Inter-caste marriages in India

rdf:langString Inter-caste marriages in India

rdf:langString Due to longstanding cultural norms, inter-caste marriages in India remains a rare occurrence, but in the modern era has been permissible in certain sections of Indian society due to modernisation and urbanisation. According to the 2011 census, only 5.8% of the marriages in India are inter-caste marriages. In India, inter-caste marriages were publicly encouraged and supported by the incumbent government under Narendra Modi by the offering of financial encouragement to those who marry people from lower castes, C. N. Annadurai, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, and social activists such as Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu and Manthena Venkata Raju. In the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the Government offers a cash award for inter-caste couples. The Supreme Court of India has also declared that inter-caste marriages are in the national interest and a unifying factor for the nation and there has never been an official ban on inter-caste or inter-religion marriages in independent India. In 2017, the Prime minister Narendra Modi started a scheme in which 2.5 lakh rupees will be given to inter-caste couples if one of them is a Dalit.