IASbhai Daily Editorial Hunt | 4th Nov 2020

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown

Dear Aspirants
IASbhai Editorial Hunt is an initiative to dilute major Editorials of leading Newspapers in India which are most relevant to UPSC preparation –‘THE HINDU, LIVEMINT , INDIAN EXPRESS’ and help millions of readers who find difficulty in answer writing and making notes everyday. Here we choose two editorials on daily basis and analyse them with respect to UPSC MAINS 2020-21.

EDITORIAL HUNT #224 :“Interfaith Marriages and Rights Issue | UPSC”

PRADIP

Interfaith Marriages and Rights Issue | UPSC

HEADLINES:

Ordinary Indians are standing up for inter-faith love as it lives in our cultural memory

CENTRAL THEME:

The story of the Tanishq ad is, then, not a simple one of suppression and violence.

SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 1 : Society

MAINS QUESTION:

The withdrawal of the Tanishq ad led to an astonishing blowback.Discuss the history, rights issues involved in interfaith marriages and the opinion of courts on the same. -(GS 1)

LEARNING:

Concept of Marraige
Tales of Strong Bonds
Verdicts and Right to Marry
Way Forward

INTRODUCTION:

LAYERS OF POWERFUL TRADITION : That is, of imagining a country that would be free to dare, experiment, conjoin and link up the identities of its citizens.

CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE

CASTEISM : Caste and religion are integral parts of Indian society.
WATER TIGHT COMPARTMENTS : These two systems create water tight compartment between communities and by this gap, bring division, hatred and tension among various social groups.

The basic problem in Indian society is not of class division but of caste division.

RULE OF LAND : Marriage within the same caste and same religion is the rule of land of the Indian society.

Marriages are regarded not only as a social institution in India, but also as a sacrament.

THINKING BEYOND : To think of marriages between different castes and different religions is a difficult and socially unacceptable proposition.
SOCIAL STIGMA : To every such marriage social stigma is attached, making it difficult for the couples to survive.
GRADUAL EFFECTS : Recently the process of modernization, westernization, democratization and development has brought lots of positive changes in Indian society.

BODY:

Interfaith Marriages and Rights Issue | UPSC

TALES OF STRONG BOND : Stories of transgressive love or parakiya prem have been popular in both the Vaishnav and the Sufi traditions.
VIGILANTISM : This was only to be expected in today’s condition of social intolerance enforced by powerful vigilantes of community “sentiment”.
OLD SCHEMES : Over a decade of media activism and random vigilantism by “anti-Romeo” squads have tried to compel a consensus on the illegitimacy of inter-community love.
POSITIVE VIBES : Given the velocity of this campaign, what has surprised many is the positive advocacy of inter-community relationships.
THE FALLING CURTAINS : Besides intense social media criticism, inter-faith couples appeared on television, courageously disclosing their identities, risking the possibility of social coercion, if not worse.

STORIES OF LOVE :DURGESHNANDINI

The most important one is Bankim Chatterjee’s Durgeshnandini (1865).

DURGESHNANDINI

Here, Ayesha, the daughter of Katlu Khan, the Pathan king of Orissa, falls in love with Jagat Singh, the son of her father’s enemy, Man Singh.

The critics came up with – love as “western” and even proclaimed the virtues of child marriage that would make the wife devoted to her husband and family.

ICONIC CULTURAL MEMORY : ASRUMATI

Jyotirindranath Tagore’s play, Asrumati, features a stock Hindu nationalist situation: The fall of Chittor.
Asrumati, the princess of Chittor, is abducted by Mughal forces.
The outcome of this situation, however, is startling. Prince Selim, the son of Akbar, falls in love with Asrumati .

The affair ends tragically but not before Asrumati raises an important question. How could she look at Selim as enemy when he had not behaved like one, she asks her father.

Asrumati was written four years after Sarojini, a play that features an iconic scene of johar following Alauddin Khilji’s conquest of Chittor.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE’S : MUSSALMANI GALPA

The first is Rabindranath Tagore’s Mussalmani Galpa published a year after the Pakistan resolution (1940).
Here, Kamala, a Brahmin girl, is spurned as polluted by her family for having been abducted.
She converts to Islam after falling in love with a Muslim.

But she goes on to rescue her abducted uncle and cousin, restoring them to their Hindu society.

VERDICTS AND RIGHT TO MARRY

LATA SINGH VS UP STATE,2004 : Right to marry or choose one’s life partner has been interpreted by the SC as an extension of Right to Life and Liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of India under Art 21.
SARLA MUDGAL VS UNION OF INDIA,1995 : SC criminalised surreptitious faking conversion to Islam to circumvent incrimination under IPC Section 494 along with Hindu Marriage act 1955.
SPECIAL MARRIAGES ACT,1954 : It allows two persons processing different religions to get married and retain their religions.

IASbhai Windup:

A TABOO : For years, Indians had an orthodox mindset. They couldn’t imagine inter caste marriages. Talking about inter caste and inter religion marriages in India was a taboo for most people in the earlier days.

However, with time, things changed and inter caste marriage also became a part of the society.

WARM SURPRISE : There seems to be higher inter-caste marriages in socio-economically developed states.
CASTE BARRIERS : Marriages are regarded as the most important social custom and hence, were viewed as the best means to remove the barrier of caste system.
LONG WAY TO GO : Today, in Indian society, though we can see inter caste marriages, but mostly it is the part of the city culture. The rural parts of the country still have a long way to go.

SOURCES: THE HINDU EDITORIAL HUNT | Interfaith Marriages and Rights Issue | UPSC

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