The problem in India is that same-sex weddings are likely to be used — rather, even abused by the politics of hate and identity — to denigrate Hindu religion, customs and way of life … Which is why I agree with the argument being made by several quarters in the country today that they are anxious the verdict which very shortly the Supreme Court is likely to give in the ongoing case of legalising same-sex marriages has the potential to have far-reaching, profound consequences for the way the country’s culture develops and evolves for generations to come in future.
Today going by what seems to be the impending SC verdict (seems very likely) , same-sex marriages can get solemnised (registered) under the Special Marriages Act. Good, OK, so far so very good. But will the matter end there and will everyone live happily thereafter? I, for one, doubt it…
So, what prevents, if I may ask, the next logical step which would in all probability be taken in a few years from now which would be a strident clamour or demand for such marriages to also be solemnised under Hindu religious or personal law?… i.e. What would prevent same-sex couples from vociferously claiming that they were both practising Hindus and hence, given a choice between SMA 1954 and Hindu Religious Marriage codes, they choose to have their marriage solemnised under religious codes and rites of the Vedic faith?
The legal argument would then easily become this very facile but convincing one, would it not? : That the right to practice one’s religion is as fundamental as the right to marry. And so how can either Right ever be denied to a same-sex couple ?
In HINDU marriage rites — according to several Smriti and “vivaaha Dharma sastras“ — there is no provision for a priest to conduct “same sex marriage”. That’s because in the Hindu view of life, the essential purpose of marriage is procreation by the wedded couples and the begetting of their progeny. Adoption of children (“dattam” or “sweekaara”) is a matter altogether different from — and never to be conflated with — “vivaaha” between a heterosexual couple entering into matrimony.
So, let’s ask ourselves bluntly :
What then happens if a Hindu priest declares his inability to solemnise a wedding rite for a same-sex couple ? You can without a shadow of doubt expect that there will immediately follow a huge hue and cry raised to the skies by political ideologues (of say the Dravidianist mould, for example) who will then cry foul and shriek hoarsely, accusing the Hindu faith of being fundamentalist in nature and of practising blatant “social discrimination”… !
The following recent case laws adjudicated in the Western world relating to priests officiating same-sex weddings will surely set precedents for the Courts in India too and become applicable to Vedic priests too.
Now , in the ongoing “culture war” that is already being waged in our country today between so-called Left-Wing Neo-Liberalism and right-wing Hindutva, this charge of “social discrimination” will become yet another great salvo fired against Hindu Sanatana culture. It will quickly and surely become another very handy tool-kit in the hands of anti-Hindu ideologues who will use it to further undermine Hindu ethos and belief-systems with the clear and ultimate aim of uprooting it altogether in our land.
Only those who are naive will argue that my view expressed above — that the Special Marriages Act 1954 is the thin leading-edge of a battering ram in the hands of some ideologies in our country — is more than a bit far-fetched … or well, will even shoot it down as being paranoid bigotry.
Sudarshan Madabushi