Okay.I feel I am too blown by emotions sometimes.

I have a feeling that if four of us can meet and discuss this there can be a solution to this.But both of them(my parents and him) have their issues.My parents are sometimes like okay we’ll meet him and then other day no we’ll not.Him on the other hand he says if there’s a meeting it’ll be at this home or he’ll come with his parents. He denied meeting them alone once. IDC scared of something or what. 2 years ago he was like i can talk to your mum.

What i am thinking..i am sorry but i am going to lie to him… saying my parents want to meet you… if he still gives me excuses then he had some other intentions and reasons to leave.(maybe he lost interest..i don’t think so but still who knows)

Iam here thinking it’s because of caste so it’s hurting me more. If he’ll say he’s ready to meet my parents even if not very soon then I’ll try to convince my parents to atleast meet him. If he makes excuses or says he don’t have the courage … I’ll still be hard, I’ll have multiple breakdowns but atleast I’ll be clear that this is not gonna happen even if i convince my parents as he never had it in him.

Dear Sushmita:

Correction, last paragraph: “he knows that you are dependent on your parents, that he dependent from his parents” => he knows that you are dependent on your parents, and that he is dependent on his parents.

In other words, the two of you are not independent individuals.

anita

Dear Sushmita:

Before I attend to your recent post, I want to go over a few things we discussed previously:

1) You wrote earlier: “He wanted to part ways without me telling at home… He has asked to not fight for it.. It’s been 6 months that we have talked only 2-3 times.. He says… I have stopped myself from loving you“. I asked you if there is a “we” when it comes to this guy, or “is there just you, a singular person, imagining that she is… a we?”  Your answer was: ” I think it’s just ‘me’“.

2) There is an element of dishonesty going on, as I understand it: your mother wanted you to be calm enough to finish your studies, so she lied to you, suggesting that she will consider agreeing to a marriage. At one point, she wanted to scare you into giving up on the guy, so she lied (?), saying that she was going to gather relatives around to beat you up. You tried to dishonestly manipulate your parents and the guy by suggesting that if a marriage doesn’t take place, you will commit suicide. Yesterday, you considered lying to the guy: “I am sorry but I am going to lie to him… saying my parents want to meet you“. Since you want clarity, how can clarity be achieved when lies and dishonest manipulations are taking place?

3) You wrote: “keeping this hope when the other person is not giving me commitment- it will not let me be at peace“.

Now let’s see what you posted most recently: “But someday I am going to be independent financially“-  you are currently financially dependent on your parents, but you are also emotionally dependent on them. Do you think that once you are financially independent, you will no longer care if they approve or disapprove of a man you want to marry? Will you then be able to marry a man they disapprove of and not have contact with your parents for as long as they disapprove?

“I have invested myself in building something for 3 years and now suddenly he realised his ethics… he should not have made it clear otherwise from the very beginning” – the two of you were aware from the very beginning that you are of very different castes and that Indian society at large (and therefore your parents) disapprove of inter-caste marriages. You didn’t have a practical plan to tackle this problem, you ignored it instead,  and now you are paying the price .

“I am a normal individual who hasn’t mastered his level of letting go and being at peace with regret of not trying enough for the person I wanted to be with“- you can’t try enough to be with him when you and him are emotionally dependent on parents’/ society’s approval. The two of you never had a practical plan to make a marriage happen, so…

“I need clarity I can’t keep hanging in the hope and keep trying so hard for something that might not happen. I don’t know to give up maybe. My attachment will not let me give up“- there is a saying, the heart wants what the heart wants, regardless of whether it’s rational or not. Your heart wants him. And it is not a rational want: your parents disagree, he gave up.. there is no “we”, it’s only you, fighting on your own, alone,  for a “we” that does not exist.

Again, the key point: you and him did not have a practical plan to overcome the expected societal disapproval of your inter-caste relationship. A practical plan upon having met three years ago would have been to agree that the two of you, if you decide to get married in the future, will be getting married without parents’ approval,  willing to have no contact with any and all disapproving family members, parents included. The plan would have included your willingness to be shunned by disapproving families, and to not be a part of their lives anymore,  living together as a married couple in another city or country where you will not be judged.

I wish you rational and emotional honesty and clarity in your own mind and in all your relationships: these will bring you peace.

anita

Dear Sushmita:

“I didn’t say about suicide and stuff to any of them”- I thought you did because you wrote earlier: “My father even says that he’ll rather burn me if I die by suicide than consider this guy”. I don’t understand why he would bring up you dying from suicide unless you brought it up first.

“I am home with my parents trying to be calm“- please do your very best to remain calm.

“He used to say he’ll never have that again with anyone”- let’s say that he absolutely meant what he said, that he couldn’t imagine every feeling this connection with any woman other than you; still,  those were moments-in-time when he felt it and said it, moments that are now in the past. Also, it is true that he will never have the exact connection that he had with you, not with other women and not even with you, as nothing stays exactly the same.

“Will he always be at peace with this decision? Sometimes we realise things much later and then regret that things could have been different”- maybe he will regret; maybe he is/ will be too busy with life to think about past, regrets or peace.

“scares me for myself too.. and then seeing him with someone else will also be very hard for me”- maybe it will help if you bring the image of him with another woman to your mind and take a few breaths as you  hold the image for a moment.

“plan was not running away and getting married it was to wait and win over our parents hearts… there was a big chance that in the end they would have agreed… and we’ll be together for a lifetime”- this is optimism on your part and maybe wishful thinking. I mean, you didn’t describe much of a heart in regard to any of your parents, not in regard to each other and not in regard to you, sadly.

anita

About the suicide thing it was not that I’ll die..it was I can’t live like this.

I know I am being stubborn…but i want our parents and both of us happy.and i don’t want my parents to pay the price for it.Or least that they go through for it.Is it really this impossible thing for parents to say.My mother at this point has things like his daughter did intercaste marriage nd he died of grief.I have time to make her understand.please suggest.

Dear Sushmita:

“Is there any way that I can save my parents if this happens. Like from society and relatives…… Achieving heights in career?… His only concern is how will we leave your parents in that mess with those relatives and in that society“-

-lawctopus. com has an interesting article titled “Inter-caste & Inter-religious Marriages: Social and Legal Issues“, it reads in part (I added the boldface feature): “Caste is a form of social organization based on Hindu religious belief and has been practiced from the early time in India. The origin of the caste system is in Hinduism, but it affected the whole Indian society. The ethnic groups and castes are by no means isolated from each other in India. They have been interacting with each other groups over many years.

“Furthermore, with more globalization and increase in educational facilities there is great change in the views of people on caste behavior. With the opportunities for cultural exchanges, travel, work and study abroad have brought contacts and relationships with different castes. Within India also, more and more young people are in contact with one another across caste and ethnic lines in schools, colleges, and workplaces. Thus, mingling with different castes and ethnic groups many people are entering in to such marriages…

“The modern youth who are well educated are very positive towards such marriages. As they study along with people of different castes and religions thus they develop good relations with them. Due to this their mindset is improving with every successive generation. But the sad part is this that the older generations are still very strict with the caste and religion aspect of marriage. Similarly the uneducated youth is also an obstacle in this way.

“Conclusion: India is still more or less a traditional society with rigid caste and religious system. Caste and Religion play a very important role in the selection of mates in marriages. To most Indians, it is difficult to think of marriage beyond their own caste. But it is quite heartening to notice that the force of the caste in marriage selection is gradually loosening over time as about ten percent of the marriages in India are reported to be inter-caste marriages.

“This is a good beginning to completely eradicate the caste system in India… There seems to be higher inter-caste marriages in socio-economically developed states like Punjab, Haryana, Assam, Maharashtra and Karnataka in comparison with the socio-economically backward states of northern India namely Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

“It is expected that the incidence of such inter-caste marriages will increase with degree of modernization and socio-economic development. There is need to glorify, give media exposure and encourage such marriages in order to reduce the caste barrier prevalent in Indian society. India will require long time yet to come when the marriage system in India will be completely feed of caste discrimination.

“Inter-caste marriages are the only means of completely eradicating the caste barriers in India, whether urban or rural…. The Constitution of India gives us the fundamental rights of Right to Equality, Right of Freedom & Personal Liberty, Right to Life, and all these are also conferred to the couples marrying under the Special Marriage Act as well. So the government, NGOs, teams of Lawyers, young students should take up initiatives to promote the inter-caste marriages even at the rural areas at the grass root panchayat levels…

“For years, Indians had an orthodox mindset… Talking about inter caste and inter religion marriages in India was a taboo for most people in the earlier days. However, with time, things changed and inter caste marriage also became a part of the society. Marriages are regarded as the most important social custom and hence, were viewed as the best means to remove the barrier of caste system. Today, in Indian society, though we can see inter caste marriages, but mostly it is the part of the city culture. The rural parts of the country still have a long way to go.”

* The Special Marriage Act enacted by the parliament of India in 1954 allows for inter-caste and inter-religion marriages for Indian nationals in India and abroad.

Back to your post: “I know I am being stubborn…but I want our parents and both of us happy… please suggest“- I suggest that you look at the different phone numbers listed on ncw. nic. in/ helplines. It lists phone numbers in India under “For women in distress”, and under “Legal aid. Maybe you can get valuable information there!

anita

Dear Sushmita:

As I understand it, you and the guy will not consider getting married without your parents’ (and his parents’) consent, and live away from parents, in a different city or country. Therefore, your parents have all the power. And so, unless (?) you manage to bribe them with lots of money, why would they change their minds, why would they give up their power?

anita

Dear Sushmita:

“Still scared when my mother says things like you rather give us poison“- it is very sad that your mother thinks of other humans as poison just because they were born to a lower caste. People of lower castes are not inferior humans! They just happened to be born where they were born.

Post before last, you wrote: “my mother says it’s impossible for her to accept… she can’t eat with him…and that whole of your family will be then from low caste ..your children…I want something else for you“- it’s quite disgusting, really, that your mother feels that other humans are so inferior to her  that she will not be able to sit with them at a table and eat with them.

I read from an August 2019 article in gates to neinstitute. org/ india cast discrimination (no spaces): “Article 15 and 16 of the Indian Constitution forbid discrimination “… No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition...“… Prime Minister Modi must take effective steps to eliminate the discriminatory caste system not only in word, but in deed“.

Wikipedia: “Dalit (…meaning “broken/scattered”), also known as untouchable, is a name for people belonging to the lowest stratum castes in India.. In the past, they were believed to be so impure that upper caste Hindus considered their presence to be polluting… Forced by the circumstance of their birth and poverty, Dalits in India continue to work as sanitation workers: manual scavengers, cleaners of drains, garbage collectors, and sweepers of roads”.

national geographic. com: “More than 160 million people in India are considered ‘Untouchable’—people tainted by their birth into a caste system that deems them impure, less than human… Statistics compiled by India’s National Crime Records Bureau indicate that in the year 2000, the last year for which figures are available, 25,455 crimes were committed against Dalits… the police will do nothing…

“Despite the fact that untouchability was officially banned when India adopted its constitution in 1950, discrimination against Dalits remained so pervasive that in 1989 the government passed legislation known as The Prevention of Atrocities Act. The act specifically made it illegal to parade people naked through the streets, force them to eat feces, take away their land, foul their water, interfere with their right to vote, and burn down their homes. Since then, the violence has escalated, largely as a result of the emergence of a grassroots human rights movement among Dalits to demand their rights and resist the dictates of untouchability…

“Enforcement of laws designed to protect Dalits is lax if not non-existent in many regions of India. The practice of untouchability is strongest in rural areas, where 80 percent of the country’s population resides. There, the underlying religious principles of Hinduism dominate. Hindus believe a person is born into one of four castes based on karma and “purity”—how he or she lived their past lives. Those born as Brahmans are priests and teachers; Kshatriyas are rulers and soldiers; Vaisyas are merchants and traders; and Sudras are laborers. Within the four castes, there are thousands of sub-castes, defined by profession, region, dialect, and other factors”-

– back to your mother: she will not eat with a man of a lower caste, or with his parents because (in her mind) they are… sub-humans, impure, polluting.. afraid that they will pollute the food at the table… Hmmm.. no wonder the guy does not want to subject himself, or his parents, to sub-human treatment.

* In reality your mother is not superior to him, to his parents or to anyone at all, no matter their caste and sub caste. It is only in her mind (and in the minds of millions of mistaken people) that she is superior.

In your post before last, you wrote: “I want to change my parents’ mind and accept him will full heart maybe half…My mother is soft at heart“- she is not soft at heart when it comes to people she considers sub-human. Shame on her and shame on all the millions of people who share her belief. I hope that you, as an individual, turn away from this evil practice of castes discrimination in any and every way possible.

anita