Caste 'stigma' how dalit bridegrooms on horses are challenging status quo

Caste 'stigma': How Dalit bridegrooms on horses are challenging status quo

Caste 'stigma': How Dalit bridegrooms on horses are challenging status quo on Business Standard. Such stand-offs are a manifestation of a deeper struggle within society: upper-caste resistance to the rise of Dalits and how the criminal justice system still fails them

Latest News As a wedding procession of 200-odd people danced to the hit Bollywood song Ghoomar, Ramprasad Bamnia, 27, dapper in a dark blue suit, a multicoloured turban, and sword in hand, sat proudly atop a white-coloured mare.

“This was the third most important day of my life,” Bamnia said. The happiest was when he started studying at a special boarding school for children from the scheduled castes (SC)–the constitutional name for those who were considered at the bottom of the social hierarchy in India–and the second happiest when he was selected in Madhya Pradesh’s (MP) police force, after several failed attempts.

As the procession made its way to the house of the bride Sonia Bamnia, in Ghatiya village, 20 km north of the religious city of Ujjain, in the central Indian state of MP, Bamnia and his guests were accosted by about a dozen people between the ages of 20 and 28 years. They threatened to burn the music system if the procession didn’t stop playing the song Ghoomar–a traditional Rajasthani folk song adapted for the movie Padmavat, which the Karni Sena, a Rajput fringe group protested alleging that it defamed the Rajput queen Padmavati. The crowd also insisted that Bamnia get off the mare as he crossed the houses of Rajputs, considered to be a

higher caste in the traditional system. Bamnia refused to get off the mare.

Over the last couple of years, Dalit weddings have been interrupted by upper castes in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

In April 2018, in Uttar Pradesh (UP), a Dalit, Sanjay Jatav, was denied the right to ride a mare to his wedding. When he protested, water and electricity supply to his and his fiancé’s family were stopped by some upper caste families.

In 2018, a 21-year-old Dalit, Pradip Rathod, was allegedly killed in Gujarat, by upper caste men, for owning and riding a horse. The Dalit community in Gujarat has also been assaulted for sporting a moustache and performing Garba–a Gujarati folk dance.

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