a simple movie with the husband. Such girls never had 'me time' or 'we time'. It was the MIL or the husband who would grill the DIL. The over-possession of MIL of her son, as an earning member, was probably one of the reasons. Those atrocities should be a big no these days. The children, born under such environment and tradition, would feel sad for their mom. Children are considered sniffing dogs. They pick up everything around you do. They would carry different identification for the family which has seeped through them right from community becomes a relief for them as they always fear for the respect and love they will get from their own their childhood I think this probably is one of the reasons Marrying then outside the community .

As a community member there is nothing bad If some one of our youths marry love of their lives but as a minuscule community like Parsis we may be very soon a lost community. Instead of screaming from the rooftops we should visit ourselves and deal with the problems which are invalid in the present scenario. Try to be proud of our roots and accomplishments. We have to start communicating with our children as friends not as a sermon giving priests. Try to bring your language, food and rituals in. Try to bring change in our rudimentary behaviour and instill pride of our roots in our children.

In order to reduce the inter-caste marriages, we, as a society, have to treat our children as adults, not as puppets in our hands. We have to change our age- old system. We have to be good-caring families, where every member is equal. Instead of screaming for our inter-caste marriages we have to come out of our age-old complexes. We have to shun bad customs. We have value our festivals, our language and our culture. We have to say bye to patriarchal and matriarchal society and treat our girls and boys on one plane. This generation is honest, so be honest with it.

(The writer, retired Professor & HOD from NMIMS University, Mumbai, is experienced in conducting research in Ayurvedic drugs, new drug development and in writing Hindi poems and short stories)

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Courtesy:- Dr. Nancy S. Pandita  and  Koshur Samachar 2020, January