http://epaper.timesofindia.com
Can you marry boy of same gotra: Jindal to scribe
Divya A | TNN
New Delhi: "Would you yourself marry within the same gotra?'' asked
Naveen Jindal, the two-time Congress MP and icon of young India. It
was an interview with TOI where the tables had suddenly been turned.
"Yes," said the perplexed reporter. Jindal persisted, "Will your
parents also not have any problem?''
When he received "no" for an answer, Jindal insisted that the
reporter call up her mother. "Let me speak to your mom and ask her,''
he said.
"Do you really want to speak to her?'' He answered in the
affirmative: "No, you call her now and let me hear what she has to
say,'' said the 40-year-old tycoon and graduate of University of Texas
Business School.
The reporter telephoned her parent and ask if she would have a
problem if she wanted to marry a boy of same gotra. Jindal asked for
the speakerphone to be on and heard the parent reply "No'', even as
she followed it up with the suspicious question, "but why do you ask?"
Eventually, the MP took the correspondent's mobile and spoke to her
mother to check for himself. When the older lady took Jindal to task
for promoting regressive casteist views, he tried to defend himself:
"No, I am not encouraging anything (bad),'' even as he sought her
opinion on what was "the way around'' if a same-gotra marriage had to
be allowed in a north Indian Hindu family. As the conversation ended,
Jindal put down the reporter's liberalism to urban values. "You know
it's different in cities where no one cares who's marrying whom and
who's living with whom, but in villages it's different. These people
have to consider their culture and traditions as it gives them a sense
of security,'' he said.
Jindal has been backing the khaps that are hell-bent on changing
the law to make same-gotra marriages illegal. But many were putting it
down to exigencies of electoral politics and the practical necessity
to give voice to his constituency. The interview would, however,
indicate that the young MP believed in the khap patriarchy and wanted
people to practice it.
Jindal became a household name in 2002 as a modernizer who wanted
Indians to have the privilege every American enjoys -- flying the flag
at home or at work -- and he got the Flag Code amended after a
seven-year-long fight. Even now, he keeps wearing the tricolour as a
badge on his shirt as he attends the Parliament or official meetings.
So does that mean he supports khaps in perpetuity? He insisted he
never gave any word of support to the khaps though and claimed it was
all media's doing.
"All I said was that I support if they do anything that benefits
the society. If any one of them takes law into their hands, I do not
support that,'' he said.
He felt what the khaps were demanding may still be relevant in
rural Haryana, because if boys and girls from the same village were
allowed to marry, girls would not feel safe moving around in the
village.
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