Opinion My same-sex marriage violates no scripture — talk to my mother

At my wedding, my parents read from Gandhiji’s favourite poem. They recited, “Vaishnav jana to tene kahiye je peed parayee jaane re.” A true Vaishnav is she who knows the suffering of others. There were three other readings as we took our pheras — one from the gospels, another an Irish blessing, and finally, words from the landmark judgment, Obergefell v Hodges legalising same-sex marriage in the United States. My mother, whose days are flanked by prayers to Srinathji, spends her working hours, even as she nears 80, dedicated to the defence of justice. This month, she celebrated 55 years at the Bar. Among our many cousins, friends and their children, were my dear aunts. My mother’s maasi, a disciple of Pramukh Swami, recently earned her PhD from Mumbai University for her thesis on Mahaprabhu Vallabhacharya, the 15th century founder of Pushtimarg, making her one of the oldest graduates from the university. While her eyesight had dimmed, her vision hadn’t. Her gait faltered, her actions did not. She graced the front row, along with my friend’s mother. Auntyji was married to a Tamil scholar, a renowned linguist in India and the United States, and was immersed in a life of reading and thought. In the eight decades of her life, she began to write books interpreting foreign cultures for Tamil readers. They had all come to bless my husband and me, as we exchanged vows and garlands under a resplendent open sky on a gorgeous day, six years ago, in the canyons of Zion National Park.

To those men that have risen to defend our religion and culture, as they lambast petitioners and judges, while the Supreme Court of India contemplates expansion of the right to marry to all persons, I urge them to pay heed to the wisdom of their elders — these women who through their bhakti, their gyan or their karma, have defended their faith, and like women everywhere, remain the legitimate guardians of their culture. For our culture has been nothing but one of extraordinary assimilation. Our food, our clothes, our poetry, our prose, our words, our art, capture millennia of churning, and are a palimpsest of change. Our thoughts have been refined through upheavals so epic that they birthed four major religions — each that preached endless ways to love, to be kind, to care, to nurture body and soul. The story of this incessant assimilation so mesmerised one of our freedom fighters, that he chose to spend his time in Aurangabad Fort, in 1944, writing about it — words we now recognise as The Discovery of India. And this story of inclusion continues to so infuse our collective identity that the Indian government’s contemporary message to the world recounts our ancient values, “One Earth. One Family. One Future.” How can this future be universal unless it has room for all?

Cultural sanction is, however, besides the point. The question is how the Supreme Court will interpret the Constitution. Will the Law be used to protect, or to discriminate — because it can do either? It can be manipulated, as it has been the world over, to incarcerate those that speak truth to power, and to condemn entire groups of humans. It can also be used, as shown by the US Supreme Court, to terrorise the wombs of women. The Law can fall back on the most debased of our cultural artefacts. But the Law can also reverse wrongs, expand freedoms and point to horizons that elevate us all. It can illuminate our highest ideals, and give strength to our kindest impulses.