Patidar community meeting last month in Mehsana. Patidar group leader said they want strict laws against ‘sham marriage’
The Gujarat government’s proposal that couples should inform their parents before tying the knot is not yet law, but “or-ders” for this purpose are already in effect in parts of Gujarat, with some villages and communities coming up with elaborate “laws” aimed at controlling how their members marry.The amendments proposed in the state assembly on Friday reflect the demands and actions being pushed on the ground, with sporadic village resolutions hardening into community-level “constitutions” — resolutions and declarations that threaten couples who marry for love with boycott, ostracism and exclusion from public life.From gram sabhas in Kheda district to caste organizations in Patidar and Thakur, the consensus driving such statements is that marriage without parental consent threatens tradition, destabilizes the social order and puts women at risk.“Violating the ban and facing a boycott”The Gram Sabha in Nand village in Mahuda taluka recently passed a resolution imposing a complete social boycott on couples who marry despite opposition from their families. These couples are prohibited from entering community facilities, religious gatherings and social events. The decision also sets a cap on wedding and funeral expenses, bans DJs and “unwanted songs,” and imposes fines for violations.
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Bharat Solanki, a Sar-Panch villager, said the rise in cases of marital disputes led to the decision. “We are a village with a population of 5,000, mostly from Thakurs and Darbars. There have been cases of sagotra (intra-clan) marriages, which are not allowed. When a couple elopes, it puts the parents in an embarrassing situation. As such incidents are increasing, we have decided to announce a ban on such marriages. If you violate the ban, you will face boycott.
“Solanki insisted that the rules do not exclude anyone. All communities in the village – including OBC and SC families, who form a minority – are required to comply. “The rules are for everyone. We are not targeting one group. Violators pay a fine of Rs 21,000 and are excluded from village gatherings,” he said.Similar “rules” are emerging elsewhere, suggesting broader social upheaval. Village elders say couples who elope – their union is known locally as “bhajido lagan” – disrupt social harmony and bring shame to their families.“The decision was taken because they kept seeing fraudulent marriages,” said Ginni Thakur, Congress MP from Banaskantha who led the Thakur community’s campaign against such marriages.“A girl’s marriage outside her community weakens her social fabric. There have been cases where women have been cheated by men, abused and, in some cases, driven to suicide. Our aim is to protect our daughters,” said Thakur, who also pointed to demographic factors, saying, “The gender ratio in Patidars is collapsing.” Following the proposed amendments, Thakur said she “was the first to raise the issue of ‘bhagedu lagan’ when the ‘Love Jihad’ Bill (Free Gujarat State – Dum Uddin (Amendment) Bill, 2021) was introduced in the Assembly.” She insisted that “99% of love marriages fail and bring misery to the girl.” When asked about the basis of her claim, she said: “I have found this in villages, but it may not be the case in big cities.”“Parents should say” Among Patidars, opposition to such self-choice marriages has simmered for years.
Lalji Patel, who heads the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), said the movement crystallized around the plight of parents. “During Covid, parents came to us begging us to save their daughters stuck in sham marriages,” Patel said. “That is why we initiated these measures.” He said that the SPG party demands raising the legal age for women’s marriage from 18 to 21 years even as it acknowledges that the constitution allows adults to marry by choice.
“But community is important. Parents are everything. They should have a say.” One pamphlet distributed by the Patidar Sena in Mehsana went beyond parental consent to call for sweeping changes, including parental signature on marriage registration for those aged 30 or under. It also wanted court marriages to be limited to the bride’s local judiciary, for 40 to be the minimum age for witnesses, and for couples who marry by choice after the age of 30 to deposit Rs 10,000 in their parents’ accounts and give up any claim to family property.“These demands are born out of the pain that parents have gone through,” said Satish Patel, leader of Mehsana Patidar Sena. When asked about the proposed rules, he said they were “not completely satisfied” because they also wanted “only the girls’ relatives to be signatories to the marriage registration as that would ensure that the parents and relatives bear full responsibility for every such union.” Community leaders who support these demands insist that they are not against people choosing who they want to marry, but against secrecy and deception.
“If the couple wants to get married and the parents agree, we have no objection,” Lalji Patel said. “But fathers must be involved. They are the ones who will always protect their daughters.” He also said that the latest proposal does not meet their demands. “The government talks about merely ‘notifying’ parents, as if notification is enough. We have called for parental consent to be made mandatory.”“Marriage for love is not a crime.” Legal experts warn that such measures strike at the core of constitutional freedoms, but those who fall under such diktats say they have to face serious difficulties in their daily lives.A Dalit man from north Gujarat who married a woman from the Darbar community in 2015 — Darbars are placed higher in the social hierarchy — said they had to change their residence at least 50 times and stay away from social media to avoid being tracked. They both have graduate degrees but cannot find stable work.“We couldn’t work in one place,” the man said. “We depend on daily wages even though we have graduate degrees.”
“We got jobs in NGOs, but my wife’s family members or relatives followed me there during field work.”Kaushik Parmar, a Mehsana lawyer who works with inter-communal couples, criticized the proposed changes in marriage registration rules, saying, “Love marriage is not an enemy of society; it is the right of a free citizen.” “Every attempt to curb it weakens the Constitution and reinforces the class hierarchy. If we truly want a progressive, equal, and just society, we must view love marriage not as a crime, but as a tool for social change.”
He said that these rules amount to killing democracy.
