If we search Wikipedia for an article on the Caste System in India, we will get the following information, “The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic example of caste. It has origins in ancient India and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, especially the Mughal Empire and the British Raj. It is today the basis of educational and job reservations in India. The caste system consists of two different concepts, varna and jati, which may be regarded as different levels of analysis of this system”.
We all know, what started as a simple method of classifying the people of society into different categories on the basis of their profession, over thousands of years, turned into a trap for the people belonging to the lower strata of the society. They were oppressed and were subjected to gruesome and inhuman practises, which forced them into the jaws of poverty and exploitation. That is why, Mahatma Gandhi took a stand for the Dalit community during our freedom movement and decided to call them ‘Harijans’, or the Children of God. And later, when we got independence from the British rule, the Indian government made a system of reservations for the backward classes, so that they can be at par with the rest of the country.
Now, apart from caste, there’s also another entity in our society called ‘community’. A community can be of different types, such as a community based on religion, a community based on a common language, a community based on same-sex, etc. But here, I am talking only about communities based on a common language or ethnicity. As of now, we have 29 states and 7 union territories, and almost all of the states have been divided on the basis of the language that the majority of the population in a geographical region speak. Overall, we have 22 major languages and 720 dialects spoken in India, and all of these lingual communities have always believed in preserving their ethnicity, by organizing marriages between people belonging to the same communities. Although, there are some commutes, whose opinions are so rigid when it comes to inter-caste or inter-community marriages, that marriage between two persons of different castes/communities is deemed as a punishable offence (I would not like to name them).
You must be wondering by now, why did I start off with a lecture on caste and end up talking about marriages? Well, the answer to this question is this:
A few months back, one of my cousins got married a to a man who belonged to a community which is completely different from ours, moreover, it wasn’t a love marriage, it was arranged. The community that the groom belonged to, has a reputation of marrying only among people of the same community since ages. They do not believe in having matrimonial alliances with people from different communities, in order to preserve their customs, traditions, and ethnicity. So, when I got to know about this marriage, I was shocked. Still, I did not dwell on that and brushed it off, thinking, maybe the times are changing, so are the people.
Now, 2 days back, I was watching a case on the TV show, Crime Patrol. Although the case was about an entirely different crime, I zeroed in on the situation of a lady in the case, who was kidnapped in her hometown, (which is in the eastern part of India), tied up in a brothel, and then sold off to two men from a region in the western part of India. Both of the men, who were brothers, married the lady and abused and tortured her for 12 years, before she was able to free herself from their shackles with the help of her son. This case was actually an eye-opener for me.
After a lot of research, I found that the number of women reported to have been taken against their will for marriage in India is increasing – rising 71% between 2010 and 2014. The highest number of abductions are from the states of UP, Bihar and Assam, and the women are then sold off to people from the states of Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, etc. Now, the next question is, why is this happening?
To answer that, will have to talk about a social evil that has been present in our society since the last 30 years. Estimates for female foeticide vary by the scholar. One group estimates more than 10 million female foetuses may have been illegally aborted in India since the 1990s, and 500,000 girls were lost annually due to female foeticide.
“MacPherson estimates that 100,000 abortions every year continue to be performed in India solely because the fetus is female” (November 2007, “Images and Icons: Harnessing the Power of Media to Reduce Sex-Selective Abortion in India”. Gender and Development). According to 1991, 2001 and 2011 Census data, the child sex ratio is higher in urban India as compared to rural India, which suggests a higher rate of female foeticide in urban India.
Female foeticide was practised for quite a number of decades, but the procedure accelerated after the arrival of the Ultrasound tech in India, in 1975. This practice has therefore, directly affected the sex ratio in India. In the Population Census of 2011, it was revealed that the population ratio of India in 2011 was 943 females per 1000 of males. Also, the Sex Ratio in Haryana, Punjab, Jammy and Kashmir, Delhi, Chandigarh, Sikkim is far below the national average of 940 as per census 2011.
Therefore, because of this decrease in the number of females in these parts, it is likely that the public has resorted to the abduction of brides from other parts of the country. The depth of this problem is not unknown to us, and when I realised the severity of it, I was appalled. Through this article, I would request the citizens of India to educate their girl child, make them capable of being independent and do not treat them like a burden, because a determined lady can move mountains. Also, I would request you to spread awareness about this social evil and help in the upliftment of the girl child.