Date: 20/12/2022
Relevance: GS-1: Effects of globalization on Indian society, Social empowerment
Relevance: GS-2: Development and management of Social Sector/Services
Key Phrases: Inter-caste/Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee, Women and Child Development Ministry, anti-conversion legislation, Rev Stanislaus vs Madhya Pradesh case.
Why in News?
- Recently, the Maharashtra government has decided to limit the mandate of the recently constituted Inter-caste/Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee (state level) to gathering information on interfaith marriages.
- The renamed Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee under the state Women and Child Development Ministry will provide support and rehabilitation when necessary and also track fraud committed in the name of “love jihad”.
Key Highlights:
- The states such as Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand already have brought in anti-conversion legislation to stop forced marriages.
- The decision of the Maharashtra government is the latest to take action against “love jihad” forces.
Key issues in Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee:
- State over-vigilance in individual’s life:
- Such vigilance remains another indication of the State’s disproportionately burgeoning — and utterly unacceptable — interest in, and demand for, control over the lives of individual citizens.
- Violative of one’s rights of freedom of choice and equality:
- Such committees also under political pressure will deny a woman’s choice of partner as her own free will and not an act of coercion.
- There is the IPC for all genuine complaints so the committee could be weaponized.
- Over interference in citizen's life:
- In every aspect, monitoring a citizen’s life for her own supposed benefit is a limitation of the freedoms of men and women, designed to deter them from leading fuller, freer lives as guaranteed by the constitution.
- Against principles of communal harmony:
- Maharashtra has witnessed the worst communal riots in Indian history or where politics of nativism had thrived on amping up parochial sentiments.
- Such a committee will further cause division.
Recent observations made by the Supreme Court on interfaith marriages:
- The consent of the family or community is not necessary, once the two adult individuals agree to enter into a marriage. Their consent has to be given primacy.
- Educated youngsters are showing the way forward by tying the knot in inter-faith-marriages.
- It will reduce inter community tensions in India. Possibly, this is the way forward where inter community tensions will reduce.
- The court also emphasized the need for specific guidelines and a training module for the police personnel. It will train them to handle cases of inter-faith marriage.
Other Judicial pronouncement regarding interfaith marriages and forcible conversions:
- The Rev Stanislaus vs Madhya Pradesh case: Supreme Court said Article 25 does provide freedom of religion in matters related to practice, profess and propagate, but the word propagate does not give the right to convert and upheld the laws prohibiting Conversion through force, fraud, or allurement.
- Based on the above case it is clear that forcible conversion or conversion through fraud and allurement is against the Right to Freedom of Religion.
- Sarla Mudgal case: The court had held that the religious conversion into Islam by a person from non-Islamic faith is not valid if the conversion is done for the purpose of polygamy.
- Lily Thomas case: In this case Court observed that marrying another woman after converting to Islam is punishable under the bigamy laws.
- Hadiya Case: Supreme Court said that the right to marry a person of one’s choice is integral to Article 21 (right to life and liberty) of the constitution.
Conclusion
- In a country increasingly becoming constrained by a narrow imagination of uniformity, Mumbai is still maya nagari — a cauldron of multi-ethnic, multilingual and multi-cultural aspirations — where people come to lose themselves in the anonymity it offers, and find themselves in the opportunities that it holds out.
- To try to inhibit that idea of openness and possibility by casting communal aspersions on personal choice is a travesty.
Source: Indian Express
Mains Question
Q. Recently we have seen interference of the different states in interfaith marriages. In this context discuss the issues in such interference and over vigilance. Support your answer with the recent judicial pronouncements? ( 15 marks)
