Meet the Couples Upending India’s Caste-Based Marriages

In stark contrast to the billionaire Ambanis’ wedding, some Indians are subverting patriarchy, caste, and class in their ceremonies.

While the world’s eyes are on , a section of Indian society is breaking age-old marriage traditions. On a pleasant sunny day in January 2024, around 200 people gathered to celebrate the wedding of Sunil and Sulochana in the tiny Indian village of Aam Gachchi. The village is located in the eastern state of Bihar on the Indo-Nepal border. Bihar is considered to be one of the most regressive states in terms of socioeconomic factors in the country, which is what made the nuptials even more remarkable.

It was a wedding like no other. At a time when Indian families go into debt trying to arrange a good match, Sunil and Sulochana’s wedding was a simple yet radical one. It stood in stark contrast to the spectacle of the Ambani wedding.

The mandap (wedding altar) had a small fire burning in the middle with a photo collage, not of Hindu gods, as is the tradition, but of Indian revolutionaries including Savitri Bai, Fatima Sheikh, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, B.R. Ambedkar, and a copy of the Indian Constitution. In between Sunil and Sulochana stood a female priest, Kamayani, who presided over the ceremony.

The couple walked around the fire seven times as is customary in a traditional Hindu wedding but they reformed it by reading their own vows to each other as opposed to the standard regressive verses that promote rigid gender roles for brides and grooms in modern India. Their vows stood on the fundamentals of gender equality, togetherness, respect and dignity. It was considered a revolutionary ceremony in the Indian context where weddings are usually performed in extremely patriarchal, casteist, and classist ways.

“We were confident that we wanted to break away from the casteist structure of how a Hindu marriage is performed and do it in a way that reflects our ideology and the respect we have towards our great reformist leaders,” says Sulochana. “Traditional weddings in our villages have archaic gendered rituals, so we didn’t want that. We’ve educated ourselves and we work with children in villages to teach them about the struggles our revolutionaries have faced to bring about changes in our society,” she adds. Those struggles, explains Sulochana, “have helped us to rise from the perils of the caste system, educate ourselves and live in a free country. So when we started to discuss our wedding, we kept that in our minds.”

Kamayani Swami (second from left, holding the microphone) officiates Sulochana and Sunil’s wedding with a photo collage of Indian revolutionaries including Savitri Bai, Fatima Sheikh, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, B.R. Ambedkar, and a copy of the Indian Constitution. *Photo courtesy of Sunil*

Aside from their nonconformist wedding, Sunil and Sulochana are bucking trends even as a couple. They are in an intercaste relationship and fell in love when they were only 15. Having met at the Youth Center of the Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan in Araria town in Bihar, their love soared as the caste barrier faded between them. Sunil belongs to the Scheduled Caste (SC), and Sulochana is from the Other Backward Class (OBC) community, which considers itself as higher .

Marriages are highly politicized in a country where parents dictate whom their child will marry depending on their caste, class, and religion. Resisting this culture often leads to grave results, such as . The limited show that nearly 5,000 women and girls lose their lives each year in honor killings worldwide, and almost one-third of them are from India and Pakistan. Yet, increasingly, young people across India are resisting this conservative system and are guided by love and affection rather than caste.

Sunil and Sulochana have faced several such barriers. But, while their caste difference is a major issue, there are other differences compounding why some people in their communities reject their union: Sulochana is older than Sunil, albeit by only a few months. She is also slightly heavier than Sunil. Despite public pressure, both stood firmly by each other and proceeded to get married.

“People tried to dissuade my parents from [allowing us to get] married, but I was resolute about getting married to Sulochana. When my parents got convinced, I went around the whole village to invite everyone to our wedding,” Sunil recounts.

Although Sunil’s parents agreed to the marriage, Sulochana’s haven’t spoken to her since. “No one in my family talks to me except my sister, who [attended] the wedding. It’s been two years since we tried convincing them, but they refused flatly. They got my younger sister married without telling me while she was studying in 10th standard [grade],” says Sulochana. She recounts feeling terribly hurt and helpless. “Everyone abused me for my relationship with Sunil, and the journey to my wedding was very challenging. But Sunil stood by me, and that’s when we decided to get married,” she relates, with tears in her eyes.

While the two may still be struggling with restoring their family relationships, their union and the ideological approach of their wedding is an example of a new ethos around marriage among young Indians.

Mamta Meghwanshi (left) and Krishna Kumar Verma (right) celebrate cohabitation with a Buddhist ceremony. *Photo courtesy of Mamta Meghwanshi*

Mamta Meghwanshi and Krishna Kumar Verma had a similarly nontraditional wedding in Sidiyas village near Bhilwara district in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. Meghwanshi is the daughter of Bhanwar Meghwanshi, a Dalit activist and author who wrote the memoir I Could Not Be Hindu. His daughter celebrated sahjeevan (cohabitation) with her partner Verma in a Buddhist ceremony in mid-March 2024.

“We met about three years ago at a legal training workshop in Kumbhalgarh, Rajasthan,” she says. “I’d never known what it was to love because I’d always been engrossed in studies, so it was very different for me. We kept in touch after the workshop, and three years later we decided to get married.” Explaining that she and her partner are both believers in the philosophy of , considered to be the most important Dalit revolutionary in India, they decided they did not want to “perpetuate casteist rituals in our ceremony.”

Unlike the , which made headlines for its unimaginably large cost and was centered on the traditional patriarchal Hindu ceremony, Meghwanshi maintains, “We didn’t want to do pheras [circling the wedding fire when traditional vows are made] or have a [a recognizable necklace required to be worn by married women in India].” Instead, she explains, “We wanted to register our marriage legally and do a small Buddhist ceremony that advocates for equality for life between us.”

Meghwanshi’s father, Bhanwar, played a huge role in their ceremony and didn’t allow any criticism to be aimed at her. “He stood like a pillar of support. I’m older than Krishna by three years, and that is a matter of great concern to a lot of people, as our family is quite large,” says Meghwanshi. “However, my father was not fazed by it and didn’t let it affect me.”

Meghwanshi grew up in a very progressive family where inequalities of gender and caste have always been critiqued. So during their cohabitation ceremony, both Meghwanshi and Verma ensured that it was egalitarian. They had a ring ceremony after which they chanted a mantra centered on a vow to show kindness toward all living beings.

They also came up with a specific set of promises toward one another to replace age-old rituals such as the pheras.

Traditionally, Rajasthani marriages are deeply regressive for women, who are required to wear long veils after their weddings and to live under multiple restrictions from all of their family members, including their husbands. Meghwanshi’s father, Bhanwar, wanted to break away from this system for his daughter altogether.

“When we were thinking about how we would like to perform the ceremony, I approached a Buddhist monk to perform the wedding, and he shared a letter that Babasaheb Ambedkar had written on the similar dilemma,” says the older Meghwanshi. In the letter, Ambedkar talked about his own wedding with his wife, Savita Ambedkar. “The monk asked me if we can draw inspiration from it,” said Bhanwar. He adds, “I readily agreed because both our family and Krishna’s family believe in the Ambedkarite movement deeply. It not only challenges the traditional Hindu wedding customs and the regressive Buddhist customs but also is more constitutional and dignified for all,”

The ceremony brought people from diverse religions and cultures together in the village in a way that had never been seen before. No gaudy jewelry or wads of cash were on display as is customary in Indian weddings. Instead, people blessed the couple with potted plants and books. Kamayani, who had officiated Sulochana and Sunil’s wedding, also anchored this ceremony and supported the couple through it.

As an advisor to the Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan, Kamayani ran the youth center that Sunil and Sulochana had attended in the obscure town of Araria. There she started conversations around gender equality, sexuality, freedom, and independence from regressive societal structures with young people who had a traditional upbringing. Years of efforts by her and a few others have encouraged young people to gain agency and the courage to voice their own opinions and choose their own partners so they can break free from the shackles of caste, class, and religion. Her pioneering efforts have helped young people to develop an understanding of choice.

“If we see rituals as a stand-alone phenomenon, then we can say that [they] don’t impact anything but the day of the wedding,” says Kamayani. But, she explains, “Rituals communicate what the society’s and a religious group’s belief system is, so if we talk about kanyadaan [giving away one’s daughter in the Hindu custom], it fundamentally means that the woman is [the] property of a man and … the property rights are being transferred from the father to the groom.” Forgoing such a ritual, then, becomes a political statement on women’s equality.

In many ways, the high-profile Ambani wedding has perpetuated the casteist and gendered rituals of Hindu marriage traditions. Before the kanyadaan ceremony during Anant Ambani’s wedding, his mother, Neeta, took to the stage and sugarcoated it as a “noble act” wherein one family welcomes a daughter while the other welcomes a son.

For Kamayani, caste and gender hierarchies are unimportant in the context of bringing two people together. The idea is not to completely abandon the rituals that may be specific to a culture or geography but to eliminate the patriarchal, casteist, or misogynistic aspects of marriage to be in line with equality and mutual respect.

“We don’t want to create a monolithic idea of a marriage,” adds Kamayani. Rather, she hopes to “enhance the multiplicity of cultures.”

For Sunil’s father, Deepnaranyan, those who believe in Brahmanic weddings may criticize him for having his children choose how to marry, but he says he stands with his children. He reasons that Hindu marriages are designed to put heavy financial pressure on families and to appease Brahmins, the highest caste. “We will not do it anymore. We can pray to our gods ourselves, and no Brahmin can tell us that our wedding is flawed just because we are not pandering to them,” he adds.

Mithun and Krischam, a couple who also hails from Araria, had a simple intercaste wedding in a temple where they exchanged only garlands and had the temple priest officiate their wedding. Mithun notes that people are superstitious and disregard different ways to perform a wedding. Even if they do not understand the rituals, they adhere to them because they are familiar and don’t want to break tradition. In his opinion, they should not criticize those who think differently and should try to co-exist with one another.

“Education makes one aware of the meaning of various rituals and their casteist and gendered meaning,” he says. “One would be able to respect their partner and account for their equality in society,” shares Mithun, who is currently working and supporting his partner. In an example of how the couple are living their values of equality, Krischam supported Mithun when he was studying before he got a government job.

Poorvi Gupta is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. She covers socio-political issues from a gender lens and has been published in nationally and internationally acclaimed publications like The Polis Project, Nikkei Asia, Women's �鶹��¼� Center, LGBTQ+ Nation, Article-14, VICE, Feminism in India, and SheThePeople among others.

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