Caste No Bar? Non-Resident Indian Grooms Searching for Brides in Kolkata

Abstract “Caste No Bar?” navigates through Kolkata’s upper-caste Hindu Bengali matrimonial landscape and probes the patterns of matchmaking among families seeking brides for NRI (non-resident Indian) grooms. The matrimonial market, I argue, neatly foregrounds everyday casteism. If the parent community in West Bengal harbours a distinguished obsession with caste, the Bengali diaspora transports such caste enthusiasm beyond geographical confines to reproduce and reinforce caste on a global terrain. The apparent liberal progressive image of educated Bengali families with well-educated NRI grooms is grossly denuded in the matrimonial market. Across matrimonial columns and matrimonial websites, most advertisements mention their own caste affiliations; some stipulate preferred caste affiliations of the desired spouse, while many declare “Caste No Bar,” an oft-adduced phrase which adequately disguises the caste-fervour underlining Kolkata’s matrimonial market. Foregrounding the permeating social acceptability of endogamous marriages, this article scouts for the subtext of “Caste No Bar” that permits selective exogamy and precludes most boundary-crossings in a caste-charged matrimonial landscape that tellingly underpins caste bigotry.