Last week, I was honoured to speak at the Community Church of Boston at Copley Square, along with Sanjay Bhagat of the Boston Study Group and Kandeel Javid of Muslims for Progressive Values. The topic was Celebrating Love, unbounded by caste, religion, or sexual orientation.
The goal was to talk about challenges faced by interfaith/inter caste couples and families and how to create inclusion across castes and religious divides.
The title derived from an earlier discussion organised by Southasia Peace Action Network or Sapan, a global cross-border, cross-regional, cross-diasporic network that I co-founded in March 2021. See Saman Shaifq’s report Celebrating love: Beyond borders and boundaries of religion, caste, and nationality, published by Sapan News, the syndicated media service that emerged from Sapan.
I was invited to represent Sapan, as well as its local partner, the Boston South Asian Coalition. Introducing the speakers was Manisha Sharma of BSAC, also part of the Sapan network – see the lovely piece on qawwali she wrote for Sapan News.
Inter-religious or inter-caste marriage is against the social dogma around Southasia, as she noted. “In India, only 5% marriages are inter-caste or inter-religious.” Many of these couples, including gay and queer couples are subjected to tremendous social, family, and psychological pressures or lose their lives in what are called ‘honour killings’.
Entrance to the Community Church of Boston: A welcoming space tucked between shops at Copley Square: Promoting “Universal religion” Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Setting up for the event. Sapan fiscal sponsor Encuentro-5 (e5) banner in background. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Community Church of Boston coordinator Dean Stevens: Celebrating love, combatting hate and bigotry. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Manisha introducing the speakers and elegantly tying.threads together. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Sanjay Bhagat, a founding member of Boston Study Group: the only Ambedkarite organization in the New England area 
Tamana Syed: Bestselling author, poet, Public Health program coordinator. Check her bio https://linktr.ee/tasyed and book ‘Falcon and the Dove’. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Boston Study Group representatives presenting a bust of Dr Ambedkar to Kandil of Muslims for Progressive Values for his contributions to the cause of interfaith harmony. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
John announcing the upcoming Community Church annual meetup, “a celebration of people’s power, the world, and their resilience”. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Community announcement: Omar Aziz’s book just-published book Brown Boy. Photo: Beena Sarwar 
Journalist Sussen announcing the screening of a documentary ‘Five men of Fidel’ coming up on 26 July. Photo: Beena Sarwar
Having followed and written extensively about this issue for years, I tried to provide a broad perspective and context. Sharing below the text of my speech. Here is a link to the video, broadcast live on the Muslims for Progressive Values-Boston Facebook page.
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Journeys to democracy 