MA Sneha Parthibaraja, 36, a practising advocate in Tirupattur (Vellore), scripted history when she received a no caste, no religion certificate, being the first Indian to do so.
According to her, the minute one is born in India; he or she is assigned a religion and caste. To break this trend, Sneha, who has identified herself as a woman without caste and religion, started the process of officiating it by procuring a certificate. “When human beings are said to be the most evolved species, why do we need caste and religion? These were made by man for his own convenience,” she told Femina in an earlier interview.
In her formative years, Sneha’s parents—Aanandkrishnan and Manimozhi—married sans rituals she and her sisters were exposed to a no caste, no religion lifestyle as well. In fact, while she is named Sneha, her sisters’ names are Mumtaj Suriya and Jennifer. It only on interacting with other children when growing up did they realise that most households aren’t similar to theirs. Their ideology was not a norm, but an exception. When the girls asked questions out of curiosity, they were offered logical answers. “Our parents also ensured they introduced and openly discussed such topics when we were about five or six. They exposed us to Darwin’s theories and scientific explanations as to how the Earth and living beings were formed. We read books by Periyar and Karl Marx, which shaped our ideologies,” she says.
The road to getting the certificate was ridden with obstacles galore but determined to challenge every baseless issue that came her way, the brave lady took it on and fought a long and arduous battle for nine years before she succeeded.
Sneha is very clear that she is not violating anybody’s rights using this certificate, or asking for extra benefits from the government. In fact, she is letting go of those very benefits. She fought this battle simply because she wanted to bring this certificate as a replacement to the existing caste certificate. “It should work at par with any other document,” she said.
At every step of the way, Sneha met with resistance. Like once, an official asked her if he could issue the certificate as ‘someone who dislikes caste and religion’. “How should one be expected to respond to that? I’m not someone who dislikes caste and religion, but someone who doesn’t have caste and religion. There is a difference,” she said.
In another instance, when Sneha filed for applications for judicial exams and the post of a notary public in Tamil Nadu, despite mentioning no caste, no religion in the application form, her application was returned or rejected on the grounds of no enclosure. She thought it best to get an official legal certificate. The long-drawn battle of patience finally ended in 2017 when she was able to apply for an authentic certificate and received it in 2019.
Sneha’s husband could understand where she was coming from, but he did tell her that it might not be possible. And despite the minuscule chance that she may get it, he encouraged her at every step of her battle.
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