5 percent of Indian marriages inter-caste; in Mizoram, 55 percent
Aizwal, May 11: Christian-dominated Mizoram - 87 percent of the population is Christian - has the most inter-caste marriages in India, a nation where 95 percent of Indians marry within their caste, according to a 2016 report from the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), a New Delhi-based think-tank.
Meghalaya and Sikkim followed Mizoram, with 46 percent and 38 percent of inter-caste marriages, according to The Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS-II), based on nationwide surveys conducted between 2011-12.
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It was put together by the University of Maryland and NCAER. A representative sample of 41,554 households contacted for the study was spread across 33 states and union territories, in rural and urban India.
The three north-eastern states were followed by Muslim-dominated Jammu and Kashmir (35 percent) and Gujarat (13 percent).
The data belies the perception that with modernity and economic progress, traditional barriers of caste have broken down.
The caste system is an ancient relic of a social hierarchy once based on division of labour. People are born into their caste. They cannot change it.
How
do
people
marry
in
the
states
of
India?
As
many
as
95
percent
women
surveyed
said
their
husbands' caste
was
the
same
as
their's.
This
was
the
question
NCAER
used
to
determine
the
proportion
of
inter-caste
marriages:
"Is
your
husband's
family
the
same
caste
as
your
native
family?"
In Madhya Pradesh, almost all (99 percent) people were married in their own caste, followed by Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, both at 98 percent.
[Now, get Rs 50,000, medal and certificate for intercaste marriage]
Indians are legally allowed to marry outside their caste. A law on inter-caste marriage was passed more than 50 years ago, but those who do are still threatened or attacked, often by their own families.
Change is slow, but it is coming
As many as 27 percent of respondents said they knew people in their communities who married outside their caste. In cities, this number was 36 percent.
The IHDS-II surveyors asked respondents: "Do you know anyone in your community who has had an inter-caste marriage?"
People are more forthcoming with perception of others than information about themselves, the researchers found.
[Madras HC directs protection to inter-caste marriage couple]
"Think of a village pradhan (chief) whom everyone knows… there is only one pradhan in a village. Knowing someone, particularly someone who has engaged in 'unusual' behavior, like inter-caste marriage, is always going to be higher than one doing it oneself," Sonalde Desai, a demographer, senior fellow at NCAER and professor of Sociology at University of Maryland, told IndiaSpend.
"I am surprised that only one in four individuals knows someone (in an) inter-caste marriage."
IANS