Inter-caste and inter-faith unions form a vanishingly small sliver of the marriage pie in India, indicating that couples who dare break the strictures of community and caste face hurdles and dangers despite the law of the land and guarantees in the Constitution. Therefore, governments, law-enforcement authorities and the judiciary have a duty to protect such couples from the threatening gaze of orthodox prejudice. But, unfortunately, a new move in Maharashtra may end up doing the opposite. This newspaper reported on
Inter-caste and inter-faith unions form a vanishingly small sliver of the marriage pie in India, indicating that couples who dare break the strictures of community and caste face hurdles and dangers despite the law of the land and guarantees in the Constitution. Therefore, governments, law-enforcement authorities and the judiciary have a duty to protect such couples from the threatening gaze of orthodox prejudice. But, unfortunately, a new move in Maharashtra may end up doing the opposite. This newspaper reported on Sunday that the state will soon set up a committee that will look into ways to help women remain connected with their families “even if” they are in interfaith or inter-caste marriages. The state minister of women and child development, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, also linked it to the murder of Shraddha Walkar in Delhi, allegedly by her partner Aaftab Poonawala, and said the government’s decision might help in preventing such crimes.
Women isolated from their families and friends, who don’t have a support structure in a new city, and are dependent on their partners or husbands, are no doubt vulnerable to abuse. But the government must desist from linking the Delhi murder to the irrelevant detail of an inter-faith union, and instead focus on helping people suffering domestic violence access better legal remedies and counteract social ostracisation.
The government should bolster frameworks and implement the law to safeguard victims of violence but also heed experts who say there is no correlation between abuse and inter-faith or inter-caste unions. Anything else will further jeopardise the fragile hope of dignity that sustains people daring to pierce barriers for love.
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