The boycott ban:

The boycott ban:

Maharashtra’s law makes a bench mark

Context:

• Maharashtra’s new law prohibiting the social boycott of individuals, families or any community by informal village councils is a step in the right direction.
• The Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2016

Objectives:

• The state’s legislation targets the pernicious practice of informal caste panchayats or dominant sections using ostracism as a means of enforcing social conformity.
• The practices the law prohibits range from preventing the performance of a social or religious custom, denial of the right to perform funerals or marriages, cutting off someone’s social or commercial ties to preventing access to educational or medical institutions or community halls and public facilities, or any form of social ostracism on any ground.
• The law recognises the human rights dimension to issues of social boycott, as well as the varied forms in which it occurs in a caste-based society.
• Its progressive sweep takes into account discrimination on the basis of morality, social acceptance, political inclination, sexuality, which it prohibits.
• It even makes it an offence to create cultural obstacles by forcing people to wear a particular type of clothing or use a particular language.

The need for the law:

• Prior to the new law, Bombay enacted a law against excommunication in 1949, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1962. But one hopes the latest Act will not be vulnerable to legal challenge.
• Members of various castes and communities require protection from informal village councils and gatherings of elders who draw on their own notions of conformity, community discipline, morality and social mores to issue orders to the village or the community to cut off ties with supposedly offending persons and families.

Conclusion:

• The Act serves as a template for similar legislation in other States.