By Neha Khemka
The Uttar Pradesh government has once again implemented an anti-conversion and Islamophobic legislation by amending the State’s rules surrounding registration of marriages. According to the rules issued by the Uttar Pradesh Government’s Stamps and Registration Department in June 2025, it is now mandatory for a Pandit, Qazi, or Priest, along with an immediate family member of the couple, to be present during the registration of any marriage in the state. In addition to the presence, the officiator of the marriage is also asked to submit an affidavit confirming the same and might be asked to depose in front of the Registrar if required.
Most importantly, the Uttar Pradesh State government has banned city hopping for marriages by making it mandatory that runaway marriage couples or couples whose marriage is not approved by their families can not be registered in a district if they or their parents are not its permanent residents.
These marriage registration amendments done by the Uttar Pradesh government are driven by their Islamophobic and anti-conversion ideology and are a direct attack on the autonomy of individuals as they are not allowed to marry and be with the person they want to.
The surveillance on young couples, especially inter-caste and inter-faith couples has increased tremendously under the current Hindutva BJP-RSS government as evident by the introduction and implementation of various other laws such as the Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, also known as the love-jihad law in Uttar Pradesh and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Uttarakhand, which shows a pattern of how this Hindutva Government has been legalising hatred towards Muslims, Dalits, women, and all the marginalised communities.
Does the Hindutva BJP government really want to protect Its citizens?
The recent amendments regarding marriage registration in Uttar Pradesh came after a judgement given by the Allahabad High Court in May, 2025 where it directed the Deputy Registrars and concerned officials to amend the Uttar Pradesh Registration Rules, 2017 to ‘ensure Aadhaar-based authentication of the bride and the groom, specially run-away couples, for marriage registration in Uttar Pradesh as there has been a rise in the registration of fake marriages registered through forged documents‘.
This story was originally published in feminisminindia.com. Read the full story here.
