1. The tradition of excluding unmarried women and widows from rituals and customs. Determining a woman’s participation (and worth) on the basis of the presence (or absence) of a man disgusts me. It segregates on every level and the stupidity has to stop immediately.

-Gauri Noolkar

2. The Ganpati Visarjan. Every year lakhs of idols are immersed in water, causing the water to pollute at a threatening level. Many of them are made from POP which doesn’t really dissolve in water. The marine life and aquatic plants are killed too. The next day, you can see the idols broken and left aside the seashore. This is not what we expect our god to go through. Why not make eco-friendly Ganesha more popular?

-Swapnil Kabra

3. The practice of a woman having to spend the rest of her life after marriage at her husband’s place. In specific, if her husband lives with his parents, she is expected to live with them by default.

-Jayashree Ravi

4. Celebrating the birth of a male child, but not of a female child. A child is a child; one’s own blood. How can one differentiate based on a child’s gender is beyond my understanding.

-Subhajeet S Roy

5. That women are impure, unfit to perform pooja and in some cases, not even allowed to interact with their own family during menstruation. Women are often treated as if they are inauspicious and dirty during menstruation.

-Pinal Maru

6. Inter-caste marriage prohibition. If they violate the rule, then they have to break the relationships with their parents, can’t attend any community functions or parties and might even get killed. They call it ‘honour’ killing, I wonder what honour do they get in killing their own children.

-Chandrika K

7. The concept of ‘kanyadaan’. In the true sense of the word, it means giving away a virgin girl. It is referred to as one of the blessed actions one can perform because obviously, a daughter is supposed to be a burden and giving your burden off to a strange man considering she’s a virgin, how can you not be blessed, right?

-Subhajeet S Roy

8. Parda system. A married woman or widow can’t go out of her house alone, can’t talk to males in the house, talk or laugh loudly. I find it the most annoying and irritating tradition of our country.

–Ritu Rathor

9. The need for a brahmin to validate our prayers. We are taught since childhood that we are all equals in the eyes of god, but when it comes to doing a pooja, we are said that it is incomplete unless done by a brahmin. Who made them the custodian of gods?

-Subhajeet S Roy

10. Horoscopes. Indian marriages are not dealt with without horoscopes. Without taking the kundli check-up of the prospective bride and groom they do not pace up. Even educated people follow and support horoscopes before they tie a knot.

–Chandrika K

11. Tradition of wasting milk and oil on idols. India is home to the world’s largest number of undernourished people, with 20 crore people sleeping on empty stomachs.

–Krishna Pandey

12. It is alright for a man or woman of a lower caste to enter your house and clean your dirty dishes, scrub your toilet and mop your floor, but it is not alright for them to sit next to you and have a cup of tea. Yes, it is a cruel tradition and it must end.

-Subhajeet S Roy

13. I don’t like when my nani doesn’t eat at my house or pay for the food. It is another stupid tradition that refrains a girl’s (bride) parents to eat at her own home.

-Anshul Kumar Upadhyay

14. Bride’s parents pay for the weddings. This is one absolutely unfair tradition. It is an unsaid rule that the bride’s father has to bear all the burden of his beloved daughter’s wedding. Why only the bride’s father bear the grunt of a huge expense? This tradition should be stopped.

–Anonymous

15. Puberty ceremony. I don’t understand why parents publicize that their daughter hit puberty by doing grand ceremonies?

–Anonymous

It’s high time that we, as a society, break these oppressive traditions!