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Des Raj. Mind you, both the girl and the boy were infants. In those days, the custom of arranged marriages was extremely prevalent. Only a formal commitment (verbal agreement) to a matrimonial commitment was all that was needed. The actual marriage would take place when the boy and the girl reached puberty. Now, Lala Roop Lal Ji agreed to this offer and gave his word that his infant son Des Raj would now be engaged to this infant girl. The whole Jain community came to know of this news. In the course of time, after a few years, the girl's father died suddenly, leaving behind a wife and four very young children. In those days, there were no life insurance, social security, pensions, or any such thing. The father was the only breadwinner and now he was no more. Most of the families only had modest assets as they were just middle or lower middle class. Due to economic necessities, the girl's mother, to feed her family, started working in Jain and non-Jain homes as a domestic servant doing dishes, laundry, cleaning floors, cooking food, and other chores. Such kind of work was considered very demeaning and menial in the society, as only the people from very low castes would do such things, but not usually Jains. The entire Jain community knew about the mother's work. When the time for the children's marriage came nearer, some prominent members of the local Jain community came to persuade Lala Roop Lal ji to decline, undo and nullify his earlier commitment and not to allow the marriage between his son and the girl take place. The reason given was that the girl's family was now destitute and so now, the matrimonial relationship was not up to par with the status of Roop Lal Ji. On hearing this, Roop Lal Ji was really pained. He reminded this group that they knew very well what economic hardship the girl's family was going through, and what had the Jain community done to alleviate their hardship? He was further pained that the same community who had done absolutely nothing for the affected family in their hour of need, has
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An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide
