I came across this story in my village Kharkhoda, and it made me think about the unfairness of it all. It didn't fit the parametres of my magazine so i am putting it up on my blog as i feel the issue is too important to not be talked about.
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| Jyoti, Rachna and Ruby. All pictures by Raul Irani of Open Magazine |
Once a small, dusty village -- Kharkhoda in Sonepat, Haryana
-- is now a bustling town. Through a market that sells pirated copies of
English movies as soon as they release, to yummy bread pakoras, one reaches the
gates of a private school, Sanjay Atray Memorial School. It is right in the
middle of a school day, and the primary wing is full of crying, sleepy and yet
boisterous young ones. But when a visitor comes calling, they recite poems at
the drop of a hat – their English almost devoid of a village accent. Ask them
who taught them Jack and Jill, and they all shout in unison, “Jyoti Maam”. In a
village where parents are usually not ones to recommend Enid Blyton to their
kids, teachers are the ones to look up to. Jyoti Bagri is 25 and the head of
the primary sections. Born and brought up in Kharkhoda by an educated father (who
is a MA, BeD and now works as a government employee) and a mother (who though only
studied till class 5, wants her daughters to study), she now possesses a
Bachelors of Arts degree, a BeD degree and after pursuing a MA in Literature,
she is now undertaking another MA in Political Science. At first glance, she
looks like any young woman dressed in the latest salwar kurta fashion – well fitting and colour coordinated right
down to her nail polish and chappals.
It could be all the Indian soaps she watches in her free time that lend
inspiration. Slender and caramel skinned with a ready, charming smile, she
exudes confidence when she talks and you know that she would fit right in,
whatever the situation may be. There is another detail about her that does
define who she is – at least in our country – she belongs to the SC/ST class.
Where her education should be considered an asset, Jyoti’s
biggest disappointment is that it is what makes her a pariah in her own caste.
SC/ST Families don’t want a smart “over educated” daughter in law, in case she
starts bossing them around. The fact that Jyoti wants to work after marriage is
another deterrent. But she acknowledges that the problem lies with her and her
family as well. They don’t want to settle for less than what they deserve now. Thanks
to her education, she doesn’t want to marry a boy who is less educated or well
settled She want to be with a partner that equal her in every regard. As Jyoti
says, “Most SC/ST boys either take the reserved jobs or get into business.
That’s their mentality. I want a boy who is at least as educated as I am.”
That’s the story of her other sisters too -- Ruby the eldest
at 29 and Rachna, 27. Ruby who is also a BA, MA (in Hindi and Sanskrit) and BeD
and Rachna has a diploma in computers and has done a beauty course as well.
Both have been in the marriage circuit for a while now, and have now got used
to relatives and neighbours telling their parents “Pada liya na. Ab shaadi nahin ho rahi.” The stories of their
marriage woes can be divided into two parts – boys that reject them because of
the “over education” and boys they reject because of their “under education”.
In Haryana, where statistics show the number of college-going girls has
quadrupled in last 25 years and the number of Class 12-pass girls has gone up
five-fold since the ’80s; but that of boys has not even doubled, this could
pose as a serious problem. In his 2001 report titled India Gender Profile,
commissioned by Swedish International Development Agency, Gautam Bhan, now
Senior Consultant for Curriculum Development and Policy and Advisory Services
at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, made the connection between
marriageblity and education of women. He cited the 1991 census figures which
showed that 46% men from backward classes were educated, but only 19 per cent
women were educated. He gave reasons such as religions and caste as main
deterrents to education for women but also cited marriageblity as one of the
main reasons. The report says – “Education in Urban areas is now considered an
asset that makes a girl more attractive to a suitor. In rural areas, however,
too much education is seen a sign that the girl lacks good domestic skills and
hence will not make a good wife. This is also true for low-income families in urban
areas and religious families of all strata.”
The Bagri sisters have other problems to add to their woes. Most
men who come to their house are not as educated, or have a stable government
job which is a pre-requisite according to the sisters and their father. There
is also another glitch – the educated girls would not even dream of marrying
someone who would ask for dowry. Ruby tells the stories with a sardonic laugh.
“So a few days ago, someone came by who was only 12th pass. And they
thought I was too educated for their son, who didn’t even have a proper job. We
said no right away.” The girls’s relatives have tried to get different grooms
to their small home, but once the would-be in laws hear of Ruby’s
qualifications, they decide it’s not worth being with smart talking bride. “My
father tells people that I can only get married in a house that lets me work
after marriage. That gets rid of most of them,” she says. Jyoti says, “Being
educated has given us some power but nothing good is coming of it.” As they
wait for the eldest to get married, the girls are just getting older, which is
another problem. Their parents have also never lied about their ages. “My
father often tells people ‘at least see her, she doesn’t look 29. Ladki ke gun dekho’. But nobody wants
to. They don’t want an over-educated, old bride,” says Ruby. These experiences
of the bad kind have made Ruby world wise as well, “I don’t want to get married
outside my caste. I may have to adjust -- because if you marry a man from the
higher caste, one day it matters. I just want him to have a good, stable job. I
know of friends who married boys of higher castes and later had to get
divorced. It just doesn’t work.”
If there was some hope that
educated boys of higher castes would marry the sisters, that was also shattered
with a recent experience Jyoti went through. After the mother of one of her
students observed Jyoti over a period of time, she decided that this was one
fair maiden for her nephew. On the school’s Annual Day, the
whole Jat family came down to vet Jyoti – without her even having an inkling of
what was happening. They stared at her all day, passing smiles when she glanced
over suspiciously. The boy was smitten, he told his aunt. It was time to meet
the parents and fix the rishta. And
then it came to light – Jyoti was an SC/ST. “That’s when I never saw them
again,” says Jyoti. They were impressed with her education, but the caste
question was too big to ignore. In the same village, a 40 year-old who got her
16 year-old daughter married after forging her school documents to prove she
was 18, says that this is the only way to go. “It’s too big a risk to take. A
good match was right in front of me. And I couldn’t let it go waste.” Her
daughter is now a mother at 17.
Far away from the Bagri sisters, in Trichy, Yoesthin and her
sisters face the same dilemma. A Dalit activist, Yoesthin doesn’t plan to get
married as she has to take care of her old parents and also because she doesn’t
want to lose her freedom. The thought of marriage is anyone a tiresome for her,
because as she says it’s just too hard. The 38 year old year these days is
trying to get her other two sisters Vinotha (35) and Pricelin (30) married off.
The girls, who are both teachers teaching younger children, earn enough to be
deemed “marriage worthy”. But Yoesthin is now facing an unusual problem – “if
the boys are working at good government jobs, they are usually not educated.
They get these jobs thanks to the quota. And if they are educated, they would
want girls of higher castes or younger.” All three sisters, who got educated
and started working in their 20s, are now stuck in a rut. But as Yoesthin says
that that shouldn’t deter other Dalit girls as education is stil the most
important thing. The Dalit activist spends her days in field advising young
Dalit girls to go to school as she knows it’s what matters. “Awareness is
important. Maybe then things will change.” Her sisters who have had enough of
this situation are now insisting that they also stay unmarried like her. “Their
heart isn’t in it anymore.”
An Indian Express news report from Gujarat in 2009 had cited
the example of a Dalit girl with an MBA degree eloping with an upper caste boy
far less qualified than her. The boy’s family intervened and insisted that the
girl be returned to her family, as despite her qualification, having a Dalit
daughter in law could cause trouble with the family getting their own daughters
married. Kannal Parmar, the activist that had recounted the incident to
Express, started his own SC/ST marriage bureau after this incident. He was
quoted as saying, “Incidents of educated girls having to compromise and settle
for lesser-educated boys within their sub-caste or facing discrimination when
married to higher castes triggered the idea of creating an option to bridge the
gap. Gujarat, by and large, is an ultra casteist state where marriage between
two sub-castes is a taboo. Although SCs are still not accepted in higher
castes, they can find better matches as per their sensibilities this way.”
Pathakjee from Pathakjee Matrimonial Consultant, who
specialize in SC/ST marriages in and
around New Delhi, tells us that he
thinks that 75% of SC/ST boys want girls who are less educated than them. “I
recently took the rishta of a good
looking, educated and well earning girl to a well-off boy who was less educated
than her. They boy just refused. He says he would rather not get married than
get married to a girl who is more educated than him. They are both still
looking for spouses.”
Other than Rajasthan, our
reporting showed that such instances are high in areas such as Kerala as well,
where the literacy rate amongst girls is high as well – the government of
Kerala website shows figures as high as 91.98 literacy rate for women in 2011.
Rekha Raj, an activist who works with Dalits in Kerala, says she has noticed
the same phenomenon in the Dalit community. She cites the example of a family
of unmarried girls ranging in age from 30 to 45, all highly educated but
incapable of finding grooms. Along with reasons such as their dark skin working
against them, even in their own caste, “over education” is one main problem.
“When they are educated, they have a voice and opinions. They understand their
rights and want to live life in a certain way. But that goes against them as
Dalit families usually want a meek wife and daughter in law. They don’t want
girls who are too progressive. We recently got one of the sisters married at
age 35 – it was a hard task.” Another activist Bobby Joseph, who is also
involved with Dalit causes, gives another example, “Most Dalit men are getting
married early, and since many girls are studying longer, they get too old for
these men. The main factor is still that education makes these girls powerful
and independent and the patriarchal nature of society doesn’t want to accept
that, and hence their education goes against them. If she is educated, she most
probably won’t even offer dowry, and that would spell doom for most men’s
families.”
If the above mentioned case studies say anything it’s that
this is a story reflected in many states of India. Young men from the SC/ST
strata don’t want to marry a girl who is better than them in any regard. And
young educated girls from backward classes, don’t want to spend their lives
with someone they can’t have a conversation with. Varsha Jhanwar from the
Aastha Sansthan in Rajasthan, who works with women’s issues, says that
according to their research men from SC/ST and other backward classes in rural
areas usually don’t pay much attention to education, and get waylaid by
drinking and general vagrancy. “The girls then obviously don’t want to marry
such boys. As a result, parents react by stopping their girls from even going
to school. In those cases, they can marry their girls off wherever they wish.”
State governments are now trying to remedy the situation of unmarried girls from
backward classes, but these come with their own problems. Almost every state
now offers monetary incentive for inter-caste marriages. West Bengal, Bihar,
Utter Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra are just some of the states that offer Rs
25,000 to Rs 5 lakhs for inter caster marriages that are registered. Shivajirao
Moghe, minister of Social Justice, Welfare of Nomadic, De-Notified Tribes and
Other Backward Classes and De-addiction Activities of Maharashtra, puts a
unique spin on it when we suggest that the money may prompt people to get
married for the wrong reasons. “It’s all about love, not money. When society
rejects love, we the government, encourage it. It’s about breaking the caste
barrier and some incentive is welcome. This money is to help them. Love knows
no caste. People who get married like this know that they have also worked in
the larger interest of people.” He does agree that educated girls could be
shunned as the mentality of the rural folk may lead them to believe that
education makes a girl too modernized. But says that he is sure that will
change one day. There could also be another reason – as most women are
uneducated, rural schools have less women teachers and hence parents don’t feel
comfortable sending their daughters in. Nooreen Dossa of Educate Girls, which
works in Rajasthan, says, “People think education will westernize their
daughters. Also, government schools don’t have female teachers. The lack of
education makes sure that there are very few female role models. We need to
change that.”
Back in Kharkhoda, Jyoti feels that the cash incentive that
encourages inter-caste marriages will give rise to greedy people. She had a
friend who got married under the scheme, but her husband left her soon after.
She feels that instead of offering money, maybe governments should offer jobs
to the girls, making them good investments in turn. Despite their
circumstances, the three sisters haven’t lost hope. They thank God everyday for
parents who support them and are sure that they won’t compromise. They want to
just focus on moving ahead. As Jyoti says, “You can’t let society change you.
You need to change society.”
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