Inter-caste couples in Kerala are skating on thin ice. Geographical incongruity apart, this is the whole truth. Shunned by the families and ostracised by their communities, such couples literally live on the edge.

Neither their caste difference nor their families' objections had deterred Jiji and Sheena from marrying after their torrid love affair in college. Jiji's family, who are Ezhavas (a Hindu OBC), had declared non-cooperation with him for marrying the lower-caste girl Sheena, a Scheduled Tribe by birth.

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JIJI and SHEENA, inter-caste couple. Since only the mother is an ST, their son isn't eligible for usual tribal quota or scholarship.

Left alone to make a living, the commerce graduate husband chose to become a coolie and the wife, a computer diploma holder, started doing tailoring jobs. Their income was hardly enough even to subsist but their spirit did not flinch a bit. Two years ago, their son Jishnu was born. The impoverished couple's only hope to get their son a better life was the incentives and concessions given by the state Government for inter-caste couples. Foremost among them was the three- decade-old government order that children of such couples could enjoy all the benefits given to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes like free education, scholarships and job reservation if either the father or mother belonged to any of these categories.

But today Jiji and Sheena are completely shattered by a recent directive by the Government, scrapping this old order. This follows a ruling by the Supreme Court which recently said that children can inherit only their father's caste and not the mother's. "We could carry the fight until now. But this breaks our back," says Jiji, 28.

However, they are not ready to give up. Inter-caste couples, women's groups, organisations of sex workers and unwed mothers are on an agitation path against what they call the blatantly anti-woman and retrograde orders from the apex court and the state Government.

It was on January 28 that the Supreme Court, in an election case, declared that the children could inherit only the father's caste. This directive was made when the apex court upheld the Andhra Pradesh High Court's ruling that Sobha Hymavathi Devi, a legislator from the state was ineligible to contest from a constituency reserved for Scheduled Tribe. The reason: her father was from an upper caste (Sistu Karnam) although her mother belonged to Bhagatha, a Scheduled Tribe.

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SUJATHA, unwed SC mother. Her son did not get a caste certificate because the village officer says he has no "known" father.

The three-member bench comprising Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti and Justices G.P. Mathur and P.K. Balasubramaniam also rejected Hymavathi Devi's contention that her marriage to a person belonging to an ST too had made her a member of the tribal community. In fact, the apex court's ruling followed a similar one made by it in August 2003 in the Punit Rai vs Dinesh Chaudhary case in which it said, "A person in the absence of any statutory law could inherit his caste only from his father and not his mother even in a case of inter-caste marriage."

The Kerala SC/ST Department issued an order on March 22, scrapping the state government's 1977 order which had made the children of inter-caste marriages eligible for all the benefits and reservations enjoyed by SC/ST members if either the father or mother belonged to these categories.

Says P.T. Pushpa, a Scheduled Caste woman married to a Christian and winner of the President's merit certificate for being one of the country's four best literacy workers: "I do literacy work but can hardly afford to send my daughter to the next class if she is denied the stipend and scholarships she enjoys as a Scheduled Caste member." A. Rajappan, patron of Manusha, an association of inter-caste couples, says, "Even three decades ago the government had issued the order to encourage inter-caste marriages in order to break the caste system. This order takes us back in time and we will fight it tooth and nail."

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C.S. SREEJA, ST widow. Her son can't avail of the concessions and quota given to the STs because her late husband was an OBC.

M.N. Mohanan, a goldsmith married to K. Jalaja, a Scheduled Caste woman, says, "My daughter Arathi has just completed Class X with high marks. Since I can't afford to pay the fees, she won't be able to go back to school."

The order has also enraged the women's rights groups and sex workers. "This is a retrograde order which attempts to reinforce patriarchal system," says P.K. Sreemathi, state secretary, All India Democratic Women's Association. According to C.S. Sreeja, the worst hit by the order are widows, sex workers and unwed mothers. Thirty-year-old Sreeja's husband Dilipkumar died three years ago. She belongs to a Scheduled Tribe; her late husband was an Ezhava. "My only hope was to get the SC/ST concessions my children were entitled to," she says.

The plight of Sujatha (name changed), a 23 year-old unwed mother belonging to the Pulaya caste, an sc, is even worse. Three years ago a neighbour feigned love to her and tricked her into sexual liaisons. But when she became pregnant the youth disappeared from the locality. Sujatha's son cannot be admitted to school as the village officer has now denied the boy a caste certificate. Reason? He has no "known" father and hence no caste. P.D. Jose of Manusha says that the children of sex workers too will face the same fate. Interestingly, most Dalit organisations in the state appear to support the Supreme Court order and the Government directive. The reason is the fear among "pure" Dalits (both parents are Dalits) that most of the benefits and concessions given to the SC/ST were being "cornered" by the children of inter-caste couples. State SC/ST Minister A.P. Anilkumar says, "What is needed is to help Dalits get integrated with the rest of the society."

That integration is more evident in Kerala than perhaps anywhere else in India. And along with that has come caste ranking even among the lower castes, making life difficult for inter-caste couples. As this controversy unfolds, what goes up in billows of smoke are the dreams of a caste-free society envisioned both by the great social reformers and the political movements of the past century.

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