In the homes of the ‘high-born’, in India’s caste-ridden society, the much-loved daughter turns into something too dangerous to live, if her sexuality slips out of the structures of feudal control. Babu Bajrangi, the Sangh Parivar leader from Gujarat, who boasts of having ‘rescued’ (i.e abducted) a 1000 Hindu women who dared to marry Muslim or ‘lower’ caste men, says that every daughter (beti) is a bomb that threatens to blow up caste society. The daughter’s body is, literally, the porous border of caste purity – and must be policed carefully to prevent infiltration. The daughter’s act of choosing her own partner causes terror in the custodians of caste society. No wonder she is compared to a ‘bomb’! Incidentally and interestingly, it is ironic to see participants in the debate over the caste census argue that ideally, caste should be done away with ‘except in matters of marriage’! Is it really possible that they fail to realise that marriage and the control of female sexuality thereby is central to the maintenance of the caste system, and that we cannot claim to have rendered caste irrelevant until caste is done away with in matters of marriage?!