Explained: Why Did The Maharashtra Government Form A Panel To Track Inter Faith Marriages?

The Maharashtra government led by Eknath Shinde and deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, a BJP-Balashabeanchi Shiv Sena combine, has formed an ¡®Intercaste/ Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee (state level)¡¯ to look into marriages involving different castes and faiths.

But in a recent update, the government has decided to drop inter-caste marriages from its purview. The focus of the 13-member panel headed by a minister would keep an exclusive track of inter-faith couples in the state.

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The committee, with the exclusion of the inter-caste marriages, has now dropped inter-caste from its name. It is now the ¡®Interfaith Marriage-family Coordination Committee (state level)¡¯ and will be headed by Maharashtra¡¯s Women and Child Development Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha.

The working process of the panel

The panel will record marriages irrespective of the form or place of marriage: elopement, mosque/temple/church/gurudwara; registered or non-registered. Elopement places immense pressure on the woman and without the family, an essential support mechanism is removed.

If the woman is illiterate then she becomes dependent upon the man all the more and this is a precarious position for her. In such cases, the committee will provide assistance to these women.
Assistance will also be made through a counselling service for women who need it.

Opposition to the committee

The essence of democracy is the debate over bills introduced in the parliament. These debates are essential to the functioning of a healthy democracy.
The opposition has targeted the ruling coalition for ¡®politicising the unfortunate death of Shraddha Walkar¡¯.

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Shraddha Walkar was in a live-in relationship with her partner Aftab Poonawala and was allegedly murdered by him. The case kicked up a storm in India as the latter chopped her body into 35 pieces and disposed of them in a nearby forest area. Aftab is currently in jail.

¡®This decision is part of a political agenda of the state government. This amounted to putting a strain on the state administration at the cost of the taxpayers¡¯ money to further a political agenda.¡¯ Sachin Sawant, Congress spokesperson, tweeted.

Sawant asked the state government if they had the data on inter-caste or inter-religious marriage in the state.

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¡°Lodha says only women in inter-caste and inter-faith marriages face problems but it may happen to women who are in marriages of the same caste. Isn¡¯t this decision a violation of the right to marry for adults?¡± Sawant asked.

The need to form the panel

The panel headed by Mangal Prabhat Lodha has said that the move to form the panel is to avoid another ghastly episode of the Shraddha Walkar murder case.

Devendra Fadnavis, speaking with the Indian Express, said,¡¯ cheating in interfaith marriages has increased in the past few years and some aspects have come to light in the Shraddha Walkar murder case¡¯. He further stated,¡¯ fraud in the name of love jihad has to be stopped.¡¯