Will inter-faith couples now come forward to claim govt scheme money?
LUCKNOW : A cash award of Rs 50,000 was given to each of the 11 couples performing inter-religion marriage in 2019-2020 in Uttar Pradesh.
And, if all goes well, disbursement of more award money of Rs 50,000 to each of five to six such couples may be made in the next few weeks as more recommendations are being processed for giving the award for 2020-2021.
However, a question mark hangs over whether there will be any more new claimants for the award in the coming months following promulgation of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance -- 2020.
As the ordinance bans ‘unlawful’ religious conversions by marriage ‘carried out with an objective of converting a girl from one religion to the other’ there are apprehensions among those going for inter-faith marriage.
The questions arising now are: Will the state government continue to run such schemes to promote national integration and will inter-faith married couples come forward to claim the award money?
“People will now be afraid of staking claim for the cash prize for inter-faith marriage. The state government, obviously, does not want to promote interfaith marriages, although it runs a scheme providing for giving a cash of Rs 50,000 to the couples opting for inter-religion marriage,” said former advisor to governor and legal expert CB Pandey.
Pandey’s observations may not be unfounded. Three FIRs have already been lodged for violation of provisions of the new law.
The state government had launched the scheme to promote national integration by giving a cash award to the couples opting for inter-caste and inter-religion marriages in 1976. It decided to increase the cash prize to Rs 50,000 in 2013.
The national integration department, which runs the scheme, however, gets only a limited budget now. There are hardly any funds available with the department to give the cash prize though the scheme remains on paper.
“About Rs 1 lakh per year was allotted to every division a few years ago. A division now gets just a few thousand rupees now. The state government gave a cash award of Rs 50,000 to each of 11 couples in 2019-2020. We may process some more recommendations from district magistrates and five to six more couples may get the award. We are not sure whether the state government will be interested in running the scheme further,” said a senior state government officer on condition of anonymity.
Others point out that the scheme may work at cross purpose of the new law, apparently brought to check what many Hindu outfits call ‘love jihad’.
“This law is not only at cross purposes with the objectives of the scheme launched to promote national integration, it also has malicious intent. We are seeing murder of democracy. It’s ridiculous and sad where one law is enacted against the other. Your conduct may satisfy one law while it may violate another law. Citizens do not know how to behave,” said former vice chancellor, Lucknow University, Roop Rekha Verma.
An official spokesman, however, said the new law does ban inter-faith marriages and so there was no question of discontinuing the scheme of giving cash prizes.
Meanwhile, UP minister and government spokesman Sidharthnath Singh said: “The reason for this law is to become a deterrent to using force, hiding facts or using fraudulent means and protect rights of people to follow religion of their choice. There is no question of the new law having an adverse impact on scheme of giving cash award to promote national integration.”