Mumbai: An interfaith couple married two years ago with parental approval who still haven’t registered their marriage for fear of vigilante groups; a professor who has been “advised” by a Hindutva group not to go ahead with her forthcoming marriage to a Muslim; a couple who has given notice of their interfaith marriage and is hoping it goes smoothly; and a newly married interfaith couple barely recovered from the trauma of living under police protection.
These young couples shared their experiences at a consultation held at the YMCA International House in Mumbai Central on Sunday. The session was organised by Dhanak of Humanity, a Delhi-based nonprofit that has been providing support to interfaith and intercaste couples for the past 20 years.
A government resolution (GR) issued by the Maharashtra government on May 3 aims to make it easier for such couples to marry, by providing “safe houses” for them in every district. A three-member committee headed by the respective district commissioner oversees the scheme.
The GR applies only to couples who wish to marry under the Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954, under which adults of any faith can have a civil marriage performed by the registrar of marriages. As per the GR, such couples may be provided 24/7 police protection and shelter can be availed for a maximum of one year, with cases being reviewed every two months.
For interfaith couples who do not want to change their religion upon marriage, the SMA is the only recourse. The opposition such couples face from their families as well as from community groups such as khaps prompted the Supreme Court to issue a set of guidelines in 2018, directing state governments to set up safe houses for them.
The SMA makes it mandatory to give a month’s notice before a couple can get married. In the last 10 years, such notices, which contain the addresses and phone numbers of the two partners, are regularly monitored by Hindutva groups who then try to stop the marriage, even when the parents of both partners have agreed to it. This has made the need for safe houses even stronger.
Thanks to sustained pressure from Dhanak, 10 such safe houses were established in Delhi, where 28 couples facing threats from their families found shelter till they felt safe to move out, said Dhanak founder Asif Iqbal.
Safe houses also exist in Chandigarh and Haryana.
Citing these precedents, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) had, over the past two years, succeeded in getting the Bombay high court to direct the state government to follow suit, said PUCL lawyers Mihir Desai and Lara Jesani.
So far, only one couple has availed of this facility; the experience they shared revealed that a lot needed to be done to make the GR effective. However, it had served its primary purpose: keeping the couple safe till they got married.
Sunday’s consultation saw the participation of women’s groups as well as legal aid lawyers. It was decided to start a campaign to publicise the GR, both among the public and among those supposed to implement it, including the police, the district administration as well as registrars.