Caste costs lives

Violence against couples is shocking

The recent historic verdict of the Supreme Court decriminalising homosexuality was a recognition of the universal principle that love transcends gender, social norms and traditions. But two incidents from Telangana serve as a stark reminder of brutal ground realities. Both cases involve inter-caste marriages with the fathers of the women unable to accept the so-called lower caste status of their sons-in-law. In the first case, Amruta Varshini and Pranay Kumar — who had tied the knot at an Arya Samaj mandir in Hyderabad in January — became victims of a murderous plot hatched allegedly by Amruta’s father. The latter simply couldn’t come to terms with the fact that his daughter had married a Dalit, and is accused of hiring a contract killer to murder the young man.

As if this wasn’t shocking enough, just days later a man attacked his daughter and her husband in the middle of Hyderabad, again because the son-in-law was a Dalit. Although the couple escaped with their lives, the woman almost lost her forearm and the man received serious injuries in the attack.

So entrenched is caste in Indian society that it cuts across economic classes. Clearly, the country’s political leadership has been unsuccessful in mitigating caste prejudice. On the contrary, our netas find it convenient to cultivate caste vote banks. It’s also anybody’s guess whether caste-based reservations, as practised today, alleviate caste divisions in society or actually reinforce them.