The Karnataka government’s plan to financially support Brahmin brides from poor families has kicked up a row because of the condition that the beneficiaries must marry within the community.

The Karnataka State Brahmin Development Board recently announced two schemes to help brides from impoverished Brahmin families. While cash benefits of Rs 25,000 will be provided under the Arundathi scheme to brides from the community, those marrying Brahmin priests will be provided Rs 3 lakh under the Maitreyi programme.

But what has come in for widespread criticism is the condition that the beneficiaries ought to be from the same community and registered on the board’s web portal by producing their caste certificates.

Board chairman H.S. Sachidananda Murthy did not answer repeated calls from The Telegraph. Earlier, he had told the local media that the idea was to “uplift women from economically weak Brahmin families”.
He justified the higher benefit for marrying priests and said the amount could be used to start an alternative source of income, like a small shop.

Murthy said the beneficiaries must produce their caste and income certificates to register under the two schemes. But it should be the first marriage of the couple and they should give an undertaking that they would be married for at least five years.

The BJP government formed the board in July 2019 and launched several programmes for the needy from the Brahmin community that forms about 3 per cent of the 6.5 crore population of the state.

While it is by no means the only caste-based development board in the state replete with such entities for most of the influential communities, it is the condition of marrying within the community that has triggered outrage.

“This is a gross violation of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and can be challenged in court,” state Congress spokesman V.G. Ugrappa told this newspaper on Thursday.

“It is the bride’s right to choose her man, just like it is the man’s right to choose his bride. So this order is against the spirit of our Constitution and infringes on its provisions concerning rights and liberties,” Ugrappa, a senior lawyer, added.

He recalled how Brahmin boys and girls have often married into other communities and lived happily in the state. “It’s very unfortunate that the BJP government is encouraging this kind of casteist tendencies with tax payers’ money, that too in the 21st century,” Ugrappa said.

It was chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s predecessor H.D. Kumaraswamy who had first mooted the idea of a Brahmin development board when he headed the Janata Dal Secular-Congress coalition government. He had promised to set aside Rs 25 crore for the board before his government collapsed in 2019.

Former chairman of the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, C.S. Dwarakanath, told this newspaper that such riders for government benefits are never applied on any community.

“There are similar schemes for other communities also. But none of them impose such conditions that the beneficiaries should marry only from their own community,” Dwarakanath said.

He had headed the commission from 2007 to 2010 when Yediyurappa was chief minister.

“During my tenure I had even proposed monetary assistance to couples in inter-caste marriage to encourage more people to step out of caste barriers. But none of the subsequent governments implemented it,” Dwarakanath lamented.

Noted Dalit writer Mahesh Chandra Guru slammed the BJP government for encouraging the caste system.

“Such regressive schemes will only fuel more caste differences in the society,” he said, urging the government to intervene and allow the benefits to all Brahmin girls, irrespective of who she marries.

“This is a violation of the fundamental rights of poor Brahmin women who are being shackled in the iron chains of caste system,” Guru said, adding that men in his family had married Brahmin women without any issue.

“I have three sisters-in-law and an aunt who are Brahmins. All of them live happily without any issue. But this kind of conditions will affect such unions based on the choice of two individuals,” he said.