Whom citizens marry is not govt’s business

The Maharashtra government’s decision to set up a committee to monitor marriages between persons belonging to different faiths is wrong and a violation of citizens’ rights. The government first decided to bring within the committee’s ambit both interfaith and intercaste marriages but later dropped intercaste marriages from it. This was when it was brought to its attention that it was State policy to encourage intercaste marriages. But the original plan for the committee shows the government’s thinking about marriages outside caste and religion. The committee will gather information about couples involved in interfaith marriages and the maternal families of the women involved if they are estranged. The 13-member committee will monitor district-level initiatives for women. The committee, with representatives from government and non-government fields, will be a platform for women and their families to avail counselling and resolve issues.

Though the committee is claimed to be one intended to look after the welfare of women, it will actually be an adversarial one. It was the murder of a Mumbai resident, Shraddha Walker, by her live-in partner, Aftab Poonawala, in Delhi that gave the government a ruse to take this decision. But religion did not enter their relationship, neither in life nor in death, and it is wrong to look at the murder in terms of religion. For every woman who is murdered by a partner from another community there are thousands of others who are killed by their partners from the same religion. Why does the committee not monitor the lives of all couples? There is no data that shows that women in interfaith marriages are in greater danger of any kind than others. The state minister Mangal Lodha said that Shraddha Walker’s parents learnt about the murder only six months later. Wouldn’t this happen in same faith marriages or live-in relationships?

It is not for the government to check on the lives of couples, in fact on the lives of any group of people or individuals. People enter into marriage or other relationships on their own and the law recognises and grants people the right to do so. It would be a violation of the right to privacy if a government-appointed committee kept an eye on marriages and monitored them. The Maharashtra committee is just a means to discourage interfaith marriages or relationships and a ploy to harass those who enter into them. It is a ‘love jihad’ hoax in action. The government will reduce itself to the level of a khap panchayat when it starts scrutinising the relationships of people. It should actually welcome marriages and greater social interaction between people of different religions and communities so that society becomes more inclusive.