Pune:
When Indira Bolada's father passed away eight months ago, she was not allowed to attend his cremation in Pune. The 55-year-old was being kept out not by friends or family, but by a group of strangers in Pune, where she lives.
Mrs Bolada had allowed her daughter, an IT engineer, to marry a Sindhi professional.
That led to her being shunned by a panchayat in Pune.
"There was a discreet message from the panchayat that if I attend the funeral ceremonies the entire community will walk out,'' she said. Her husband, Kiran Bolada, a whole-seller in Pune said: "We decided to look at our daughter's happiness rather than considering the age old traditions within our community. For us our daughter was more important and now that she is happy we are happy."
The Rajasthani Srigod Brahmin samaj in Pune has made the city its home for many generations now. The community consists mostly of kirana or corner store owners and whole sellers who migrated from Rajasthan to different cities in search of livelihood. Pune has around 9000 families from this community.
The youth has found its way into parts of Pune that the city is famous for-tech and other colleges, call centres. And they want to live free of the diktats imposed by a panchayat. But their parents are then treated as outcasts, with no social or other ties left to the close-knit network. They're also pariahs in their trade-nobody is allowed to do business with them.
In the past five years, nearly 40 families have been excommunicated by the panchayat that meets once a month at its office on at KK Bazar on Pune Satara road.
These 40 families have formed a group and are fighting a legal battle in the court. The members, through noted human rights advocate Asim Sarode, filed a petition in the Bombay High Court against the panchayat raj and its draconian laws. The panchayat filed an affidavit in the court saying that no such panchayat exists following which the petition got dismissed. The members have now gathered documentary evidence which includes notices issued by the panchayat heads informing about the social boycott against some families and are ready to move the supreme court.
Kaka Dharmawat, a Congress leader in the city, explains how one can re-enter the community by paying an amount which is fixed by the panchayat. He elaborates, "When a member is expelled then there are hardly 15-20 members of the panchayat who take the decision but the same person when he wants to come back then he has to pay an amount as decided by the panchayat, and that's not all, he also has to get no objection certificate from 700 other community members."
The panchayat, however, says the charges are all baseless. "We just request our members against taking alcohol or tobacco, we can't force anybody where to marry. But yes we have certain rules which everyone has to follow for the good of the community," said a senior panchayat leader on the condition of anonymity.