Out of 19, 250 registered marriages only 589 were inter-faith in the Capital between January and September last year, according to official data.
As a nation in 2020, we are now more globalized and we talk about modernization in our upbringing and society. But we still live in the box of intense orthodox thinking of finding a perfect match within our own religion, caste, and community.
For generations, Bollywood couples and movies have inspired us in many ways. We have grown up by watching Raj-Simran’s larger than life romance and struggle to fight for the love of their life on the silver screen. Some of the other ways they have shaped our feelings and emotions for love. In most of the movies, we have seen happy endings where the Hero fights the battle going against all odds like opposition from parents, financial gaps, inter-religion, age bar, and others.
Movies like Gadar: Ek Prem Katha tells the story of a truck driver, Tara Singh( Sunny), a Sikh guy, who falls in love with a Muslim Pakistani girl, Sakina ”Sakku” Ali (Ameesha), belonging to an aristocratic family. Even after Hindu-Muslim riots that erupted soon after the partition, he fights backs for the love of his life. Love isn’t easy and that much is understandable, you need to cross the river of fire even if you don’t know how to swim.
There are a couple of movies like Bombay (1995), Pinjar (2003), Dahek (2009), Ishaqzaade ( 2012), and others. A recent article published by NDTV movies quoted words by Bollywood Actor Saif Ali Khan who highlight the fact that “Hindu-Muslim marriages are neither a conspiracy nor an anomaly. It’s just ‘being India’. In a vast country like ours, where multiple ethnic, cultural, and religious faiths are clamoring for peaceful co-existence, inter-faith relationships are just as natural as arranged marriages. But these inter-faith relationships have always found themselves in the thick of a lot of debate. Cinema takes inspiration from real life. Hence it’s no surprise that Bollywood has many a time showcased inter-faith love stories, their positive and their negative aspects’ ‘.
Bollywood inter-faith married couples.
Not just in movies but also in real life Bollywood has the most powerful and amazing with inter-faith marriages. Mr. Perfectionist of the Industry Aamir Khan got married to Kiran Rao, a Brahmin girl from Bangalore in the year 2005. The King of Romance, Shah Rukh Khan, had an equally real-life romantic love story. He fell in love with Gauri Chibber, who belonged to a Hindu Brahmin family. Despite family resistance, they went on to follow their heart and got married in the year 1991. This list includes Kareena & Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu & Soha Ali Khan, Sunil Dutt & Nargis, and many more with almost a list of 26 couples.
A report published by the Immigration and refugee board of Canada, on (11th May 2012) quoted by both the professor of history from the University of Toronto and the Legal Counsel for the World Sikh Organization (WSO) of Canada expressed that marriages between Sikhs and Hindus would likely face less opposition than marriages between Sikhs and Muslims (Professor of history 10 Apr. 2012; WSO 24 Apr. 2012). A professor of sociology and chair of the Centre for the Study of Social Systems at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in correspondence with the Research Directorate, stated that marriages between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl are particularly problematic compared to other inter-religious couples (19 Apr. 2012).
The WSO legal counsel added, inter-faith couples to be subject to violence, it does happen. The threat of violence would exist, in the vast majority of cases, from the families involved. Only in certain rural areas would individuals outside the family take an interest in an inter-faith marriage and take any action. (24 Apr. 2012) . According to Human Rights Watch, khap panchayats, “unofficial village councils,” in the northern states of Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh, may issue edicts forbidding inter-religious marriages, among other types of mixed marriages (18 July 2010). Family members have, in turn, threatened couples, filed false cases of abduction against couples, or killed spouses, as a way of upholding the family’s “‘honour'” (Human Rights Watch 18 July 2010).