Communal Outlook in a Paternalistic Disguise

According to a resolution released in December by the women and child development department, the Maharashtra government has constituted a panel to gather comprehensive information about couples in interfaith marriages. Called the “Interfaith Marriage-family Coordination Committee (state level),” it seeks to provide counselling and assistance to women in interfaith marriages, especially in cases where such women may have been estranged from their maternal families. This panel, which will be headed by the state’s women and child development minister and would have 12 other members from government as well as non-government sectors, was constituted as a reaction to the brutal murder of Shraddha Walkar, a Mumbai resident, by her partner Aaftab Poonawala in New Delhi.

The deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, in making a rather sweeping generalisation, claimed that in the past few years there has been an increase in the cases of cheating in interfaith marriages in some parts of the state. To combat this problem, the Maharashtra government’s resolution intends to obtain information about couples who have entered into interfaith marriages, and see if the married women are in touch with their maternal families or not. This is ostensibly so as to avoid a repetition of the Walkar case in the state.