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Intimate Transgressions and Communalist Narratives: Inter-religious romance in a divided Gujarat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2016

CAROLYN HEITMEYER
CAROLYN HEITMEYER*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex, United Kingdom Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In this article, I examine the seeming paradox of Hindu–Muslim romantic affairs in the wider context of communalism in Gujarat in the wake of the 2002 anti-Muslim violence. At the outset, such affairs appear to embody the most extreme form of taboo, both in their defiance of conventional arranged marriage systems (where caste endogamy and shared religious affiliation play a paramount role) as well as in the wider socio-political context in which Hindus and Muslims are viewed as irreconcilable enemies, or at least oppositional in lifestyle, beliefs, and values. Yet, while media reports in recent years have highlighted similar cases of transgressive liaisons elsewhere in India which have been met with extreme violence, the couplings which I describe in this article, are in practice tolerated by kin and neighbours as an ‘open secret’ which, while public knowledge, has not incurred strong retribution. While love has often been presented as a force for emancipation from the constraints of social conventions and norms in the popular media, I argue that this ‘toleration’ of inter-religious liaisons in the cases I describe suggests the very opposite: namely, that they do not present a significant challenge to entrenched social divisions at the local level.

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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4: Love, Marriage, and Intimate Citizenship in Contemporary China and India , July 2016 , pp. 1277 - 1297
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 All names have been changed.

2 The wider research on which this article is based was conducted between January 2005 and April 2006 in central Gujarat and draws upon a range of qualitative methodologies including participant observation, informal and semi-structured interviews, and archival research.

3 Both Perveez Mody and Prem Chowdhry describe stories of inter-religious or inter-caste couples who were met with violence. See Mody, P., The Intimate State: Love-marriage and the Law in Delhi, Routledge, London, 2006Google Scholar; and Chowdhry, P., Contentious Marriages, Eloping Couples: Gender, Caste, and Patriarchy in Northern India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2009Google Scholar.

4 This article focuses primarily on how inter-community liaisons and marriages were received within the town itself and, when possible, people relevant to the couple based in nearby areas.

5 I use the word ‘toleration’ here which, following upon Hodes, is distinguished from ‘tolerance’ in the degree to which it implies forbearance rather than acceptance of difference. See Hodes, M., White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth Century South, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1997Google Scholar, p. 3.

6 This point has also been made in H. Donner, ‘One's own marriage’: love marriages in a Calcutta neighbourhood, South Asia, vol. 22, issue 1, 2002.

7 Census of India 2001, Series 25, Paper 1, Gujarat, Provisional population totals.

8 While similar in name to the Shi'a Daudi Bohras, Sunni Vohras are a distinct endogamous community who live largely in large towns and cities, although more rural contingents also exist.

9 Heitmeyer, C., ‘There is peace here’: managing communal relations in a town in central Gujarat, Journal of South Asian Development, vol. 4, issue 1, 2009, pp. 103–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 See, for example, Gupta, C., (Im)possible love and sexual pleasure in late colonial North India, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 36, issue 1, 2002, pp. 195–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gupta, C., Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims and the Hindu public in Colonial India, Palgrave, New York, 2002Google Scholar; and Basu, A., ‘Feminism inverted: the gendered imagery and real women of Hindu nationalism’ in Sarkar, T. and Butalia, U. (eds), Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essays, Kali for Women, New Delhi, 1995, pp.158–180Google Scholar.

11 T. A. Johnson and L. Verma, ‘Who loves love jihad’, Indian Express, 7 September 2014, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/who-loves-love-jihad/, [accessed 8 January 2016].

12 As is clear from Butalia's historical study of the abduction and rape of women during partition, this is not a new phenomenon. Butalia, U., The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, Duke University Press, Durham, 2000Google Scholar.

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15 At the time of the research, smartphones were not widely used and communication was generally limited to text messages or spoken conversation. In recent years, more advanced mobile technology and internet access through mobile phones has enabled greater options and diverse forms of amorous communications.

16 For ethnographic accounts of love in South Asian contexts see, for example, Marsden, M., Love and elopement in Northern Pakistan, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), vol. 13, 2007, pp. 91–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Osella, C. and Osella, F., Friendship and flirting: micro-politics in Kerala, south India, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), vol. 4, issue 2, 1998, pp. 189–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More global studies include Hirsch, J. and Wardlow, H. (eds), Modern Loves: The Anthropology of Romantic Courtship and Companionate Marriage, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Padilla, M., Hirsch, J., Munoz-Laboy, M., Sember, R., and Parker, R. (eds), Love and Globalization: Transformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 2007Google Scholar.

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21 Similar cases have also been documented elsewhere in South Asia. See, for example, Marsden, Love and elopement in Northern Pakistan.

22 Parry, J., Ankalu's errant wife: sex, marriage and industry in contemporary Chhattisgarh, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 35, issue 4, 2001, pp. 783–820CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ahearn, L., Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters and Social Change in Nepal, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 As scholars such as Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi and I have respectively argued elsewhere, meat eating takes particular importance in designating Muslim (and Christian) identity within Gujarat given the strong social and political sanctions against the consumption of non-vegetarian food. See Heitmeyer, ‘There is peace here’; and Ghassem-Fachandi, P., Pogrom in Gujarat: Hindu Nationalism and Anti-Muslim Violence in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2012Google Scholar.

24 Maleks are one of the two main Muslim communities in the town of Sultanpur and are indigenous to India (in comparison to other groups such as Saiyeds and Pathans who trace their origins to saints and rulers from the Middle East).

25 Parry, Ankalu's errant wife.

26 Donner, Domestic Goddesses; Fuller, C. and Narasimhan, H., Companionate marriage in India: the changing marriage system in a middle class Brahman subcaste, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), vol. 14, issue 4, 2008, pp. 736–754CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pache-Huber, V., Le mariage de l'amour et de la raison: stratégies matrimoniales de la classe moyenne en Inde, LIT, Münster, 2004Google Scholar.

27 Hirsch and Wardlow, Modern Loves, p. 5.

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29 Foucault, M., The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge (Volume I), Penguin, London, 1998Google Scholar [1978]; and Povinelli, E., The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy and Carnality, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Gupta, (Im)possible love and sexual pleasure.

31 Scholarly work on themes of transgressive liaisons has largely charted how they have been represented in wider public and media discourses given the methodological difficulty of quantifying phenomena which are particularly sensitive and politically volatile.

32 Gupta, Sexuality, Obscenity, Community, p. 219.

33 Chatterjee, P., The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993Google Scholar.

34 Hodes, White Women, Black Men.

35 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

36 Goode, W., The theoretical importance of love, American Sociological Review, vol. 24, issue 1, 1959, pp. 38–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.