What to Read in Indian Express Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

EDITORIAL 1: Why Arya Samaj marriages are under the scanner of courts

Context

The Allahabad High Court last week directed the Uttar Pradesh government to investigate how fake Arya Samaj Societies that solemnise marriages without verifying the age of the bride and the groom, and in violation of the state’s anti-conversion law, have flourished throughout the State.

What is an Arya Samaj marriage?

• The Arya Samaj was formally established by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1875 as a Hindu revivalist movement. It gained prominence in northern India, especially Punjab(including present-day Pakistan), in the late 19th century.
• Among other things, the Arya Samaj made the very first attempts to convert persons from other faiths or ideologies to its version of Vedic, monotheistic Hinduism through a process it called “shuddhi” (purification).
• One of the ways it facilitated this was by having a progressive view of inter-caste and even interfaith marriages.
• In effect, till the Special Marriage Act, 1954 came into force, the Arya Samaj provided the only way for a Hindu to marry out of caste or religion and to still retain their caste.
• In 1937, the Arya Marriage Validation Act was passedto “remove doubts” and recognise the validity of Arya Samaj marriages.
• These weddings take place as per a specific set of Hindu rituals, but only require the bride and groom to be of marriageable age and declare themselves to be Arya Samajis — regardless of their caste or religion.

Why do eloping couples often prefer Arya Samaj weddings?

• The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — which covers not just Hindus but also Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs — recognises Arya Samaj marriages.
• Those belonging to other religions simply need to convert to Hinduism before the wedding.
• However, several Arya Samaj organisations complete this conversion ritual expeditiously. This means that Arya Samaj weddings are fast, often not taking more than a couple of hours.
• This, along with the ease of paperwork and relaxed requirements, make Arya Samaj weddings popular among eloping or runaway couples, who often belong to different castes or religions.
• Interfaith couples also have the option to marry under the SMA, which allows marriage without the couple having to give up their faith.
• However, under the SMA, couples must give a 30-day public notice before they marry, leaving them vulnerable to harassment from their families or the authorities.

Why have questions been raised on Arya Samaj marriages?

• A petition on whether Arya Samaj marriages must comply with the requirements of the Special Marriage Act has been pending before the Supreme Court since 2022.
• However, since a number of BJP-ruled states have passed stringent anti-conversion laws over the last 10 years, several HCs have raised questions on the validity of Arya Samaj marriages.
• This is because the anti-conversion laws bar alternative legal processes for marriage involving religious conversion.
• The shuddhi performed before most interfaith Arya Samaj marriages does not comply with the onerous process for conversion prescribed in the anti-conversion law.
• Courts have, over the last few years, expressed concern over the mass-scale solemnisation of marriages by Arya Samaj organisations without sticking to lawful conversion practices or verifying marriage eligibility conditions.
• The Allahabad HC and Madhya Pradesh HC have ordered police investigations into instances where these organisations allegedly married minors using forged documents, and facilitated conversions without following procedures mandated by the anti-conversion laws of these states.
• In 2022, the Supreme Court orally observed that the Arya Samaj has “no business” issuing marriage certificates, while the Delhi High Court last year directed an Arya Samaj temple to use verified witnesses to ensure that marriages performed by the temple were genuine.

Way forward

To ensure the legitimacy of Arya Samaj marriages, the government should establish a regulatory framework mandating age verification, proper documentation, and compliance with anti-conversion laws.

 

EDITORIAL 2: Health of India’s economy

Context

On July 30, United States President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on India, as well as an unspecified “penalty” for buying military equipment and energy from Russia.

Rejected the claim

• Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal rejected the claim, saying India had gone from being one of the ‘fragile five’ to the fastest-growing major economy in just over a decade.
• He said India had moved from being the 11th largest economy to among the top five and was expected to become the third largest soon.
• According to him, international bodies and economists saw India as a bright spot in the global economy, contributing about 16% of global growth.
• The government had implemented transformative measures to promote India as a manufacturing hub.
• He said the country’s skilled youth were driving innovation and competitiveness, and exports had been increasing steadily for the last 11 years.

What the data says

• Data from the IMF for a range of countries since 1995 contradict that claim.
• The data revealed that India, China, and Russia were the top three in terms of GDP growth over the past 30 years.
• The US economy had quadrupled, but its close allies like the UK had grown less than three times, and Germany had not even doubled.
• Japan’s GDP in 2025 was lower than in 1995,making it a better example of a “dead” or even “decaying” economy. In contrast, India’s economy had grown nearly 12 times in the same period.
• When comparing growth relative to the US, only China, India, and Russia had increased their share.
• India had risen from being less than 5% the size of the US economy in 1995 to nearly 14% in 2025, while America’s allies had all declined in comparison.

The issues

• Despite overall growth, India had not maintained the rapid pace seen before the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
• Since 2014, growth had averaged around 6%, lower than the 8%-9% seen earlier.
• India’s growth also lagged behind China’s; while India doubled its GDP in 11 years, China had done so in just 4 years from 2004 to 2008.
• In terms of global trade, India’s share remained small — 1.8% of goods exports and 4.5% of services exports.
• One sign of economic weakness was India’s need to protect many sectors in trade. Agriculture faced ongoing distress, with many farmers living at subsistence levels.
• A large share of India’s population remained in agriculture due to the failure to significantly boost manufacturing.
• Despite GDP growth, the quality and distribution of growth were uneven, leading to rising inequality and continued poverty.
• About 24% of the population still lived below the World Bank poverty line. This figure was only slightly better than in 2011-12, when 27% of Indians were considered poor.
• Inequality had increased significantly, and human development indicators like health and education remained poor.
• A mismatch between skills and job opportunities meant that higher education often led to higher unemployment.
• Women’s participation in the workforce was among the lowest globally, and even when rising, the jobs were low-quality and paid poorly.
• Despite this, India had rapidly transformed from being one of the ‘fragile five’ to the fastest growing major economy in the world in just over a decade.
• In the last decade, the government has taken transformative measures to promote India as the manufacturing hub of the world.

Concerns for India

• While India’s overall GDP has grown, its growth rate has lost a step since 2011-12, and failed to replicate the spurt of fast growth — averaging 8%-9% — that was witnessed before the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09. Since 2014, India’s growth rate has hovered around 6%.
• India also has not achieved the pace of growth that China did during its own journey.By comparison, China’s GDP raced from $1.9 trillion to $4.6 trillion in just four years, from 2004 to 2008.
• In terms of trade — India’s share is just 1.8% of total global exports of goods, and just 4.5% of total global exports of services.
• One sign of weakness in the economy is the fact that there are many sectors that India wants to protect when it comes to international trade.
• India’s farm economy is plagued with distress, with the bulk of the farmers living at subsistence levels.
• The reason why the bulk of India’s population is still engaged in the rural and farm sectors is the failure to boost manufacturing.
• Further, despite overall GDP growth, the quality of growth and its distribution is acutely skewed, leading to widening inequalities and persistently high poverty.
• Twenty-four per cent of the population is below the World Bank poverty line for India.
• Data on inequality also show an alarming rise. And on human development metrics such as health and education, the situation is concerning.
• A stark skills mismatch means that unemployment in India rises to very high levels with rising educational attainment. And female participation in the economy is among the lowest in the world — even when it is rising, the quality of work is of the poorest quality with low and stagnant wages.

Conclusion

Despite challenges like inequality, slow manufacturing, and rural distress, India’s economy is far from “dead.” It has grown nearly 12 times since 1995 and is now among the top five globally. While reforms are needed for more inclusive growth, the data clearly contradict claims of economic decline.