The Past Is Not the Person
Strap: Second in a series on marriage, tradition, and the lives we need to build together
By Nivedita Pandey
My previous column asked why Indian society treats staying in a damaging marriage as morally superior to leaving one. Recently, the former Miss Pune’s case took a more troubling turn: beyond character assassination of the deceased woman by her in-laws, social media flooded with comments supporting that line of inquiry simply because she had relationships prior to marriage. This revealed a disturbing mindset: a woman’s worth being still reduced to her relationship history.
People in India today are marrying later than ever. They study together, work together, form attachments, experience heartbreak, navigate loneliness, and make mistakes. This is human life, not a moral failure.
Yet the dominant conversation around marriage still evaluates people – particularly women – by whether they have a past, rather than the qualities that actually determine whether a household will be peaceful or destructive. Women are evaluated through the lens of sexual history and purity. Men are evaluated through income and status. In both cases, a human being is reduced to a commodity while the inner qualities that sustain a marriage go unexamined.
Our traditions took a different view.
The Chandogya Upanishad tells the story of Satyakam Jabala, a boy who sought to learn Brahma Vidya from Sage Haridrumata Gautam. When asked about his lineage – the essential qualifier of that era – he returned to his mother, who shared that she had worked as a servant in many households and did not know who his father was. Rather than conceal this difficult truth, Satyakam repeated it to his teacher exactly as it was. The Sage accepted him immediately – recognising that a person who speaks an uncomfortable truth rather than a comforting lie has already demonstrated good character. Our sacred text was clear: birth and history do not determine worth. How you carry yourself today does.
The Valmiki Ramayana‘s Bal-Kand gives us Devi Ahilya – wife of Maharishi Gautam, cursed after an encounter with Indra. Some texts portray her as deceived, others as having made a choice. What matters is the ending: Ram redeems and elevates her. Sage Vishwamitra introduces her to Ram not as a fallen woman but as mahabhaga – most noble and virtuous. She became one of the PanchKanyas – five women whose names are recited each morning to dispel sin. Nothing was treated as permanently broken. Redemption was always possible – enabled by Lord Ram himself.
The Devi Bhagavata Purana and Padma Purana give us Devi Tara, wife of Brihaspati – Guru of Gods. Tara, feeling neglected by a husband engrossed in divine duties, fell for Chandra and left to be with him. The Gods went to war over this before Brahma intervened – Devi Tara returned and Brihaspati took her back without punishment. The child born of this union was Budh – Planet Mercury in Vedic tradition, worshipped today as part of the Navagrahas. And it is from Chandra himself – at the centre of this episode of divine complexity – that the ChandraVansh takes its name and origin, eventually birthing Lord Krishna.
Our tradition did not erase this complex history. It named a prestigious dynasty after it.
These stories that our priests recite and grandmothers remember are unanimous on this: a person is not their history. The comments on social media said otherwise. Our tradition did not.
The writer is an AI and Digital Innovation Leader working at the intersection of technology, governance, and social impact. Raised across Bihar and Jharkhand, she is a Wharton MBA alumna and has worked across USA, UK, Singapore, and India. She can be reached at NiveditaPandey@alumni.upenn.edu
