By
Jyoti Punwani
December
22, 2020
Even as
Hindutva groups rejoice at the most efficient implementation ever seen of any
law in Uttar Pradesh, their joy might just be sullied by an unexpected fallout.
The Hindu women “rescued” by the UP police from their Muslim husbands are
boldly speaking up for Muslims. Even more striking is the way they are publicly
rejecting their parents.
These are
not sophisticated urbanites used to living independent lives. Hailing from
small towns, where their movements must have been monitored closely, they fell
in love — a disgrace for most families — and were courageous enough to take the
next step of eloping.
Be it in
Mumbai or Meerut, such decisions are not easy. Marrying outside one’s faith can
become a matter of life and death, so most youngsters simply drop the idea.
Yet, such marriages are increasing. For the brave couples, living away from
wrathful parents and keeping a low profile is the safest method of survival.
That’s been
made impossible by the way the UP police are swooping down on couples hunted
out by vigilantes. Since the enactment of the UP law criminalising marriages between
Hindu women and Muslim men — both in intent and action, the law is just that —
the police have barged into homes where weddings were taking place; they have
separated couples in registrars’ offices and courts.
Thanks to
the ubiquitous mobile camera, videos of these invasions of privacy have gone
viral. But what’s shone through these painful, violent scenes has been the
courage of the Hindu women. In one video, the woman, held back by cops, pleads
with them not to separate her from her partner. Oblivious of the crowds around,
she declares that she loves him very much, that he’s her life. This could have
been a Hindi film scene — it played out in Aligarh.
In the
shameful Moradabad case, which resulted in the death of the unborn child,
videos showed the Hindu wife angrily telling the Bajrang Dal bullies who
encircled her that she had married of her own will. It requires a special kind
of guts to do that, especially when cops are mere spectators. Later, she
insisted on going to her in-laws’ home, and turned her back on her mother, who
had been brought to the police station by the vigilantes.
In Meerut,
a Hindu woman living with a Muslim told the police to back off: She knew her
partner was Muslim; there was neither conversion nor coercion involved in their
relationship. One Hindu mother was so furious at the way the police interrupted
her daughter’s wedding to a Muslim that she lashed out against such unwarranted
interference to the media.
In other
cases, parents knew that their daughters had eloped, but preferred to stay
quiet for fear of embarrassment. The zeal of the police-backed vigilantes
dragged these Hindu families into the limelight. Forced to file complaints,
their daughters’ actions will now be argued in courts in full media glare.
One wonders
whether the UP CM had anticipated such a fallout on small-town,
lower-middle-class Hindu families. His stated intention to bring in this new
law was to “protect our (Hindu) daughters”. Did he anticipate that these very
“daughters” would so determinedly refuse “protection”?
The manner
of the law’s implementation could also lead to an outcome that goes against
Hindutva’s aims. Those for whom religious identity never meant much will now be
forced to adopt a Muslim identity. The number of Hindu-Muslim unions the UP
police have targeted in the last month shows that despite all the hate
propagated over the last six years, young Hindus and Muslims do not see each
other as enemies. Even more importantly, their willingness to build a life
together indicates that faith is not their primary identity. A woman who can
declare to a hostile mob that as a Hindu, she has chosen to marry a Muslim, is
one confident of her religious identity, not bound by it.
But the new
law does not allow for such fluid identities. Pushed by a ruthless
police-vigilante nexus, Hindu women in inter-faith marriages may have to
discard their Hindu identity. A couple that “looks obviously Muslim” is
unlikely to be harassed; by the same logic, a Muslim ghetto would be the safest
space for them. But such an environment could force the Hindu wife to become
more Muslim than she may want to, and the Muslim husband to conform to
community diktats. Children of mixed marriages are moulded by exposure to
different customs. But UP’s new law could result in their being moulded by just
one faith, and it won’t be Hinduism.
-----
Jyoti
Punwani is a senior journalist
Original
Headline: Anti-conversion law will push women in interfaith marriages to
discard Hindu identity
Source: The Indian Express
URL: URL: h https://www.newageislam.com/current-affairs/jyoti-punwani/love-jihad-laws--those-hindu-women-for-whom-religious-identity-never-meant-much-may-be-forced-to-adopt-a-muslim-identity/d/123842
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