Alleges that his wife has been held back in India forcibly.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian man in Connecticut has taken to the internet and launched a petition to garner supporters to help save his marriage, and help him be reunited with his wife, whom he believes has been held forcibly back in India by her family because of marrying against her parent’s wishes.
Gangadharan Natarajan of Hartford, Connecticut, has not seen his wife, Kiruthuka, in three months after she left the United States to visit her ailing grandmother in India. Since then, Gangadharan believes his father-in-law, C. Saravanan, has resorted to “physically confining, emotionally blackmailing, and attempting to brainwash” Kiruthuka due to her husband’s station in a different caste.
Gangadharan met Kiruthuka in September 2009 while they were both working on the same IT project in India. After falling in love, Gangadharan proposed in March 2010, on her birthday, and the two agreed to get married once they were more financially stable.
Meanwhile, Kiruthika’s H-1B visa was processed and she immigrated to the United States in October 2012 and started working in Utah.
It was when Kiruthika visited Gangadharan back in India one year later that they realized her parents would never accept an inter-caste marriage. According to Gangadharan, the couple decided he should move to the U.S. as well and get married there, which they did in January 2014.
https://youtu.be/3BlIubiH3-I
Explaining his reasons for creating the petition, Gangadharan wrote:
My wife and myself belong to different caste. The caste system in India started as a segregation of people, based on occupation. Families started training their children on the occupation and this gradually became hereditary. Now, caste which was originally based on occupation has become hereditary and based on birth. My wife belongs to a community in Erode district, who believe their caste to be superior to others and don’t support inter-caste marriage.
He alleges his in-laws tried to get his wife to marry someone else in India by hiding the fact that she was already married. However, once the potential groom found out about the existing marriage, the marriage was put to a halt.
After his in-laws continued to refuse acknowledging their marriage and disconnected any attempts Gangadharan made to call his wife, he sent a legal notice to her house and Modakurichi police station on March 21, explaining the circumstances in which they got married and its inherent legality. However, the notice was never responded to. Later, he filed a restitution of conjugal rights case under Hindu Marriage Act in Erode family court on March 27.
“I do respect my father-in-law and his emotions and responsibilities to the society. But I also request him to give importance to his daughter’s happiness,” wrote Gangadharan.
1 Comment
Why doesnt he move to India and find out, instead of wasting time on the Internet starting petitions?? Damn, I thought these Indian techies were smart