Untouchable Love

This is a very moving film made for the Real Stories series about intercaste love amongst a number of couples in Nepal.

The film starts innocently enough with young boys and girls talking about the first time they recognised they were in love, how they got round to telling each other, and committed to being with each other.

After a while we find out the difficulties these young couples are in, not because their love didn’t work out, but because of the rules of caste and society in Nepal (and also of course in India), which forbid intercaste marriage.

Historically these so-called Gandharva marriages were not only recognised by the Hindu law books, but were approved of, and some commentators even praised them as the ones most likely to succeed.

But later casteism became more and more entrenched to the point where it is now forbidden, and with disastrous consequences for those involved – not just the couples, but also for their families and communities.

As it only affects one community and one or two nations casteism doesn’t get the same coverage that racism and sexism gets, but it is just as equal a scourge as either of those, and needs to be condemned outright and repeatedly.

I have shown videos previously on this site about the plight of dalits and casteism, and one of Buddhism’s great recent heroes, Dr. Ambedkar, who fought against it, and it is one of the main evils of modern day Hinduism, as it has been in the past.