http://www.livemint.com/2010/06/16212401/Rising-divorce-rates-new-tech.htmlPosted: Wed, Jun 16 2010. 9:45 PM IST
Economy and Politics
Rising divorce rates, new tech options renew interest in same caste unions
Families in India, abroad turn to matrimonial portals in the hope that
the community will thrive when children marry within the fold
Priyanka P. Narain
Mumbai: For six decades, like beacons of hope, Bollywood movies have
woven diaphanous dreams of a love so powerful that it knows no class,
caste or religion. Again and again, in countless songs, beautiful
looking actors and actresses have urged young lovers to overthrow all
shackles of social norms and rules.
"But real life is not like that," said Ketna Shukla, aunt of Tripti
Mishra, a Brahmin girl from Uttar Pradesh, who is searching for her
life partner on a matrimonial website. "Real life is about who you
will wake up with every day and whether you will be entitled to a life
whose rules, regulations and duties are familiar to you…giving a
daughter in marriage is not easy. Girls have to adjust to too many
things already. Tripti says she doesn't have anyone in mind and has
left the decision to us. If she had found someone, then it would be
different. But if we are going to look, we will want to make it easy
for her. Marrying within the caste will make it a little bit easy."
Hers is not a lone voice to argue that love, when nurtured in
familiarity, has a better chance of surviving. No studies have been
done to prove this theory, but it has many takers.
On Shaadi.com, a matrimonial website, about 83% of profiles have
listed their caste details and when the sub-caste option was activated
a few months ago, "more than 40% edited their profiles to specify
their sub-caste as well", said Valini D'souza, manager of corporate
communications for Shaadi.com portal.
Also Read previous stories in the series
Murugavel Janakiraman, founder of BharatMatrimony.com, an online
matrimonial forum that has at least two million profiles and special
interfaces that offer caste-based selection to 451 communities,
explained that many factors have conspired for a revival of interest
in caste-based marriages: the rising number of divorces, the
challenges of modern living, the impatience with differences and
unwillingness to change, and the tools of technology—telephones, the
Internet, jets and faxes—that expand choices and allow members to look
for spouses within their communities.
Step by step: Communities use different ways to help young people
choose their spouses from the same caste such as this matrimonial
gathering for Mudaliars.
And people are willing to use every technological option to ensure the
"right marriage" for their children.
For instance, when Shobha Mehta's son reached a "marriageable age" in
New York and asked her to find him a spouse, she sent word to her
relatives and friends in the old city of Jaipur, in Mumbai and Delhi.
For four months, she looked at "biodatas" of young girls of her
community on Shaadi.com, BharatMatrimony.com, exchanged emails,
juggled time zones and conversed with the parents over the phone
before flying out to meet the "short-listed" candidates. She never
looked at profiles outside her community.
And when she saw Shital, a shy, soft-spoken 19-year-old, she knew the
search had ended. "She had a gentleness to her. I just knew this was
it," said Mehta, fully aware that she had used every tool of modern
technology to find a match for her son in the oldest form of marriage.
"The children are happy. It is good that the Internet helped bring
them together. How does it matter how they came together, as long as
they stay married?" she asked.
It is this unsubstantiated fear—that divorce rates are rising because
of inter-caste marriages—that has led to a renewed interest in caste
marriages, said Janakiraman.
"It may or may not be true. But I don't want to take a chance," said
Balraj Oberoi, a 26-year-old Hindu Khatri from Hoshiarpur, who teaches
mechanical engineering for a living and is clear that he wants to
marry another Khatri. He refused to disclose the name of his college,
but said: "If I fall in love with someone, it's different. But if I
don't find someone like that, then I want to make sure that cultural
compatibility is there. After all, we want to live a peaceful life. If
the person comes from the same caste, you can take many things for
granted—lifestyle, culture, rituals, and customs—everything is the
same. Half the problems are solved. There are no nasty surprises
later."
Such as the one Pari, a Vaishnav Vania received when she married a
Punjabi man. "They had been dating each other for six years, when they
decided to tell their families," said Urvee Majmudar, a 25- year-old
first cousin of Pari, who is now looking for her own spouse on
Shaadi.com. "Both families agreed to the match and they got married.
After that, all the torture began. They are asking her to bring gold,
jewellery, cars, electronics and all sorts of things. They don't feed
her either—sometimes she comes to our home at night (on her way to her
job at a business process outsourcing firm) and eats with us. This is
in an educated family, in Mumbai, behaving like this. It makes me want
to cry. But seeing her, I have learnt my lesson. I am not seeing
anyone, but even if I was, I would not marry outside my caste. I just
don't want to risk being miserable in a strange way of living…"
Like her, young women, in India and abroad, say they are acutely aware
of the challenges of a social structure that is intensely patriarchal,
that already expects them to play many roles while juggling careers,
and that they simply do not want to make marriage any more challenging
than it needs to be. "Already, I am struggling with Indian and
American identities. There are different social expectations from me
inside my family and outside. Why on earth would I make it even more
complicated," asked 27-year-old Ashima Agrawal, a computer engineer in
Dallas, who says it would be nice to find an Agrawal man in the US.
"Then maybe we could relate to each other better, I think. Isn't it?"
This doubt gnaws at many second-generation immigrants, who struggle at
the time of marriage when they have to choose between identities:
marry a foreigner and drift away from the culture they came from or
marry an Indian chosen by their parents (mostly from the same
community) and become bound, ever more closely to their parents and
their way of life.
And to help these young people, caste-based organizations in the US,
the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Europe have "youth chapters" that
organizes galas, dances, dinners, picnics and parties, places where
young men and women of the same caste intermingle. "No one really
talks about it like that, but of course we hope it will lead to
marriages," said Harish Dhayal, chairman of the Association of Jats of
America.
Others, such as the Mahers, a warrior caste from southern Gujarat,
have set up a worldwide matrimonial portal for their community.
"From conversations in forums online, I noticed that young people lead
very busy lives and they don't have the time to meet like-minded
people in a traditional way. So, I decided to add a matrimonial option
to the Maheronline website," said Ram Odedra, a UK-based engineer, who
had created the website as a university project. The website has
around 4,000 profiles of Mahers, all of them looking to marry another
Maher. His website also helpfully details the "who can marry whom"
rules of the community, to ensure that Mahers do not inadvertently
marry the wrong Maher sub-caste.
There are many other communities like the Mahers —some set up
community portals online, some print magazines, some print newspapers,
some print directories and databases—and each word is a black thread
stitching together a community diaspora, here and there, in India and
the world. Candidly, community leaders admit that behind all the work
is a hope, the hope that the community will live when children marry
within its folds.
This is the fourth of a five-part series on the changing role of caste
in a globalized India.
Next: A guide to the contemporary meanings of caste
priyanka.p@livemint.com
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