Religion Ought To Have No Role in Social Spheres Except the Spiritual Aspects; It Should Be Pronounced Irrelevant In Marital Unions
By
Jagvir Singh
December
30, 2020
I disagree
with The Indian Express’s editorial on the matter of laws on inter-faith
marriages and conversion (‘Strike one’, IE, December 1). The last couple of
months have seen many high courts frowning upon the state’s interference in
interfaith marriages, being matters of personal choices. Alongside, several
BJP-ruled states framed laws to regulate such marriages and any associated
conversions. Are these pieces of legislation legally and logically viable? To
answer this question, the matter must be viewed through two prisms: One,
conversion of a bride before or after marriage; and two, an interfaith marriage
without conversion.
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An
interfaith marriage where the bride converts has three key elements: One, a
girl has to convert because she has to align with the religion and “culture” of
the boy. Does this not reek of male chauvinism and patriarchy, which feminists
across the globe have waged war against? They try to rationalise this by using
disingenuous sophistry, that women have minds of their own and thus, can make
their own decisions. Yes, they can. Women are not being subject to criticism
here. Nor are women in traditional households, who eat only after their
husbands and/or touch their feet and/or are generally obsequious to them,
either out of religious belief, love or devotion. We treat such husbands and
the patriarchy surrounding them as criminal. Doesn’t a man who expects that his
wife should convert to his religion suffer from the same malaise?
Second,
when a man has even a slight expectation of conversion, does it not exhibit his
discomfort, for whatever reasons, to live with a person of another faith? This
is bigotry.
Third,
conversion is predicated upon an abominable notion of the other faith being
inferior and thus, comes from a community-level supremacist attitude. One fails
to understand how the liberals reconcile these facts and do not deem the
practice communal.
I firmly
endorse B R Ambedkar and believe that to dismantle societal divides such as
caste, religion, race and ethnicity, more and more inter-community marriages
must take place and are largely accepted by society. Consequently, should an
interfaith marriage, sans conversion, be welcome? As a principle, yes. However,
is the religion of the bride relevant? Ideally, not at all. The fact of a girl
being from one community in a marriage and the groom being from another should
be coincidental. But it is not. That is what causes the inter-community schism.
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Due to a
clear ban on the marriage of Muslim women to men of other faiths in their
scriptures, and a majority of the community adhering to them and women having
been steeped in the religion since childhood, in interfaith marriages involving
Muslims, the girls mostly come from non-Muslim communities. Girls from
non-Muslim communities are raised in a more liberal milieu, faith consciousness
not being that important for them, especially in non-spiritual matters. Thus,
though marriage is fundamentally an act of individual choice, at the macro and
communities’ levels, marriages involving Muslim men are viewed by other
communities as deliberate attempts to lure and deceive women from other
communities, while restricting their own women from marrying outside the
community. An honest liberal and feminist intellectual shall see this organic
mental restraint on a Muslim girl as being completely devoid of her “agency”.
How are we
to deal with these issues? We need laws regulating conversion. One person
converting another is a political act under the garb of exercising religious
freedom. However, any person’s informed decision to embrace another faith out
of their free will, untainted by extraneous factors, is and should be welcomed
as a fundamental right. Conversely, if the conversion is for other reasons,
including as a precondition for or consequence of marriage, it should be
outlawed. To ensure that this does not happen, a marriage before and after two
years of conversion should be void, irrespective of the original religion of
the convert.
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In today’s
era, religion ought to have no role in social, political and economic spheres
and should relate only to spiritual aspects. It should be pronounced irrelevant
in marital unions. All religious communities should raise their children with a
sense of the irrelevance of religion in dealing and communicating with fellow
citizens, including while choosing life partners. But, if a religious community
deems it impossible to afford its womenfolk the agency to select partners of
their choice, for religious compulsions or otherwise, for the sake of communal
amity, it should forbid its men from forging an alliance with women of other
faiths as well. Honest inter-community dialogue will work wonders.
----
Jagvir
Singh is a senior lawyer based in Delhi
Original
Headline: Outrage on conversion misses the point: No community is entitled to
be close-minded
Source: The Indian Express