I bled for hours,” says Keerthi, recalling her final hours in her parents’ house. “My father beat me with an iron rod when he found out. Once legally wedded, they both returned to work without disclosing their marriage to anyone.īut somehow, word got out, and the consequences were harsh to say the least. In March 2019, Keerthi and Soundar registered their marriage at the sub-registrar’s office in Dindigul. The many hurdles for an inter-caste marriage Keerthi felt that the only way to survive was to get married and get away,” Soundar recounts. “They planned to eventually use the notes. That was when Keerthi’s parents allegedly began nudging her to write ‘suicide notes.’ The fruits, sweets, and flowers they had brought found their way to the dustbin. That is when he allegedly faced death threats from her father, and the couple began to fear for their lives.Īs Soundar left their house disheartened, Keerthi remembers her father telling her mother to throw out the chairs on which Soundar and his father had sat. Things took an ominous turn when Soundar visited Keerthi’s family to ask for their permission to marry her. (This story done in collaboration with the BBC is part of the BBCShe project where we are working on journalism to serve women audiences.) It was traumatic to be hounded like this. Her father would often show up at her office without notice, she says, travelling the 100 kilometre distance on frivolous pretexts like handing her a pen she had ‘forgotten’ at home. Her mother would even track her movements at her workplace, to know if she was meeting Soundar. She says she had to dress carefully to hide the scars of their abuse. Shankar and Kowsalya (bottom left) and Vimala Devi (bottom right) Keerthi and Soundar’s storyĪfter finding out about her relationship with Soundar, Keerthi says her parents tormented her for months. Victims of 'honour' killings: Kannagi and Murugesan (top Left), Ilavarasan and Divya (top Right), The police, too, are accused of often mishandling cases of inter-caste relationships, leaving activists and NGOs labouring to support couples in distress. Government support systems for inter-caste couples are often unhelpful or inaccessible, according to activists. Despite its history of anti-caste movements, the state has an abysmally low proportion of inter-caste marriages. Between 20 alone, activists have recorded at least 18 incidents of caste killings in the state, although the numbers recorded by the police are much lower. Violence and murders are commonplace for many inter-caste couples in Tamil Nadu, when one of the partners is from a Scheduled Caste. Unlike Kannagi and Murugesan, Vimaladevi, Shankar, Ilavarasan, and scores of other young men and women in Tamil Nadu whose horrific caste murders Keerthi’s father had invoked to intimidate Soundar. It’s fortunate that the couple made it out alive, and are now happily married. He asked me if I wanted to end up dead, lying in a pool of blood on an open road or on a railway track”, Soundar recalls. “Her father asked me if I watched the news. With immense courage, Soundar visited Keerthi’s parents and asked for permission to marry her. This was in 2019, when Keerthi’s parents allegedly inflicted severe emotional and physical abuse on her for nearly six months, as they felt their ‘caste pride’ was tarnished by her relationship with Soundar. My father tried to kill me with an aruvamanai (a vegetable cutter).” Four years on, Keerthi* still shudders as she recounts her parents’ rage when she told them that she, a Vanniyar (classified as a Most Backward Class or MBC) woman, wanted to marry Soundar*, a Dalit man. “My mother hit me with a stick and burned the soles of my feet.
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