The incident, that left activists and tribals fuming, occurred June 30 when the brides were assembled for a mass marriage function in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol district, 350 km from here, held under the 'Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojna' - Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's pet scheme aimed to help girls from poor families tie the knot at government expense.

Marriages under the scheme are solemnised free of cost and all arrangements are made by the district administration. Every couple is also provided assistance in the form of household items to the tune of Rs.5,000.

On that day, a would-be bride developed labour pains minutes before the exchange of garlands. The organisers immediately stopped the mass wedding and ordered pregnancy tests on the 152 brides assembled for the ceremony.

The tests revealed 14 of them were pregnant. "As many as 14 girls were detected to be pregnant during the tests while another girl was found to be a minor," Shahdol district hospital's senior gynaecologist Reena Gautam told.

Later, 138 couples belonging to different religions tied the knot under the scheme.

Local legislator Sunder Singh, the district collector and other government officials were also present during the occasion, sources said.

A local resident alleged that "fake marriages" were being held. He said: "Middlemen produce recently married couples as unmarried, get their marriage solemnised at such functions and then take 'commission' from them."

Faced with allegations of solemnising 'fake marriages', the local authorities ordered the virginity and pregnancy tests. But the move to weed out already-married brides has kicked up a storm with activists taking up the issue.

"First I refused to undergo the test but an officer told me that I would be allowed inside the 'mandap' (place where Hindu marriages are solemnised) only after I am found eligible (virgin and not pregnant)," a 20-year-old woman told activists who toured the area after the incident.

Sachin Jain of the Right to Food campaign working for the cause of tribals in many parts of the state told: "There are better and more discreet ways of doing this. These tests are an insult to womanhood and it shows how the state machinery violates the human rights and dignity and privacy of women."

"The officials should know that in many tribal communities there is a culture of boys and girls living together before they decide to marry," Jain said.

"It is yet another instance of insensitive behaviour of the grassroots bureaucracy of the state, which stands third among all states of the country, in violation of tribal rights," Jain added.

Amita Chapra, member of the State Women Commission, told: "The local Bega tribals were furious. Even if assuming that some are misusing the scheme, it does not mean that others can be subjected to humiliation." Chapra said that the commission would take up the matter with the chief minister.

Shahdol collector Neeraj Debe told: "I have asked my subordinates and district medical authorities to look into reported incidents of virginity and pregnancy tests and action will be taken against those found guilty."

The state government has allotted Rs.25 crore in the budget for the Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojana. The government has also increased the scheme's grant amount payable to a girl after marriage from Rs.5,000 to Rs.6,500 from January 2009. As per the state's Economic Survey (2008-09)- 88,460 marriages were solemnised from April 2006 to March 2009.

© IANS July 13th, 2009

Hinduism is the world's oldest living religion, and Hindus constitute about one-sixth of the world's population today. Hindu communities foster a wide range of philosophy and practice, and revere thousands of texts as sacred. There is a Hindu God and a story or variation of a story related to practically every activity, inclination, and way of life. Hindus consider this diversity expressive of divine abundance and everything in the universe a manifestation of divine energy. Every God and Goddess is seen as encompassing male, female, neuter, and all other possibilities, and every living creature as having divine potential. The simultaneity of unity and multiplicity is a basic Hindu premise. Variations in gender and sexuality have been discussed in Hindu texts for over two millennia; same-sex love flourished in precolonial India, without any extended history of persecution.

Like the erotic sculptures on ancient Hindu temples at Khajuraho and Konarak, sacred texts in Sanskrit constitute irrefutable evidence that the whole range of sexual behavior was known to ancient Hindus. When European Christians arrived in India, they were shocked by Hinduism, which they termed idolatrous, and by the range of sexual practices, including same-sex relations, which they labeled licentious. When the British colonized India they inscribed modern homophobia into education, law, and the polity. Homophobic trends that were marginal in premodern India thus became dominant in modern India. Indian nationalists, including Hindus, imbibed Victorian ideals of heterosexual monogamy and disowned indigenous traditions that contradicted those ideals. Ancient Hindu ascetic traditions see all desire, including sexual desire, as problematic because it causes beings to be trapped in a cycle of death and rebirth in the phenomenal world. While procreative sex, hedged around with many rules, is enjoined on householders, nonprocreative sex is disfavored. These ideas influence householder life, which is structured as a set of obligations. Many Hindu texts insist that everyone has a duty to marry and produce children, during the householder stage of life. This is countered in Hindu devotional practice and also philosophy and literature by an emphasis on the Gods as erotic beings, and Kama (desire) as one of the four normative aims of life. The earliest texts represent Kama as a universal principle of attraction, causing all movement and change. In later texts, he is the God of love, a beautiful youth, like the Greek Eros, who shoots irresistible arrows at beings, uniting them with those they are destined to love, regardless of social disparities. Thus, Krishna, incarnation of preserver God Vishnu, is worshiped with his beloved Radha, even though, in most traditions, each of them is married to another spouse.

Hindu law books, dating from the first to the fourth century CE, categorize ayoni or nonvaginal sex as impure. This category encompasses oral sex, manual sex, anal sex, sex with animals, masturbation, sex in the water or in a receptacle. But penances prescribed for same-sex acts are very light compared to penances for some types of heterosexual misconduct, such as adultery and rape. The Manusmriti exhorts a man who has sex with a man or a woman, in a cart pulled by a cow, or in water or by day to bathe with his clothes on. In the Arthashastra, the penalty for a man who has ayoni sex is a minor fine, also prescribed for stealing small items. Modern commentators wrongly read the Manusmriti's more severe punishment of a woman's manual penetration of a virgin as revelatory of that text's antilesbian bias. In fact, the punishment is exactly the same for either a man or a woman who does this act, and is related not to the partners' genders but to the virgin's loss of virginity and hence of marriageable status.

The fourth century Kamasutra, also a sacred Hindu text, emphasizes pleasure and joy as aims of intercourse. It nonjudgmentally categorizes men who desire other men as a "third nature," and describes in detail oral sex between men, also referring to long-term unions between men. Hindu medical texts dating from the first century AD provide a detailed taxonomy of gender and sexual variations, including different types of same-sex desire. Close same-sex friendships, in which friends live and die together or for one another, are celebrated in Hindu texts and socially approved in most Hindu communities as an essential element of the good life. As long as a man does his duty by marrying and having children, his intimate friendships are usually accepted and even integrated into the family. Women's ability to maintain intimate friendships after marriage is more constricted.

Over the last two decades Indian newspapers have reported a series of same-sex weddings and same-sex joint suicides, most of them by female couples in small towns, most of them Hindu, and not connected to any gay movement. The weddings generally took place by Hindu rites, with some family support, while the suicides were the consequence of families forcibly separating lovers and pushing them into heterosexual marriage. These phenomena suggest the wide range of Hindu attitudes to homosexuality today, varying from community to community, and even family to family.

Modern Hindu ultraconservative organizations, like the Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, who aim to remake Hinduism as a militant nationalist religion intolerant of differences, declare that homosexuality is alien to Indian culture and tradition, and has been imported into the country from Euro-America or West Asia. In 1998, activists of these organizations violently attacked theaters showing the lesbian film Fire. The Indian government has retained the British antisodomy law, which is widely used by police and blackmailers to harass gay men and also to threaten women.

There is a gulf between these opinions and those of several modern Hindu spiritual teachers who draw on traditional concepts of the self as without gender, and emphasize the sameness of all desire, homosexual or heterosexual, which the aspirant must work through and transcend. Thus, when Swami Prabhavananda (1893–1976), founder of the Vedanta society in the United States, heard of Oscar Wilde's conviction in the early twentieth century, he remarked, "Poor man. All lust is the same." He advised his disciple Christopher Isherwood to see his lover "as the young Lord Krishna" (Isherwood 1980, 254).

Pioneering gay activist Ashok Row Kavi recounts that when he was studying at the Ramakrishna Mission, a monk told him that the Mission was not a place to run away from himself, and that he should live boldly, ignoring social prejudices, and testing his actions to see if he was hurting anyone. Inspired by this advice, Row Kavi went on to found the gay magazine Bombay Dost. In 2004, when Hindu ultraconservative leader K. Sudarshan denounced homosexuality, Row Kavi wrote an open letter to him in the press, identifying himself as "a faithful Hindu," asking Sudarshan to read ancient Hindu texts, and pointing out that not homosexuality but rather modern homophobia is a Western import. Vedanta teacher, Swami Chinmayananda (1916–1993), when asked his opinion of homosexuality, replied, "There are many branches on the tree of life. Full stop. Next question" (Kumar 1996, 6–7).

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (born 1956), founder of the international movement, Art of Living, when asked about homosexuality, stated, "Every individual has both male and female in them. Sometimes one dominates, sometimes other, it is all fluid." When asked about the high suicide rate amongst gay youth, tears came to his eyes and he responded, "Life is so precious. We need to educate everyone. Life is so much bigger. You are more than the body. You are the spirit. You are the untouched pure consciousness." (Rupani 2003, 15).

In her 1977 book, The World of Homosexuals, mathematician Shakuntala Devi interviewed Srinivasa Raghavachariar, priest of the Vaishnava temple at Srirangam. He said that same-sex lovers must have been cross-sex lovers in a former life. The sex may change but the soul retains its attachments, hence the power of love impels these souls to seek one another. A Shaiva priest who performed the marriage of two women stated that, having studied Hindu scriptures, he had concluded, "Marriage is a union of spirits, and the spirit is not male or female" (Vanita 2005, 147).

Despite these enlightened opinions, there is little discussion of the issue in religious communities. Consequently, some teachers and most lay followers remain homophobic, which has driven many gay disciples out of religious communities and a few even to suicide. Swami Bodhananda, Vedanta master in the Saraswati lineage, and founder of the Sambodh Society, stated the following about same-sex unions: "We don't look at the body or the memories; we always look at everyone as spirit. . . . I am not opposed to relationships or unions — people's karma brings them together. I am sure spiritual persons will have no objection when two people come together. It's a Christian idea that it is wrong. From a Hindu standpoint, there is nothing wrong because there is nothing against it in scripture . . . but it's a social stigma. We have to face this issue now. . . . what is required is a debate in society" (Vanita 2005, 307).

The centuries' long debate in Hindu society, somewhat suppressed in the colonial period and after, has now revived. When Hinduism Today the Swamis expressed a wide range of opinions, positive and negative; that they felt free to reporter Rajiv Malik, at the Kumbha Mela in Ujjain in 2004, asked several Hindu Swamis their opinion of same-sex marriage, differ with others in their own lineages (akharas), is evidence of the continuing liveliness of this debate, facilitated by the fact that Hinduism has no one hierarchy or leader. As Mahant Ram Puri, of Juna akhara, remarked, "We do not have a rule book in Hinduism.

We have a hundred million authorities" (Malik, 2004).

RUTH VANITA

***

FURTHER READINGS

Das Wilhelm, Amara. Tritiya Prakriti (People of the Third Sex): Understanding Homosexuality, Trans-

gender Identity, and Intersex Conditions through Hinduism. Philadelphia, PA: XLibris Corporation,

2004.

Isherwood, Christopher. My Guru and His Disciple. New York: Penguin, 1980.

Kavi, Ashok Row. "The Contract of Silence." In Hoshang Merchant, ed., Yaraana: Gay Writings

from India. Delhi: Penguin, 1999.

Kumar, Arvind. "Interview with Jim Gilman." Trikone, 11(3) (July 1996): 6–7.

Malik, Rajiv. "Discussions on Dharma." Hinduism Today (October–December 2004): 30–31.

Rupani, Ankur. "Sexuality and Spirituality." Trikone, 18(4) (2003): 15.

Sweet, Michael J. and Leonard Zwilling. "The First Medicalization: The Taxonomy and Etiology of

Queers in Classical Indian Medicine." Journal of the History of Sexuality, 3(4) (1993): 590–607.

Vanita, Ruth. Love's Rite: Same-Sex Marriage and its Antecedents in India. Delhi: Penguin India, 2005.

Vanita, Ruth, ed. Queering India. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History.

New York: Palgrave, 2000.

A well-settled non-resident Indian groom is what many Indian parents aspire for their daughter. But now the demand for NRI grooms has fallen by almost 20 percent and, with the economic slump hitting the private sector badly, people are once again looking out for 'stable' government employees.

The fall is also visible in the communities' demand for US-based grooms - by 7.10 percent. Also, among Telugu members, the demand for US-based spouses fell by 6.2 percent in January 2009 as compared to last year.

Considered to be a prized catch, the demand for the NRI grooms used to be at its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000. The market, however, saw a boom around 2006-2007 for all Indians working outside.

'The reason was that the NRIs make a lot of money and girls married to them get to settle abroad, therefore making them the most-desired prospect in the marriage market,' said Janakiraman.

Not forgetting that these NRI grooms meet the parents fundamental demands like religion, house, job, plans after marriage, etc. The demand for NRI grooms became very strong for people from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and also people living in the metros.

But with increasing pink slip handovers and paycuts post-recession, parents in India have undergone a 'shift in preferences', said Gourav Rakshit, business head of shaadi.com.

'They are now sceptical of the 'stability' factor from a groom's side and are apprehensive of considering the same as a match,' said Rakshit, who also suggests that it's also because Indian women are much more independent and ready to shrug off the herd mentality now.

With promising careers, independence and the need to spend more time with one's family, some of the eligible Indian women are themselves not eager to move abroad after marriage.

'People are also getting picky because they want to do all it takes to have a secure life with a steady income. But it's also about compatibility, not just nationality, religion or profession,' he added.

Right now parents are associating 'stability' with public sector jobs.

Candidates still in demand across both domestic and overseas market despite the global economic crisis are IT professionals, suggests an industry outlook by shaadi.com.

'A lot of communities like the Punjabis and Gujaratis are not in the top jobs abroad. Parents always have a lot of questions regarding these people.

'The maximum demand for IT grooms in fact is from Tamil Nadu, as a lot of Tamil Brahmins are in IT jobs abroad,' he added.

IANS

Coimbatore, June 13 (ANI): People in many villages in south India continue to live by the belief that their traditional practices, rituals and superstitions will invariably help them lead a better life.

In one such instance, people in a Coimbatore village organised a symbolic wedding of a Neem and Banyan tree on Saturday to appease Rain God.

Organised by Hindu traditions, the special ceremony was attended by hundreds of villagers who supported the view that by organising such a wedding, they could ensure a good rainfall and which would ultimately save them from a miserable life.

"For 35 years a Neem tree and a Banyan tree, standing adjacent to it, have been growing. We believe that if we conduct a spiritual marriage of these trees, there will be good shower and welfare in our village. We are very confident we will get good shower after this marriage," said Kanakaraj, a devotee.

The priest performed the marriage with a large number of devotees. After the marriage, devotees offered prayers.

A special lunch followed the ceremony for all believers.

 When Saswati Gupta and her husband moved into their new apartment recently their nameplate on the door became a talking point among curious neighbours. "It was very funny because our neighbours thought that we are living together. Our surnames are different because I have retained my maiden surname," said Saswati.

Saswati is not the only woman who has taken such a decision post-marriage. More and more women prefer to stick to their maiden surnames nowadays.

Identity issue

LAWYER'S NOTES 

"The Supreme Court passed the landmark judgement recently that it would allow women to make a choice when it comes to their surname," said advocate Subrata Mukherjee. "It is not always necessary to submit an affidavit if you have changed your surname. But it's better to keep such official documents in order since one might need them while opening a bank account, or applying for a visa," he explained.

"Women are not bound by any law when it comes to their surnames. They are free to take on any surname, be it of their father or their husband," said advocate Tamal Mukherjee. "But when one wants to open a bank account, or in any matter which has legal ramification, it might become necessary to produce an affidavit," he clarified. 

As actress Sreelekha Mitra puts it, "I am not trying to prove a point. It's just that I can't imagine separating Mitra from Sreelekha. It's like taking away a part of me," said the recently married actor justifying her decision of retaining her maiden surname.

For some women, it seems, penning a new surname is like responding to a new name altogether. "Since women have a mind of their own they don't want to part with an integral part of their identity," said Rajasree Panja, another housewife, who has retained her surname. But Soma Mitra, who has changed her surname after marriage has a valid point to make. "Even if you want to retain your maiden surname then it's after all the surname of yet another man, your father. How many people actually take their mother's surname?" she asked.

Mother's legacy

On second thoughts, that's a pertinent question. And even if there are instances of people taking up the mother's surname, in most cases it's an unconscious decision. Take for instance actor Nelanjana Bhowmik, who has adopted the surname of her mother, actor Anjana Bhowmik. So have actors Raima and Riya Sen — daughter of Moonmoon Sen. Raima says, "It's not a conscious decision. My college certificate and bank accounts are still Dev-Varma but since the days of Godmother I have been known as Raima Sen in the film industry." The same goes for Nelanjana. "When I made my debut in Kolkata, people automatically started calling me Nelanjana Bhowmik. I personally don't believe in surnames but I think Bhowmik has definitely worked for me," said the actress.

Working woman

Working women often prefer to stick to a maiden surname because that has much to do with their individual identity. Sudakshina Roy, a television presenter said, "People have known me on television by my maiden name. I prefer not to change it." But there are some women who prefer to change it on purpose. As Priyangini Mazumder puts it, "I never thought that a person's identity depends on a surname. I am the same person even after marriage. But to tell you very frankly I liked my husband's surname more."

Mixed surnames

Some, however, prefer to club the maiden and married surnames. Like author Nabanita Deb Sen, or Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. Actor Konkona Sen Sharma has clubbed both her parents surnames — Aparna Sen and Mukul Sharma. Sonali C. Chatterjee, a working woman said, "The C stands for my maiden surname Chandra. I did not want to part with it but writing both would have made my name very long. Opting for a C made my name sound catchy too."

Child factor

In an era when women have so much liberty asking a question like, "Then what will happen to your child's surname?" seems simplistic. But still some women prefer to change their surname after marriage only because of their child. As Sushmita Ray Chaudhuri, a banker settled in London says, "I feel if we both have separate surnames, my child will have a identity crisis. He/she may think that her parents are separate and not part of the same family." That's precisely the problem many children face when parents get divorced and the mother goes back to her maiden surname, but the child carries the father's surname. "I must say I went through hell when I had to admit my son in a school after my divorce. The authorities asked a host of questions," said Arunima Roy

24 Jan 2004, TNN

CHIPOHA VILLAGE, ASSAM, INDIA (JUNE 1, 2009) ANI - Fed up with the prolonged dry spell in the region, Indian villagers in northeastern Assam state married off frogs in a unique custom to please the rain god, with hopes of an early monsoon.

Residents of the entire Chipoha Village turned out to witness the unconventional marriage ceremony of the two frogs, caught by the villagers themselves.

The frogs were decked out with fine clothes, and the female frog was even given a necklace by the village women for the marriage, which was conducted by a priest according to traditional Hindu rituals.

The locals believed that the marriage would bring plenty of rainfall to their village, which has been grappling with a prolonged dry spell for past couple of months.

"It's a traditional belief that when a frog marriage is performed, Barun Devata (rain god) is pleased and it rains. Since there has been no rain for the past couple of months we have performed this frog marriage to invoke Barun Devata. I am sure the rain will come very soon," said Deepika Gogoi, a local.

The marriage was a desperate measure by the villagers to get rainfall in the parched region.

"The marriage went off well. Our region is absolutely parched and we need rain. We didn't know what else to do. We hope that now the rains will finally come and people can start cultivation," said Uttam Goswami, priest.

The farmers in Assam are facing major problems due to the protracted dry spell in the region. The lack of water has also affected their crops, mainly paddy.

India's June-September monsoon rains are a major influence on the farm-dependent economy, as two-thirds of Indians live in villages.

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