page_title: Timeline of Adi Dharm
section_title: Marriage Validity Controversies (1938–)
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of Adi Dharm / Marriage Validity Controversies (1938–)
caption_attribution_description: English: The marriage ceremony of Feroze Gandhi and Indira Nehru at Anand Bhawan, Allahabad.
context_page_description: Below is a timeline of Adi Dharm or Adi Brahmo Samaj.
context_section_description: A considerable controversy also erupted at this time over validity of Arya Samaj marriages. With low caste converts to Christianity being reinducted into Hindu ranks after shuddhikaran or purification, orthodox Hindu society was not prepared to accept these reconverts or marry with them. With a few deaths of such converts often from very rich families or landed gentry, property disputes began reaching the Courts and the existing laws proved inadequate. With neither side willing to budge, a Marriage Law for Arya Samajis was deferred for almost 25 years. Luckily a fortituous occurrence took place. Krishna Hutheesing (a sister of Jawaharlal Nehru) wanted to marry a Prince – a Jain by religion. Such a marriage between parties of different castes although then allowed in law (by further amendment in the Brahmo law in 1923) was frowned upon and meant separation  from the family and community. They arranged to be married under the Adi Brahmo Law of 1872 and gave false declarations (as was done in B.K.Nehru's case also). When these facts came out, the Adi Brahmo's fiercely objected to misuse of their Act and began to watch the banns. In 1938 Jawaharal Nehru's daughter Indira insisted on marrying her sweetheart Feroze. Once again being of different faiths they could not be legally married under any law of the time except the Adi Dharma Law. The elders (incl. Rabindranath Tagore) of Brahmo Samaj at Shantiniketan, Delhi and Allahabad were consulted (incl. by M.K.Gandhi) and who after considerable disagreement advised instead that the long pending Marriage Validity law for converted low caste Arya Samajis be enacted, which was speedily done in 1939 by an obliging British Government, enabling the loving couple to be wed in early 1942 by secret pre-Vedic Adi Dharm reformed Brahmic rites taught to Nehru's priest by Adi Dharma elders at Allahabad in the presence of Brahmos like Sarojini Naidu with the groom wearing a sacred Brahmic thread in secret. Ever since, these Adi Dharma rites have been used by the Gandhi-Nehru family for their marriages – such as for Rajiv Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi to Maneka Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi to Robert Vadra etc. and the Vedic law of Adi Dharma has never been repealed despite passage of the Hindu Code in 1955 which repealed all such similar marriage validity laws for other faiths.
caption: Indira Gandhi's controversial ".. neither conventional nor legal.. " Vedic wedding image. Guardian.co.uk
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "02 Aug 1942, Allahabad, India --- Indira Nehru, only daughter of Jawharlal Nehru (considered the most important native leader of India today), is pictured during the ceremonies that marked here wedding to Feroze Gandhi who is seated next to her.  At the extreme right is Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, sister of Nehru.  The ceremonial rites to the chanting of the Vedic mantras before the fire are pictured at this instant.  Both Jawharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi were jailed when their party refused cooporation to the British defense.G --- Image by \u00a9 Bettmann/CORBIS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:05:09 11:02:11", "Image Copyright": "\u00a9 Corbis.  All Rights Reserved.", "Image ExifOffset": "792", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "930", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6411", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "547", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "390"}