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Journalism of Courage
The passion that the Priyanka Wadhwani-Mohammed Umar elopement evoked on the streets of Bhopal reflects not the promise of modernity generally associated with urban centres but the blind prejudice of the backwoods. Such a display of outrage over an inter-religious union may not have been out of place in Muzaffarnagar, UP, where the lines of caste and community are so deeply etched that couples who have dared to cross them have invited the instant and terrible wrath of the local communities. Bhopal, one of Madhya Pradesh8217;s most cosmopolitan towns, promised better. The responses to the Priyanka-Mohammed marriage clearly belie that promise.
Cities are the natural locus of social reform given the space and freedom they afford the individual to transcend the often stultifying matrix of community life at the grassroots. By providing individuals with the opportunities of education, social contact with those beyond the immediate family, economic empowerment and professional advancement, they are the natural crucibles of personal transformation. So it is not an inter-community, inter-religious marriage in such a setting that should surprise us, but the wholly disproportionate response to it from variegated outfits, all ostensibly rooting for the 8220;honour8221; of their respective communities. The Hindu groups, the first to get off the block, saw it as an affront to Hindu womenhood and even set up a Kanya Raksha Samiti. The Sindhi Panchayat decided that it was time to draw the line. Its advisory that girls below 25 should not be allowed to use mobile phones or ride two-wheelers would have delighted the Taliban. Meanwhile the All India Muslim Tyohar wants to excommunicate the groom for daring to marry a Hindu girl. Talk about competing social fundamentalisms!
