In modern India, tradition shackles love, marriage

By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) - In drama and intrigue, the story is straight out of a film script -- she a fabulously rich girl, he an IT engineer, and both dare to marry despite her family's arch-resistance.

Changing cars to throw off their pursuers, the two traveled hundreds of miles to knock on the doors of a New Delhi court to seek protection.

The love affair of Konedela Srija, the daughter of a top Indian film star Chiranjeevi, briefly gripped India, where a deeply conservative society is still resisting the social change that economic progress brings.

Srija's story is the latest in a spate of high profile cases of defiance of conservative parents by children trying to become more independent and assertive -- sometimes at a terrible price.

In several cases, runaway couples have sought protection from courts and even landed up at television studios, hoping that media coverage would win them a pardon from their families.

But what has sparked a public outcry and a debate on urban India's cultural makeup is the fate of a Muslim man who married a rich Hindu girl against the wishes of her family and turned up dead on the railroad tracks of an eastern city several months ago.

Sociologists say economic progress and growing contact with Western values are influencing India's cultural traditions and leading to increased confrontation between the old and young.

"Transition from joint to unit families, agrarian to industrial society and emancipation and empowerment of women have influenced not only the cultural moorings of the society, but also the nature and character of marriages," A.K. Verma of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies said.

PARENTS VS CHILDREN

In India, where dating, let alone premarital sex, is frowned on, 95 per cent of all marriages are still arranged -- alliances that are almost always determined by religion, caste and class considerations. India's divorce rate is below 5 percent.

Inter-caste couples who defy their parents' wishes are often banished from families or villages. In some cases, families have ordered "honor killings."

In this fight between tradition and modernism, Payal Thakur, a 31-year-old hospitality industry professional, says she paid dearly.

"We tried everything we could to convince his parents, but they wouldn't even allow me inside their house," said Thakur, who ended her 8-year-old relationship because of caste differences.

"Finally, he married someone else his parents chose."

Experts point to India's patriarchal family as an enduring social institution that sets the marriage rules.