Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
Dr Vaishali Une
Ever since MIH (Made in Heaven, a web series) showed episode of a Buddhist wedding, my mind keeps asking me the question, is the society finally accepting the Buddhists into the mainstream (Brahmin, Maratha, Buddhist?)
Like the protagonist played by the brilliant actor Radhika Apte says, are we truly 'coming out'? And yet one cannot ignore the dialogue uttered by the 'errand man' in the series, which goes as, 'Maam, the fact that the wedding is taking place is a huge thing, otherwise in our village, the whole family would have been ostracised......’
So, as usual we have our India and we have our Bharat, the great urban and rural divide.
In rural India shamefully, SCs are still flogged/kicked if they try to be at par with the so called 'upper castes'.
Even in the capital city and much of the urban India still discriminate, specially so in the government sector. There is this 'sophisticated discrimination' existing all around us. It is so subtle, underlying and camouflaged that one would love to disbelief that it is omnipresent. Take any strata of our society and you will see it being engulfed tightly by casteism’s tentacles. This angst (of belonging to a deprived society and being a woman, two tough situations) has been very well portrayed by Radhika Apte when she tells her fiance that his US upbringing keeps him selectively blind to the stark reality. If this is the state of the so called well-educated, cultured intellectuals, then one can very well imagine the divide existing in the minds of not so well-read citizens of our country. Basically, we all are great hypocrites. What is good for the goose isn't good for the gander. That is the sad reality of our country....
If we do proclaim that SC (Buddhists in particular) are becoming accepted (less than 1%) as someone marriagable (that too only if you are above and over qualified) that occurs in urban India only. It's time people regarded that reservation means representation of those deprived for years together and it cannot be targeted as being privileged.
Still, largely when it comes to matrimonial sites it's about 'ABC ONLY' which roughly translates to yesteryear’s, 'SC/ST do not reply.'
One cannot forget the beautiful Buddhist wedding of a British guy marrying a Buddhist girl in the recent past in our city itself. So, the real is matching up with the reel. And though this may be considered a leap on Indian mindset and media, it still is a small step in changing the mindset of our judgemental and biased society. Being an eternal optimist, I would like to believe that the GenZ and millennials would definitely bring about a welcome change.
PS
Can we now drop the term Dalit Buddhist wedding to just a 'Buddhist' wedding please? It's been almost 67 years of conversion of Dalits to Buddhism. Kudos to the writers, and directors (Alankrita, Zoya and Rima) of MIH for showing a mirror to our society.
Though I sincerely wished that the overt exposure of nudity, foul language and drinking could have been limited.