Married to the ‘Enemy’

A Trinamool Congress minister told his party workers last month not to marry members of the opposition Communist party. His diktat bordered on the draconian, but raised a question: Can couples overcome deep political differences? Here’s what some said.

In huge sections of Indian society, marrying out of religion, caste and linguistic community continues to be taboo. A minister of the All India Trinamool Congress wants to add political affiliation to this list of barriers.

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Jyotipriya Mullick, a Trinamool leader and West Bengal’s Food and Supply minister, was widely reported to have urged his party workers last month to socially boycott members of the opposition Communist Party of India (Marxist), the CPM. “Our workers must make sure that nobody in their family enters into any marital relationship with any CPM leader or supporter,” HT reported him as saying at a function.

He later claimed that his comments had been distorted, that he had merely said his party workers should not make small talk with the communists, but not everyone was convinced. While such a diktat borders on draconian, it did raise a question: How do couples of opposing political persuasions resolve their differences? To see how they balance the personal and political, we tracked down several such couples.