Indian Culture and Love Marriages- Any Connection ?

Hello friends, hope you all are enjoying in the new semester and a bow to all the elders reading this blogpost. Well this one deals with quite a serious and mature topic- Love Marriage and Indian Culture. There’s a lot of buzz about Love Marriages even today, when we’re living in the 21^st century and that too in a rapidly ECONOMICALLY progressing country like India ( Just economically progressing and not socially, SAD !!! ) It has been quite long since I wanted to write over the issue and about the notion we Indians have pertaining to the link between our Culture and Love Marriages. All what I will be talking in this blog post, will be just on the basis of what the religious scriptures and epic incidences have to say and the notion the torch bearers of Indian Society have about Love Marriages. Here I go:

The very wrong notion which people have about Love Marriages is that they are Anti-Culture and Anti-Religion. Let me take up the term culture first. Culture has no explicit definition. Culture can be termed as a word which is formed by the the sum of terms like Religions, Practices and Trends. Now taking the first of these- Religion. Are Love marriages Anti-Religion? I don’t know about other religions but as far as my religion – Hinduism is concerned, they’re definitely not. But still I hear people saying, love marriages are something which the religions don’t preach. When they make such abrupt and illogical statement I feel they’re mocking at our greatest epics- Ramayan and Mahabharat.

Let me take up Ramayan first. Biggest example of Love Marriage- Lord Ram and Goddess Sita. Now most of the people would start battling with me here. But wait, let me complete. As per my understanding, Ram & Sita’s alliance was a Love Marriage. Yes, LOVE MARRIAGE. If you all know Ramayan in entirety, you might also know that Ram and Sita met first in Pushpavatika in Janakpuri. The moment they saw each other they fell in love- LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT, as people call it. Goddess Sita and Lord Ram were so deeply in love at first sight that their eyelids too forgot blinking- this is how it is described by Goswami Tulsidas in Ramayan. Had the Swayamvar not taken place the next day, Ram Sita’s marriage would have been a LOVE MARRIAGE. And even with the Swayamvar taking place, Ram Sita’s marriage is a love marriage because they had already chosen each other before the Swayamvar. It was just a matter of destiny and coincidence that Ram could break Shiv’s Bow in the Swayamvar the next day. So, I guess here we all conclude that Ram-Sita’s alliance was LOVE MARRIAGE. Now the question is, when people wish to have a son like Ram, then why don’t they allow that modern day Ram to fall in love with a modern world Sita? If they want their son to follow the ideals of Ram, one of those ideals is LOVE MARRIAGE too. Then why do some parents restrict their Ram for a LOVE MARRIAGE? Why? If you oppose love marriage then you’re Anti-Ram and hence Anti-Hinduism. Sita and Ram were given the choice to chose their bride. Neither Raja Dashrath nor Raja Janak chose bride/bridegrooms for Ram and Sita respectively. Then why the people today, don’t follow this facet of Religion? If you follow Ramayan, then Arrange Marriages should be Anti-Religion and not Love Marriages. Now your choice, be Religious or be Anti-Religion..

Now coming to Mahabharat and Lord Krishna. I too being a big follower of Lord Krishna believe that its Lord Krishna who preaches the gospel of Love and Love Marriages. No one is unaware about Lord Krishna’s immortal love with Radha Rani. When Hinduism talks about Love, it talks about Radha Krishna. Their love was such that, Radha and Krishna didn’t remain two names but became one. Though Radha and Krishna couldn’t marry, their love didn’t die. Now the question is Love of Lord Krishna is Love and our love LAFDA ??? Seems like advocates of arrange marriages are making a mockery of Hinduism and a bigger mockery of Krishna. Its Krishna who has taught to love, but still people stop their kids from loving? Aren’t they being Anti Religion now? This was about Krishna himself. Now let me tell you a tale which not many of you might be knowing.

Lord Krishna was such a strong advocate of love marriages that he himself advised and helped Arjun to elope with his(Krishna’s) sister Subhadra. And consequently Subhadra’s and Arjun’s Marriage too was a LOVE MARRIAGE. With the help of Lord Krishna, Arjun managed to elope with Subhadra and married her. Now, when God Krishna himself advocated Love Marriages in this form too, why the hell the society and the pseudo torch bearers of society oppose this? Hinduism considers ARRANGE MARRIGES as default. Today when people hear about marriages they presume that its an arrange marriage. When its not, they explicitly specify that its a love marriage, that too with sarcastic emphasis. Why? Why the hell this discrimination with love marriages? Religions preach love marriages, scriptures preach love marriages, Gods preach love marriages, but people oppose ! And the height of this opposition is such that those who oppose Love Marriage claim that by doing do they are being religious and cultured ! I mean with such kind of mentality, people with newspapers in their hand talk the bull shit about India’s progress socially and economically, but so sad with this mentality of theirs will lead India to nowhere but just hell !

Lets talk about Culture now. The advocates of Arrange Marriages claim that Love Marriages, to be specific Intercaste Marriages destroy the cultural identity of that caste. I don’t say this, the advocates of Arrange marriages say so. Now this is again so horrible to hear. Firstly the people who say so, they themselves are the destructors of their culture. Now what astonishes me is that the people who say so- they can migrate to a different state,city,country, they can speak a foreign language, observe the foreign trends and practices, but when it comes to accepting the trends and practices of the caste to which their daughter-in-law/son-in-law belongs to, they feel like their culture is being destroyed. What Crap ! Being a Gujju, they can go to Tamil Nadu for a high paying job, speak Tamil, celebrate Pongal instead of Uttrayan, eat Chettinaad( a Non-veg Dish) being vegetarian still they don’t feel their culture being destroyed, but when they have a Tamil daughter-in-law they are so reluctant to communicate with her in English even. They cannot bear their BAHU celebrating PONGAL, though she celebrates Uttrayan with equal enthusiasm. Now what kind of a culture is this? To be very clear, people can afford to destroy the culture for monetary gains, success, profits but not for their own children.

And to tell you all the fact amalgamation of cultures have never destroyed the mingling culture but they have made them even more colorful. Imagine- A Gujju and Marathi Allinace- two new years in one year- A Gujarati New Year and a Gudipadwa. Imagine A Gujju and Tamil Alliance- Uttrayan and Pongal-two festivals on one day ! Imagine a Gujarati and Punjabi Alliance- 13^th ko Lodhi 14^th ko Uttrayan. Imagine a Gujarati- Bengali Alliance- Along with Sheera and Lapsi, enjoy Rossogullas too ! Instead of buying sweets from Shreeji Dairy and Haldiram’s you will get it at your own homes ! The thought of Love Marriages and specifically Intercaste Marriages is so enchanting, then imagine how the real life alliance will be ! But its a matter of deep regret that people still have got to oppose such a wonderful trend.

When it comes to culture, the most horrible thing I have seen is that TV Soap- YEH RISHTA KYA KEHLATA HAI. The director of the show once claimed in an interview that he is showing the world the Indian culture and specifically the Rajasthani culture. But is Rajasthani culture all about Arrange Marriages?Infact it has the biggest fame of – Prithviraj And Sanyogita’s love story, which stands as a jewel in the crown of Rajasthani culture. The serial shows a Rajasthani family, which greets every body by saying  “Radhe Krishna”. But as soon as they hear the word “LOVE MARRIAGE”, they open their mouths so wide open that you can actually enforce 10 Rasgullas in their mouth. How ironic! They greet by “Radhe Krishna”, but they do not follow what Radha Krishna preach- LOVE. Where’s love? Where is Radhe Krishna? Where is culture here?

I, having read the Rigveda’s Translation, (One of the 4 Vedas which preaches the ideology to live life), I don’t find any mention about the Religion’s prejudice towards Love Marriages. Infact the Vedas mention that every girl shall be given the full liberty to chose a life partner for her. But I see totally contradictory things happening around. Infact I feel so ashamed to tell you that I have some friends, whose parents saw each other for the first time in the Wedding Mandap. How Ridiculous ! Where is the liberty? Where is the Religion? Where is the culture?

People say that India is a country of immortal Legends like Mahatma Gandhi. People claim to follow the virtues preached by Mahatma- to mention a few- Truth, Nonviolence and stuff. To inform you, Gandhiji was not only an advocate of Truth and Nonviolence but also was a strong advocate of Intercaste Marriages too. But so sad, people don’t accept this. It goes like whatever people like they take it in the name of Mahatma and which they don’t, they trash it. Why don’t we understand that ideals and virtues are quantum quantity-either take it full or leave it full. If you take it half-you will self destruct. It’s so shameful that even after high GDPs, this and that we have evils like Honor Killing prevailing in the Indian Society. People kill their sons and daughters but don’t accept love marriages. How disgusting !!! And the ones who accept, don’t accept whole heartedly. They accept saying-”We had got no option, so we allowed the LAFDA to go on”. Note the word they use for Love Marriages- LAFDA…

To put the whole thing in a nut shell I would conclude saying that Arrange Marriages were never a default system of marriage in Hinduism. It’s was entirely people’s choice to make it default, Hinduism, the Ramayan, The Mahabharat, the Vedas never ever preached Arrange Marriages. It were those so called torch bearers of the so called SAMAJ who let this crap out. I don’t mean to oppose Arrange Marriages. But I object to the prejudice towards Love Marriages. I agree that its the parents who have brought us in this world, they have the full right to decide anything and everything in our life. Arrange Marriage, if being their decision, I accept it with all due respects to them. But why give it the false name of Religion and Culture. Why? And like why not give a thought over what you’re believing blindly. Our society structure is so rigid that these kinds of discussions and debates never happen in the four corners of the house. In most of the cases, its anarchy in the house and not democracy.

Discrimination towards Love Marriages is an evil which still prevails in India after so many years of independence and hell of International Advancement. People followed evils like Dudhpiti and Sati for years and years in the name of Culture and Religion. And now I feel the same being done for Love Marriages too. Prejudice against love marriages is too an evil in the Indian Society though be it to a smaller stratum. And to eradicate it needs a REVOLUTION for sure ! To my young friends who are reading this, please raise your voice and make people understand, someone has to take an initiative, then why not we? And to my elders reading this- for those who accept Love Marriages- I SALUTE your open mindedness and bow down for your thoughtfulness. And those who are against love marriages or accept it reluctantly PLEASE give this writing of mine a thought atleast !

P.S. I know I have battled enough for Love Marriages in this writing. It doesn’t any way indicate that I’m in a Love Relationship or an Intercaste Relationship. If you think that, please shake that off from your mind. It’s just that when I see such disturbing things around, I cannot stop myself from writing about it.

Love & Regards,

Anish.