Indian Press On Marriage Equality, Jamia Millia Islamia, Gilgit-Baltistan And Inter-Faith Marriage: New Age Islam's Selection, 4 November 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
4 November
2020
•
Marriage Equality Is A Constitutional Right, Do Not Deny It To Queer
People
By Ruth Vanita
• Jamia Millia Islamia Was Born As An Act Of
Repudiation Of The British Raj. Celebrate Its Legacy
By Salman Khurshid
• At Centenary, Jamia Millia Islamia Stands As
A Symbol Of Inclusive, Secular Education
By Arvind Kumar
• Gilgit-Baltistan: Pakistan Plays The Role Of
Supplicant To Chinese Expansion | Analysis
By Shishir Gupta
• Ordinary Indians Are Standing Up For
Inter-Faith Love As It Lives In Our Cultural Memory
By Pradip Kumar Datta
• Allahabad HC Order On Conversions For
Marriage Omits Vital Context
By Shruti Narayan
• Free Speech Is A Basic Right That Empowers
Marginalised Lives
By Rajshree Chandra
• Does Imran Khan’s Gilgit-Baltistan Vow Mean
Pakistan Has Accepted India’s Article 370 Move?
By Jyoti Malhotra
• Uncivil Proposal: On Laws To Curb 'Love
Jihad'
The Hindu Editorial
• Stop Attacking Interfaith Marriages
The Hindustan Times Editorial
-----
Marriage Equality Is A Constitutional Right, Do
Not Deny It To Queer People
By Ruth Vanita
November 4,
2020
In
most countries, the demand for marriage equality has come not from LGBT movement
leaders but ordinary people.
-----
Recently,
three couples (two male, one female) have filed petitions, two in the Delhi
High Court, and one in the Kerala High Court, arguing that the state’s refusal
to recognise their marriages violates their constitutional rights. The first
couple that I know of who tried to register their marriage were Vinoda Adkewar
and Rekha Chaudhary in Maharashtra in 1993. Still earlier, in 1987, Leela
Namdeo and Urmila Srivastava, married by religious rites in Bhopal. Even
earlier, in 1980, Lalithambika and Mallika in Kerala, tried to drown
themselves, with their hands tied together.
In my book,
Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriages in Modern India (2005), I examined hundreds of
cases of such young women (and a few men), almost all from non-English
speaking, lower-income backgrounds, who got married by religious rituals or
committed joint suicide or both. They are from all over India and include
Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Dalits, tribals, fisherwomen, agricultural
workers, students, construction workers. Most of them had never heard words
like “lesbian” or “gay”. Such weddings and suicides continue today. Those who
commit suicide often write notes, asking to be buried or cremated together and
saying that they will be married in the next life.
The
solicitor-general of India was recently quoted as saying that same-sex marriage
is against “Indian values.” The question is: Are these young women and men
Indians or not?
In many
cases, families violently separated the couples, often driving them to suicide.
But several families, after initial disapproval, accepted the partnerships and
celebrated the weddings. In 2001, two nurses, Jaya and Tanuja, got married in
Bihar. At the same Hindu ceremony, Jaya’s sister married a man, and Jaya’s
family participated, along with 200 guests. But the registrar of marriages
refused to register the marriage. In 2006, Bodo tribals of Simlaguri, Assam,
asked MLA candidates to provide legal rights to Thingring and Roinathi, a
daily-wage labourer and a domestic help, who got married in a temple in 1999. Are
these families and communities not Indians?
Male-female
couples whose families disapprove of their relationships also marry by
religious rites and some commit suicide. It is precisely because Indians
disagree about values that the Special Marriage Act exists. It allows couples
whose marriage may be disapproved of for any reason (inter-religion,
inter-caste, different income groups) to obtain the legal rights of marriage.
I have
interviewed Hindu priests and swamis, who performed same-sex weddings (one as
early as 1993). They told me that the spirit (atma) has no gender and marriage
is a union of spirits; and that when people get inexplicably attached despite
social disapproval, this is due to a bond from a former birth. The 11th-century
Sanskrit text, the Kathasaritsagara, provides the same explanation for
cross-class and cross-caste couples who want to marry.
In most
countries, the demand for marriage equality has come not from LGBT movement
leaders but ordinary people. In the US, the first couple who got their marriage
registered were Jack Baker and Michael McConnell in 1971. They have now been
together for 50 years. When lawsuits were filed in the US to obtain marriage
rights, many LGBT movement activists disapproved. The demand came from ordinary
couples.
Most
male-female married couples take for granted that the day after they marry,
they can open a joint account, make health and funeral-related decisions for
each other, and inherit each other’s property. Two women or two men who are
married by religious rites or in a foreign country cannot do these things. When
an Indian man marries a foreign woman, she immediately gets the right to apply
for a PIO card, which allows her to permanently live and work in India. But
when he legally marries a foreign man in another country, say, Taiwan, his
husband remains a legal stranger to him and can only get a tourist visa to stay
a maximum of six months.
India has
finally joined the democracies that have decriminalised same-sex relationships.
It is now time to join the many democracies which recognise the right of a
citizen to marry anyone she chooses. Until this happens, we have a strange
situation where a couple is legally married in, say, England, but when they
come to India, they are single. What should they state about themselves in a
visa form — single or married? If they write “single” they are being forced to
lie.
----
Vanita is a novelist and scholar.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/marriage-rights-india-same-sex-couples-6929246/
----
Jamia Millia Islamia Was Born As An Act Of
Repudiation Of The British Raj. Celebrate Its Legacy
By Salman Khurshid
November 4,
2020
Jamia
Millia Islamia
-----
A century
for Jamia Millia Islamia and somewhere people are discovering that it is not
just another educational institution, certainly more than what the police
action of mid-December 2019 made it appear. While several of its current
students and alumni are in jail, charged with worse than treason, and the Delhi
High Court ploughs through arguments about the sanctity of the university
campus, it is an apt moment to recollect that the university shall forever be a
lasting tribute to freedom fighters. Of course, it is sad that the zeal for
remaining unconquered should today be received as contempt for the current
generation of patriots and their slogans of azaadi. The ruthless assault on
students in the library was not just an act of desperation caused by cynicism
about democracy but also a public repudiation of the legacy and heritage of
Independence.
Lest we
forget, Jamia was born in 1920 as an act of repudiation of the British Raj and
the universities under its mandate. Starting from a mosque in Aligarh, the
small band of dreamers persuaded by Gandhiji, Hakim Ajmal Khan and the Ali
brothers put up at a rented accommodation in Karol Bagh before setting up camp
on the banks of the Yamuna. There was little money, but no lack of
determination. Zakir Husain took leave for completing his PhD and chose Germany
over Britain, where most of the top people were educated. As Jamia struggled
for funds, he sent messages of encouragement, beseeching that Jamia be kept
alive with his promise to return soon. When he did return, he brought some
brilliant young Indians, including Mohd Mujeeb and Abid Husain with him, who
dedicated themselves to Jamia. Along with them came a German Jewish lady who
spent the rest of her life at the fledgling institution, having donated all her
savings to it. When Delhi was burning in the riots of 1947, Mahatma Gandhi
would repeatedly ask, “Is Jamia safe? Is Zakir Husain safe?”
Months
earlier, when Jamia celebrated its silver jubilee on November 17, 1946, Zakir
Husain, the Shaikh-ul-Jamia, addressed an audience that had Jawaharlal Nehru,
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Liaquat Ali Khan and M A Jinnah among others and said:
“You are the stars of the political firmament. This is not the time to ask who
lit the fire. It is time to extinguish the fire. The fire is burning in a noble
and humane land. (But) How can I protect these beautiful buds from the fire all
around? These words might sound too harsh. (But) at the rapidly deteriorating
situation today, harsher words would still be far too mild. We know not how to
express the anguish we feel when we hear that even innocent children are not
safe in the reign of terror. An Indian poet has remarked: ‘Every child who
comes to this world brings along the message that God has not yet lost faith in
Man. But our countrymen have so completely lost faith in themselves that they
wish to crush these innocent buds before they blossom’.”
Jamia won
some outstanding personalities as adherents; men like Devdas Gandhi came and
served it. Gandhiji’s support was the Jamia’s greatest asset, and his first
visit after its transfer to New Delhi was a memorable occasion. With him were
the Ali brothers, Hakim Ajmal Khan, M A Ansari, Jamnalal Bajaj and Mahadev
Desai. Gandhiji sent his grandson Rasiklal to Jamia for his education. The
death of Hakim Ajmal Khan deprived it of a great benefactor and Zakir Husain of
a guide he greatly respected.
This was
the Jamia for which Gandhiji spoke of going with a begging bowl and threatened
to boycott it if, as some people suggested, the word Islamia be dropped from
the name. Many years later, when legislation was being passed in the Parliament
to grant university status to Jamia, Atal Bihari Vajpayee insisted that no
attempts be made to tamper with the character of the institution he described
as rich and unique in its quality.
For many
years after its establishment, Jamia continued to be a close-knit family
referred to as Jamia biradari. Its galaxy of legendary teachers presided over a
unique on-the-ground experiment of Gandhiji’s Bunyadi Taleem. The pupils grew
their own vegetables on campus, had a bank they managed on their own and once a
year sent their teachers on picnic and ran the school by themselves. Both the
junior as well as the senior schools had elections each year to elect the
students’ union; the annual celebrations known as the Taleemi Mela included
displays of exhibits prepared by various departments and some remarkable art
work. There were exhilarating baitbazi poetry contests, debates and evening
theatre. In keeping with the tryst with nature, all hostellers swam in the
Yamuna. The university anthem appropriately describes Jamia as “Dayar-e-shauq”
and “Sheher-e-Arzoo”.
With
dramatic changes all around, Jamia too has understandably changed. For one, the
day scholars dramatically outnumber those in the hostel. The compact biradari
feeling might have been diluted and growing competition may have made the
university population less insular and self-contained, but the feeling of being
a Jamei is still the same. The Turkish writer Halide Edib is reported to have
said that someone visiting India who has not been to Jamia would never know
what India is. In its centenary year, one firmly must continue to believe that
about Jamia, but yet, also say, “Is Jamia safe? Is India that we know safe?”
-----
Salman Khurshid is senior Congress leader and
former external affairs minister
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/jamia-millia-islamia-100-years-education-protests-6930296/
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At Centenary, Jamia Millia Islamia Stands As A
Symbol Of Inclusive, Secular Education
By Arvind Kumar
4 November
2020
“Jamia
means university, and ‘Millia’ refers to its national character. The founders
of the university were supported by Gandhi, who insisted the name should remain
Jamia Millia Islamia and not be changed to National Muslim University. Together
the founders built up Jamia “stone by stone”, said Sarojini Naidu, and
“sacrifice by sacrifice”.
Men such as
Hakim Ajmal Khan hoped to make Hindu children learn something of Islam, and
Muslim children something of Hinduism. They hoped ‘a united Indian nationalism’
would emerge from this knowledge each community would gain of the other, a
nationalism that was meant to be both pragmatic and non-sectarian.”
∼ Githa Hariharan in The Telegraph
when Jamia’s image was being tarnished in the backdrop of the Batla House encounter
in 2008.
Less than a
year ago from now, Jamia Millia Islamia was yet again in turmoil, which began
with a protest against CAA-NRC, followed by spiralled events leading to police
action that left many a student injured. And then began a strenuous and
venomous attempt to malign this historic institution by select electronic
media. So much so, a panelist on one of the television debate aired on February
16, 2020 claimed: “…today’s Jamia Islamia is becoming Aligarh Muslim University
of pre-partition era…” As a co-panelist on the same show, I took a serious
objection to this prejudiced view, but I immediately sensed how logical
arguments most often get lost amidst shouting on such debates.
As Jamia
Millia Islamia completed its centenary on October 29, 2020, it is befitting to
reflect upon the ‘idea of Jamia’; how it carved its own journey from within
Aligarh Muslim University; and how this idea was in sync with the ‘Idea of
India’ – multicultural, secular and inclusive.
On October
12, 1920, Mahatma Gandhi while addressing a group of students assembled at the
Siddons Union Club at Aligarh Muslim University had asked: “How can you remain
even for an hour in an institution in which you are obliged to put up with the
Union Jack and profess your loyalty to a governor or other high ranking
officials when in fact you are not loyal?”
Gandhi’s
call for a complete boycott of the institutions of learning which were funded
and administered by the British colonial masters provided serious food for
thought amongst some young revolutionaries and the university campus soon
started getting divided between two opposing camps, one being the proponents of
status quo wanting to serve the colonialism and other ready to leave AMU
towards a sacrifice for the cause of the motherland.
It was at
this very juncture that the ‘idea of Jamia’ was born with a call for ‘national
education in a national institution’. The concept of Nai-Talim, a skill-based
education and preference for Hindustani as a medium of instruction further
enriched this idea.
With its
humble beginning at Aligarh, Jamia Millia Islamia had to immediately shun the
eclipse of an already established Aligarh Muslim University, and hence it moved
to Delhi in 1925. With an unambiguous vision as expounded by one of its
founder, Mohammad Ali ‘Johar’:
“Jamia’s
objective is that Muslim should (not) follow blindly the previous fixed
path…the Jamia instilled hatred in the heart of every student be he a Muslim or
a Hindu – against subjugation by foreign powers. It has kept its air free of
transgression and prejudice. For these reasons the Jamia is both Jamia Millia
Islamia and a national university.”
But what
Jamia eventually went on to become has been best explained by Martha C.
Nussbaum. For her, “Jamia was born radical; its curriculum emphasised study of
nationalism as well as Islamic history; its admission policy welcomed male,
female, Hindu, Muslim; its pedagogy emphasised debate and contestation in the
teaching of all subjects, including religion denouncing the mere passive
awareness of dead facts.”
For long years
since its inception, even the degrees offered by Jamia were not recognised, not
to mention how financial afflictions continued. It was only in 1962 that JMI
was bestowed upon with a tag of ‘deemed to be university’. Finally in 1988, by
an act of the Indian parliament, Jamia became a central university.
Interestingly
enough, despite the word ‘Islamia’ in its very name, Jamia Millia Islamia was
never a Muslim university; not even a minority institution until 2011 when
National Commission for Minority Educational institutions declared Jamia a
minority university. But Jamia Millia Islamia continues to hold the central
university status.
There is no
denying the fact that the very demographic location of today’s Jamia Millia
Islamia is surrounded by substantive Muslim populace, but as Sachar Committee
report had rightly observed that the social and educational backwardness of the
Muslim community in India is no better than the status of the scheduled castes
and thus Jamia comes as a blessing in disguise for the community too.
A
university, in any case, is supposedly meant to serve as an intellectual
lamp-post for the community and Jamia Millia Islamia as a dual-mode university
with a national jurisdiction has appropriately been doing so, not just in Delhi
but across the country with its Learner Support Centres for its Open and
Distance Learning Programme.
In its
centenary year, as Jamia Millia Islamia has achieved unprecedented heights, it
is worth quoting Mushirul Hasan and Rakshanda Jalil from their aptly titled
book, Partners in Freedom: Jamia Millia Islamia, “…it is a university with a
singular difference. It has the past that sets it apart from other educational
institutions. It has a character and identity that is uniquely its own. More
importantly, it has a legacy, a rich inheritance that few educational
institutions can lay claim to.”
-----
Dr Arvind Kumar teaches at the Centre for the
Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, and has served as honorary
joint director, Centre for Distance and Open Learning, Jamia Millia Islamia.
https://thewire.in/education/jamia-millia-islamia-100-years
------
Gilgit-Baltistan: Pakistan Plays The Role Of
Supplicant To Chinese Expansion | Analysis
By Shishir Gupta
Nov 03,
2020
Pakistan
prime minister Imran Khan was most worried about Chinese reaction when India
announced abrogation of Article 370, which altered Jammu and Kashmir’s status
in August last year. After all, Pakistan had lured China into its fold under
the pretext of showing Jammu and Kashmir as part of its territory.
Speaking to
think tanks in Germany, Shringla said the world was increasingly witnessing
debt-trap diplomacy
He also
said that countries should be cautious about terms of engagement
Pakistan
does not have territorial contiguity with China; it is only through the
Occupied Kashmir and Northern Areas, precisely through the territories of
Gilgit-Baltistan that Pakistan has been able to link with China. Earlier,
Chinese interest in the area was limited to Shakshgam Valley as it wanted
continuous connectivity through the area to its Xinjiang region. Pakistan was
only too happy to comply with the Chinese request and handed it over 5180 sq km
of its territory in 1963.
This was
the first reality check of the so-called ‘love and affection’ of Pakistan for
the people of Jammu and Kashmir it has continued to project for decades now.
Right from
the beginning, Pakistan tried to project Northern Areas, as they were then
called, in different light. It abrogated many of the privileges associated with
erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in the region, including abolition of
state subject law in 1974, and making the home of Shias into a Sunni majority
area. The people of G-B still do not have even the most basic rights and
privileges. They cannot elect their leaders freely as all the leaders are first
screened and allowed to contest only after they swore allegiance to Pakistan.
Pakistan
got China to construct Karakoram highway in order to have a backup plan for the
region. The ecologically fragile region witnessed the folly of human
intervention when in 2010 in Hunza, a landslide killed 20 people and blocked
the flow of River Hunza. The resultant flooding displaced more than 6,000
people and inundated about 20 km of the Karakoram highway.
Undeterred
by the tragedy, Pakistan again approached China for the construction of a
realigned road. China, by this time flush with funds and carrying the
impression of an emerging power, had realised the potential of the route which
could have provided it alternate access to the Arabian Sea and through that to
the Middle East and other countries.
This would
have not only provided it an alternate trade route, but also acted as a backup
plan should its access through the Malacca Strait is choked in any eventuality.
China realised the value in having a friendship with Pakistan, which in any
case would never be in a position to oppose Beijing’s desires and decisions.
The Chinese thus sold them the idea of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Pakistan, misgoverned right from the inception, did not have the capacity to
evaluate the pros and cons of the Chinese intentions. In any case, it did not
have an alternative development plan to show to the people and therefore lapped
the offer. However, Chinese were adamant that the legality of the area through
which the corridor would pass should not come into the question.
China
realised the precarious legal position Pakistan has over these territories when
international lending agencies backtracked from financing the Diamer Bhasha Dam
project, located in Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Diamer in
Gilgit-Baltistan, based on Indian opposition. The project for which the
foundation stone was laid in 1998, has suffered innumerable delays on account
of the untenable legal position of Pakistan in the territory. However, China
under Xi Jinping decided to come to the rescue of Pakistan and the Imran Khan
government entered into an agreement with China Power in May, 2020.
It is
interesting to note that not so long ago, in 2017, Pakistan had dropped the
idea of getting the project financed under CPEC framework as China had placed
strict conditions including the ownership of the project. Going by experience,
China has always thought of undertaking construction projects in other
countries as those fulfilling its own interests, as the investment potential of
these are neither evaluated nor realised. It is not difficult to imagine what
conditions China would have imposed to an even more desperate Pakistan in 2020
while agreeing on Daimer Bhasha Dam.
China has
other interests in the Gilgit-Baltistan region as well - the projects financed
and undertaken by it include Sust Dry Port, upgradation of Karakoram Highway
(KKH), 820 km OFC project connecting Khunjerab to Rawalpindi and Jaglot-Skardu
road. All these projects can be seen to be actually catering to the Chinese
interests, a fact gradually sinking into the minds of an average Pakistani, who
does not see any opportunity coming his way. The Chinese banks finance the
projects undertaken by their companies involving their engineers and machinery
and even labour. The markets in Pakistan are flush with Chinese goods and the
Chinese people never deny an opportunity to snub a local in Pakistan.
Shops selling
pork have become the mainstay in the majority of Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s
towns to cater to the Chinese demands. There is so much mistrust between the
Pakistanis and Chinese community that in a recent advertisement for renting out
an upscale house in Islamabad, the owner specially mentioned that the offer was
not for the Chinese.
It was in
this background that when India decided to abrogate Article 370, the Chinese
sensed threat to their strategic as well as investment plan and put pressure on
Pakistan to find a way out. Imran Khan visited Gilgit-Baltistan on the so
called 73rd Independence Day of the region on November 1 to announce provincial
status for the state. Interestingly, Khan visited the region last year also on
the same occasion when, going out of sync, he announced that Gilgit-Baltistan
has always been the bridge between Pakistan and China. It is worth mentioning
here that previously at no point of time in its entire history, the day had
been celebrated with Pakistan PM’s visit to the region.
People of
Gilgit-Baltistan are apprehensive not only about Pakistan’s intention but
China’s too. Some of the pro-independence parties, including JKLF, have opposed
Pak government decision to grant provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan. So
called PM of Azad Kashmir, Farooq Haider Khan, along with local units of the
mainstream parties of Pakistan have also opposed the move, fearing it may be
overtaken by the Chinese.
The Emir of
Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir, Khalid Mahmood, rejected Khan’s announcement of giving
provisional provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan, saying this is direct
interference in the region’s elections. He added that it weakened Pakistan’s
stand internationally and is a violation of United Nations resolutions. His
fellow party leader and convener of the All Parties Kashmir Coordination
Council, Abdur Rashid Turabi, said that before making Gilgit-Baltistan a
province broad based consultations must be held.
People of
the area have already been expressing their resentment against Chinese projects.
Residents of Chilas organised a protest (September 18) against non-payment of
compensation for the land acquired for the construction of the Diamer Bhasha
Dam. Earlier, under the banner of Graduate Alliance and Geologists Association
Diamer, the residents had staged a protest (on September 9 and 11) asserting
their claim on the jobs and opposing inadequate employment of the local youth.
People have
also been vehemently opposing Islamabad’s decision to lease pasture land to
Chinese companies for mining.
Mirza
Hussain, a member of the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly, had alleged in
2019 that 300 mining leases were awarded to Chinese companies without
consulting people. Pakistan, at the behest of China, introduced web-based
customs duty at Sust Port in 2018. Despite protests by the local traders that
this will lead to loss of jobs for the local population and threat to boycott
the trade, Pakistan did not relent. It is interesting to note that when a
number of girl’s schools were burnt in Tanger and Darel region in
Gilgit-Baltistan in 2018, Pakistan had shown complete apathy for the people of
the region. Lt Gen Nadeem Raza, Commander of the 10th Corps, while addressing a
public gathering at Chilas, completely ignored the importance of the education
of girls, and instead chose to caution that such incidents negatively impact
the implementation of CPEC.
In
Pakistan, it is well known that the establishment calls the shots. It is for
this reason that the Chinese, instead of relying on the political leaders,
wanted that the Army should be spearheading the CPEC. It pressurised the
Pakistan government to establish CPEC Authority and appoint an army officer as
its head. Accordingly, Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa was appointed as the Chairman
of the authority in 2019. It is also interesting to note that despite the
plethora of allegations regarding corruption by him, the Pakistan government
has not been able to take any action against him. Moreover, there is also a
proposal to exempt the CPEC from the purview of the National Accountability
Bureau.
The present
political structure of Gilgit-Baltistan suits Pakistan to undertake such
decisions about it. With no political representation and no opposition, it is
free to do whatever it wants with the territory. It is this relationship that
permits Pakistan to play the role of a client state to the Chinese, a job it
has always been willing to undertake.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/gilgit-baltistan-pakistan-plays-the-role-of-supplicant-to-chinese-expansion-analysis/story-8f0r5UPmP7E8R7EsXrpojO.html
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Ordinary Indians Are Standing Up For
Inter-Faith Love As It Lives In Our Cultural Memory
By Pradip Kumar Datta
November 4,
2020
The
intriguing thing about the Tanishq ad controversy is not that there was an
outcry by self-appointed Hindu censors and immediate self-censorship by the
Tatas. This was only to be expected in today’s condition of social intolerance
enforced by powerful vigilantes of community “sentiment”. The state governments
of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, for instance, are considering a law against “love
jihad”. This is not a new campaign. Over a decade of media activism and random
vigilantism by “anti-Romeo” squads have tried to compel a consensus on the
illegitimacy of inter-community love.
Given the
velocity of this campaign, what has surprised many is the positive advocacy of
inter-community relationships. The withdrawal of the Tanishq ad led to an
astonishing blowback. Besides intense social media criticism, inter-faith
couples appeared on television, courageously disclosing their identities,
risking the possibility of social coercion, if not worse. All this for just a
43-second-long idealised representation of the wealthy life. Is there something
in the romance of inter-community love that is so much a part of our culture
that ordinary folk would stand up for it, risking reputation and limb?
Stories of
transgressive love or parakiya prem have been popular in both the Vaishnav and
the Sufi traditions. But there was something new in the 19th century. Lovers no
longer doubled up as divine figures. Stories of love provided the heart of
early novels, which featured people recognisably of this world. More
significantly, in its founding moment, novels featured inter-community love.
The most important one is Bankim Chatterjee’s Durgeshnandini (1865). While
Bankim went on to write novels that could be interpreted as forerunners of
Hindu nationalism, Durgeshnandini is different. Here, Ayesha, the daughter of
Katlu Khan, the Pathan king of Orissa, falls in love with Jagat Singh, the son
of her father’s enemy, Man Singh. The key moment is when Ayesha addresses Jagat
as praneswar, the lord of her life, making it clear that she values personal
choice over the demands of her community, family and the expectations of proper
womanly behaviour. This scene lives on as an iconic cultural memory.
The danger
of personal choice was quickly grasped by conservative critics. They criticised
such love as “western” and even proclaimed the virtues of child marriage that
would make the wife devoted to her husband and family. But more was involved
than personal choice. Jyotirindranath Tagore’s play, Asrumati, features a stock
Hindu nationalist situation: The fall of Chittor. Asrumati, the princess of
Chittor, is abducted by Mughal forces. The outcome of this situation, however,
is startling. Prince Selim, the son of Akbar, falls in love with Asrumati and,
more astonishingly, Asrumati falls in love with him and repeatedly declares her
love. The affair ends tragically but not before Asrumati raises an important
question. How could she look at Selim as enemy when he had not behaved like
one, she asks her father.
Asrumati
was written four years after Sarojini, a play that features an iconic scene of
johar following Alauddin Khilji’s conquest of Chittor. Both plays were written
in the 1870s, in a period of early nationalism. Sarojini places its action in a
Hindu-Muslim framework that foretells the onset of Hindu nationalism. More
interesting is Asrumati’s reversal of a stereotypical communal plot of an
abducted Hindu heroine. Clearly, the early imagination of nationalism could
insist on religious nationalism as well as imagine alternatives to it.
Jyotirindranath himself was associated with the Hindu Mela, an early
nationalist initiative, and even founded a secret nationalist society. But he
also warned against excessive nationalism that could produce hatred for others.
A number of
inter-community romances proceeded to explore the nature of identity itself.
Should identity be confined and restricted by one’s religious community? Two
stories open up new possibilities in the conflicted 20th century. The first is
Rabindranath Tagore’s Mussalmani Galpa published a year after the Pakistan
resolution (1940). Here, Kamala, a Brahmin girl, is spurned as polluted by her
family for having been abducted. She converts to Islam after falling in love
with a Muslim. But she goes on to rescue her abducted uncle and cousin,
restoring them to their Hindu society. The other romance is Pratibha Basu’s
Samudrahriday (1959). It features the Dacca Nawab and Sulekha, the daughter of
a respectable Hindu lawyer — childhood sweethearts driven apart by communal
hatred to the point that they wish to kill one another. Yet, confronted by the
Partition riots, the Nawab accompanies Sulekha to Calcutta to protect her from
Muslim mobs. In Calcutta, Sulekha wishes to return to Dacca but is prevented by
Hindu rioters who drag away the Nawab.
Both
stories are about dual selves. The duality within each character endures even
in situations of extreme communal polarisation. This duality produces doubled
relationships. Kamala becomes a Muslim but restores her cousin to her Hindu
family, asking her to remember her Muslim sister if she ever needed anything.
The Nawab and Sulekha in Samudrahriday regain their intimacy because of the
duality that survives their own hatred. Instead of a single religious identity,
these stories open out the possibility of having conjoined identities that
allows individuals to be both related to and different from others. These
individuals become bridges between separate communities and families to mark —
and risk — the possibility of conjoined social identities.
Stories of
inter-community love have not had an easy career. Hindu nationalists attacked
Asrumati for sullying the Maharana’s reputation. The Hindi translation of the
play had to be withdrawn. Yet Hindu nationalist censorship could not abort
these stories. Instead, the representation of inter-community love not only
remained but developed — from asserting personal choice to thinking about
alternative identities for a country that looked for freedom but was torn by
the violent obsession with community boundaries. The story of the Tanishq ad
is, then, not a simple one of suppression and violence. It also excavates
layers of an equally powerful tradition. That is, of imagining a country that
would be free to dare, experiment, conjoin and link up the identities of its
citizens.
-----
Pradip Kumar Datta is a former professor of
political thought at JNU
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/tanishq-ad-controversy-inter-faith-love-inter-caste-mariage-6930295/
-----
Allahabad HC Order On Conversions For Marriage
Omits Vital Context
By Shruti Narayan
02 Nov 2020
“The
Allahabad High Court said that religious conversion isn’t necessary for
marriage. The government will also work to curb ‘Love Jihad’, we’ll enact a
strict law. I warn those who conceal their identity and play with the honour of
our sisters and daughters, if you don’t mend your ways, your ‘Ram naam satya’
journey will begin.”
Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday, 31 October
With this
statement, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister drew further attention to a
controversial order passed by the Allahabad High Court on 23 September, which
has been reported widely due to its observation that voluntary conversion of
religion by an adult for the purpose of marriage, is not valid.
The order
was passed on a petition filed by a couple seeking to restrain the State, and
other unspecified parties, from deploying “coercive measures” to prevent them
from enjoying a peaceful married life.
The couple
in question, contrary to what the chief minister implied with his reference to
‘love jihad’, are a Hindu man and a woman who was formerly a Muslim, but
converted to the Hindu faith about a month prior to the marriage.
Over and
above this flawed reference, upon going through the order there is an even
bigger question to ask: is this decision of the high court really in accordance
with the law?
The High
Court passed a two-page order dismissing the petition, apparently on the basis
that the conversion by the woman had taken place only for the purpose of
marriage.
The Single
Judge has relied on an earlier judgment of the Allahabad High Court itself, titled
Smt. Noor Jahan Begum @ Anjali Mishra v. State of U.P. & Ors. dated 16th
December 2014. There the Court was deciding the pleas of five couples seeking
police protection.
In each of
the couples involved in that case, the woman had converted to the man’s
religion prior to the marriage and, in at least one instance, the couple was
being harassed by the local police.
The couples
in Smt. Noor Jahan Begum were only seeking protection from harassment – which
is unrelated to the validity of a marriage per se – but the high court embarked
on a wide-ranging discussion on the validity of the conversions, and the
subsequent marriages, under Islam, although the matter could have been decided
without it. In this context, the Court concluded that the conversions by the
women in each case could not be termed “bona fide” or “valid”.
The 2014
judgment does not deal with the potential legal consequences of such a finding,
except to decline to grant protection from harassment.
Such an
observation, as in the more recent case at the high court, could have
far-ranging consequences for the persons in question. What is to be noted, in
particular, is that the women’s consent to the marriage or conversion was not
doubted in any of these cases – Noor Jahan Begum or the present one.
Misapplication
of Supreme Court Precedent?
The high
court also relied on a judgment by the Supreme Court in Lily Thomas v. Union of
India from 2000, to say that the Supreme Court had apparently observed that
“conversion of religion of a non-Muslim without any real change in belief in
Islam and only for marriage is void”.
However,
this is a curious application of the law in Lily Thomas.
There, the
issue before the Supreme Court was related specifically to conversion to Islam
for the purpose of a second marriage. The Court clearly framed the issue as
“where a non-Muslim male gets converted to Islam without any real change of
belief and merely with a view to avoid an earlier marriage and enter into a
second marriage” (emphasis added). According to the court, in such situations,
the second marriage would then be void under the rules of Hindu and Islamic
personal law.
The facts
there were that a Hindu man, who was already married to a Hindu woman, had
converted to Islam in order to marry a second woman without having to first
obtain a divorce from his wife. (He nonetheless appears to have sought a
divorce from the first wife and did not intend to live with two wives.)
It is
important to note that the second wife in this case was also a Hindu woman.
Evidently, the man’s conversion to Islam was purely an act of convenience to
bypass his obligations to his first wife under Hindu law.
This is
clearly not the same as a religious conversion by an unmarried person to the
religion of their chosen spouse-to-be.
The Supreme
Court’s consideration of whether the person converting their religion undergoes
a “real change of belief” cannot be read separately from the problem of the
second marriage.
The
judgment specifically noted that the erring husband in that case appeared to have
converted in order to “get rid of his first wife”, and “escape the clutches” of
his obligations under Hindu law. The judgment does not say that conversion for
the purpose of marriage is invalid in general or in any other case.
An Order
Ripe for Political Misuse
The couple
before the Allahabad High Court in September were not noted as having any
subsisting marriages. The order is silent as to any other reasons why the
couple should not be granted protection from coercive interference by the State
or other persons.
It also
does not record whether the couple has already faced harassment or
intimidation, which is not uncommon with inter-faith marriages. There may well
have been other reasons why the couple was not entitled to the relief they
sought, but the Court was not required to apply the judgment in Smt. Noor Jahan
Begum.
It is
unfortunate that, given the known barriers to marriage under the Special
Marriage Act, 1954 and the prevailing conservative attitudes towards live-in
relationships in Indian society, conversion for the purpose of marriage is
presumed to be suspicious or not genuine, to the detriment of adult citizens’
fundamental rights to freedom of conscience and religion (Article 25 of the
Constitution) as well as their fundamental rights to privacy and liberty
(Article 21).
It is also
unfortunate that such observations, particularly as they have been made devoid
of context, can be used by political actors interested in furthering unrelated
agendas.
The UP
Chief Minister’s statement, for instance, threatens violence to inter-faith
couples where one member chooses to convert to the faith of the other for their
own personal reasons by presuming that such an act is somehow derogatory or
non-consensual. Hopefully these threats will remain dormant for the sake of the
couples who remain, unfortunately, unprotected by the Allahabad High Court.
----
Shruti Narayan is an advocate practicing in
Delhi. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own.
The New Age Islam neither endorses nor is responsible for them.
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/allahabad-hc-religious-conversion-for-marriage-protection-of-couples-wrong-application-of-sc-lily-thomas-judgment
------
Free Speech Is A Basic Right That Empowers
Marginalised Lives
By Rajshree Chandra
November 4,
2020
The
horrific beheading of the French teacher, Samuel Paty, has once again laid bare
the fault lines of free speech. Tabish Khair’s piece (‘Lost in Paris’, IE,
October 30) represents one such crack. Khair’s piece is a crying appeal against
those who kill in the name of their gods and ideas, to not kill. Do not kill or
afflict injury to bodies that bear contrarian ideas, he seems to be saying. And
he is right — how can he not be?
I also
agree with Khair that there is a need to respect people’s religion and not be
provocative in the aftermath of the gruesome killing — as the French government
as been in asking school teachers to show cartoons in class, or by projecting
the cartoons on buildings. I hear him when he says that a competitive exercise
of offensive speech may cost lives.
But Khair
also seems to be saying something else, albeit in a veiled and guarded manner.
He gives the example of the “dedicated French teacher who showed the cartoons
to his students in good faith” in the exercise of his free speech. He also
gives the example of the “some custodians of [Islamic] religious symbols in
France who get outraged” and “post intemperate things on social media”, also in
exercise of their free speech. Between the freedom of expression of the French
teacher, and the freedom of outraged protestors against it, stands the figure
of, as Khair euphemistically calls, an “angry confused man” who is “provoked”
into beheading the teacher. To Khair, it does not matter whether ideas are good
or bad. What matters is that in the conflict between the two ideas of free
speech and sanctity of religio-cultural symbols lives were either lost or made
to suffer.
It is here
that Khair’s perspective becomes conservative in its implications. First, the
fact that a barbaric, crazy man can either get offended or inspired by either
of the conflicting ideas cannot be a “free-speecher’s” burden. There are many
volatile ideas out there. Should any protest or campaign be mindful of a
potential violent twist that may be given to their ideas? Should a causal link
between the expression of “offensive ideas” and sufferance of bodies allow
violent zealots to hold the right to ransom?
Second,
unlike what Khair suggests, ideas have no real, independent existence outside
of the bodies in which they inhere. Ideas survive only because the bodies in
which house themselves do so. Had ideas lived autonomously, independent of the
bodies and minds that carry them, ideas would not die. They’d be immortal and
live on endlessly outside of their historical times, sociological habitats and
changing minds. We would continue to believe that the earth is flat or in the
practice of slavery or the absence of voting rights for women. But we don’t.
And the reason is that some ideas die or weaken over time. They become
anomalous and discredited either because they are disputed scientifically or because
they are contested vigorously and passionately till an anachronistic idea is
defeated.
Third, in
the conflicting terrain of ideas, lies the kernel of social change. If ideas
are not “good or bad” as Khair seems to be saying, how else do we discredit the
Brahminical divine origin theory that professes that the Shudra is born from
the Divine Being’s feet and, therefore, is the lowliest creature on earth? How
else, except through a conflict of ideas, do women contest patriarchy and push
back on received gendered ideas of womanhood? How else has the idea of
“environmentalism” or indigenous communities’ rights become such a dominant
concern of our times?
Agency to
speech may often be a matter of one man’s good versus another man’s good, or
one man’s relative truth over another’s. It may be a matter of one cultural
value-system (the French and their free-speech principle) versus another
religio-cultural sensibility (the sacredness of the Prophet). Till this point,
both speech-acts (or ideas) have equivalence and each person must have the
right to speak freely. But once you kill or inflict bodily harm in the name of
an idea, the onus and responsibility of it is not on the people professing or
countering an idea. So that we don’t offend a loony guy who picks up a gun and
shoots, or so that we don’t inspire a crazy man to behead someone in the name
of ideas, must we dispense with expressing the idea itself? It is borderline
dangerous to make such a suggestion, no matter how obliquely.
Freedom of
speech and expression may have been an Enlightenment, coloniser’s project and
may actually continue to be so, sanctioning Islamophobia, racism and ideas of
cultural superiority. But to belabour the point outside of its context is to
miss two points. First, as Lebanese-Australian academic Ghassan Hage summed up
in his Facebook post: Truth also needs to have its ethics. You may be truthful,
but unethical. The beheading of Paty requires us to dwell on not just any
killing but the bone-chilling barbarism behind it. To dwell instead on the
genealogies and causes of violent behaviour is bad ethics, for it ends up being
nothing more than an apologia for violence.
Second,
it’s bad politics. The right to free speech empowers and enables many
marginalised lives. It is a mistake to see it as an elite indulgence. It is a
basic right that preconditions the realisation of other rights. So basic that
it enables the weak and the oppressed to rise against their oppressors. It
enables culturally disparate communities, including Muslims, to embody and
carry with pride their cultural differences. In any case, free speech is
restrained by the state through its many criteria of “reasonableness”. To
further circumscribe it by burdening it with plausible violent appropriations,
or with historical conditionalities, is to feed the logic of violence against
freedom of expression.
----
Rajshree Chandra teaches political science at
Janki Devi Memorial College, Delhi University
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/france-teacher-beheaded-freedom-of-speech-hate-crime-6930297/
------
Does Imran Khan’s Gilgit-Baltistan Vow Mean
Pakistan Has Accepted India’s Article 370 Move?
By Jyoti Malhotra
3 November,
2020
Donald
Trump or Joe Biden? All eyes are on one of the most momentous event of our
times over there in America. But back here in South Asia, Pakistan Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s promise Sunday that Gilgit-Baltistan will provisionally
become Pakistan’s fifth province is so crucial that it bears some explanation –
especially since it has led to stern criticism by India, which maintains that
the move amounts to changing the character of the “undivided state of Jammu
& Kashmir”, all of which belongs to India.
So what
does Imran Khan’s announcement mean? Is this a reaction to Narendra Modi’s move
to revoke Article 370 last year and integrate J&K into India? Has the
Pakistan PM finally abandoned Pakistan’s long-held position of Jammu &
Kashmir being “disputed territory”?
Let me
explain.
Why
Gilgit-Baltistan matters
Imran
Khan’s decision is really a defensive move on the Great Game chessboard that
began in 1877 when the British persuaded the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir to
establish the Gilgit Agency and nominated a Political Agent to watch over and
prevent the expanding ambitions of the Russian empire from reaching the warm
waters of the Arabian Sea.
That chess
game seems to have reached all the way into August 2019 when the Modi
government decided to revoke Article 370, which gave special status to the
former state, converting it into two Union Territories, thereby enabling their
direct rule from New Delhi.
So here is
the Pakistani argument: If Delhi can rip apart the fig-leaf and unilaterally
bring J&K and Ladakh under its rule, why can’t Pakistan do the same with
Gilgit-Baltistan?
Moreover,
there’s China, whose $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) enters
Pakistan at Gilgit-Baltistan, and traverses the country southwards until it
reaches Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea. For years, the Chinese have been
pushing Pakistan to give Gilgit-Baltistan legal status so as to protect this
all-important corridor, which is a key link in President Xi Jinping’s most
important instrument of international influence, the Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI).
Certainly,
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
whose manifestos have always loudly proclaimed the end of Articles 370 and 35A,
never fully thought through the international implications of the move. Or if
New Delhi’s foreign policy establishment warned the politicians, it clearly
seems as if no one really listened.
But in this
part of the world, geography trumps politics.
Geography
over politics
This is
Silk Road country, where trade caravans reached goods and people over centuries
into nation-states with malleable frontiers, enriching all their economies. The
Uyghurs of Xinjiang, the Sunni Muslims of Leh and south Kashmir, the Shias of
Kargil and Skardu and Gilgit, and the Ismailis and Noorbakshis of
Gilgit-Baltistan lived and died under the shifting empires of China, Tibet and
the Dogra Maharaja.
In
Gilgit-Baltistan, there are Kashmiri Muslims and Punjabi Kashmiri Muslims – as
well as Shins, Kashgaris, Yashkuns, Pamiris, Pathans, and Kohistanis – with
their distinct languages and traditions. Then, in the 1980s, Zia-ul Haq
promulgated an order to allow people from elsewhere in Pakistan to settle in
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan, thereby changing the
demography of the region – much like the Modi government is doing today by
changing J&K’s land laws.
A quick
glance at a map of the region will display Gilgit-Baltistan’s incredible
potential and geostrategic importance. No wonder this was the heart of the
Great Game a hundred years ago.
In West
Gilgit-Baltistan – part of the undivided J&K state until 1947 — lies the
tongue of Afghan territory, the Wakhan Corridor. Northwards are the five
‘stans’ of Central Asia – five Muslim states Russified by the Soviet Union and
still trying to discover themselves since that disintegration in late 1991.
While north by north-east, nestling close to China’s Xinjiang, lie the jumble
of mountain ranges with names that smell of thunder and other celestial beings.
Kara-ko-rum. Al-tai. Tian-shan.
Crossroads
of empire
Imagine the
scene in 1947. No wonder Hari Singh, the Hindu maharaja of Kashmir, dithered
and sought a Standstill Agreement between the warring parties, India and
Pakistan. Why would anyone want to give up this enormous kingdom where everyone
had lived comfortably – sort of – until now?
But when
the Qabalis, or so-called tribal militias – some say, Pakistan army irregulars
in tribal clothing – crossed into J&K on 22 October 1947, Hari Singh threw
in his lot with India and signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October. One
week later, on 1 November, the Gilgit Scouts under their British commander
mutinied against the Maharaja and declared a separate provincial government –
Imran Khan commemorated the territory’s 73rd “independence day” while speaking
in Gilgit Sunday. On 1 January 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru’s India took the Kashmir
dispute to the United Nations (UN). By mid-1948, Indian Army troops had pushed
back the Pakistan Army and taken back large parts of Kashmir.
Hari
Singh’s kingdom was broken up, to be administered in different ways: India gave
J&K and Ladakh special status under Article 370, Pakistan gave
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, or Azad Kashmir as it is called in Pakistan, its own
prime minister, president and unicameral legislature.
Gilgit-Baltistan
was given some sort of nominally independent status but neither formally
merged, nor given a legislature – it was directly ruled from
Rawalpindi/Islamabad. It sat at the crossroads of empire. It was too important
to be left fully alone.
Moreover,
Pakistan feared, as did PoK’s leaders, that its case at the UN for
self-determination of the “disputed territory” of J&K would get diluted if
there was any hint of either PoK or Gilgit-Baltistan’s formal merger with
Pakistan.
All this
changed dramatically on 5 August 2019.
China’s
move
The Modi
government’s decision to revoke Article 370 for domestic political reasons has
led to a slow earthquake — the new contours of this region, still not fully understood,
are emerging only now.
First, if
Modi could, in one stroke, go beyond the UN resolution and integrate its own
part of J&K, then why couldn’t Pakistan do the same with Gilgit-Baltistan?
Significantly,
Pakistan Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa met all the key opposition parties
in September to explain what was coming – certainly, in Pakistan, nothing can
be done without it being masterminded by the Army.
Second,
China, as we have seen, has been pushing the Pakistanis to give
Gilgit-Baltistan some sort of legal status so as to protect CPEC which runs
across it. According to the widely respected American journalist Selig
Harrison, the Chinese have military personnel stationed in Gilgit-Baltistan for
some years now.
Third,
China put out in June that India unilaterally changed the status quo by
revoking Article 370, thereby posing a “challenge to the sovereignty of China
and Pakistan and made India-Pakistan relations and China-India relations more
complex.”
Certainly,
China knows better than to aggress into someone else’s territory; moreover,
China could have asked India — and been explained — the meaning of the 5 August
move if it was really so worried.
The Chinese
took the easy way out. It read, in the legalistic change of the status of Jammu
& Kashmir, the message that New Delhi could take stronger action in
neighbouring Aksai Chin, because it controlled it directly, instead of via
Srinagar. Except, of course, it is China which has controlled Aksai Chin since
1963 and has built several key highways through it connecting to Tibet.
‘Map-making
must come to an end’
There is
another message in Imran Khan’s move that has got little attention so far – by
formally recognising Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan is also slowly abandoning its
long-held position of Kashmir as ‘disputed territory’.
Imran Khan,
via the Army, is acknowledging that Modi’s move to integrate Jammu, Kashmir
Valley and Ladakh into India is not going to be undone. Therefore, Pakistan has
no option but to keep the part of Kashmir that it has controlled since 1947 –
PoK and Gilgit Baltistan.
Modi’s
move, in fact, is an assertion of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former
external affairs minister Jaswant Singh’s much-quoted line in the wake of the
Kargil conflict: Map-making in the subcontinent must come to an end.
Vajpayee
and Jaswant Singh reiterated that message to Pervez Musharraf in Agra in 2001
and afterward, again and again – but Pakistan didn’t listen. Almost 20 years
later, as China asserts itself in South Asia, it seems to be telling its ‘client
state’, Pakistan, the same thing.
Let’s take
a look at the map again at this point: China is in control of vast territories
in India’s Ladakh, the adjacent Shaksgam valley, which Pakistan illegally ceded
to China in 1963 after India lost the 1962 conflict with China, and
Gilgit-Baltistan next door through CPEC.
The Chinese
aren’t coming, they are already here.
https://theprint.in/opinion/global-print/does-imran-khan-gilgit-baltistan-vow-mean-pakistan-has-accepted-india-370-move/536146/
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Uncivil Proposal: On Laws To Curb 'Love Jihad'
The Hindu Editorial
November 04, 2020
The
astounding proposal by Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to enact a law to curb what
they call ‘love jihad’ reeks of a vicious mix of patriarchy and communalism.
Propounded by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the detestable idea
amounts to legitimising a term that constitutes a blatant slur against
inter-faith marriages and relationships in which one of the parties is a Muslim
man. The ostensible reason for bringing in such a law seems to be that the
“honour” of Hindu women is under threat from zealous Muslim youth seeking to
win over girls from other communities for religious conversion in the name of
love and marriage. The flaws in the concept are quite obvious: there is no
legal sanction to self-serving and political terms such as ‘love jihad’ and
there can be no legislation based on an extra-legal concept. In any case,
legislative intervention in marriages involving consenting adults will be
clearly unconstitutional. The domain of matrimony is occupied by separate laws
governing weddings that take place under religious traditions, as well as the
Special Marriage Act, which enables a secular marriage, including between
couples from different faiths.
Mr.
Adityanath, who has also threatened those allegedly operating in secret by
concealing their identities, and his Haryana counterpart, Manohar Lal, seem to
be making the same mistakes: using the term ‘love jihad’ in a communal sense
and speaking about marriages as if they were not a matter of personal choice.
They would do well to remember that earlier this year, the Union Home Ministry
made it clear that the term is not defined in law, while replying to a
parliamentary question. Investigation into marriages that purportedly raised
such a suspicion also failed to find any substance in the allegations. The
immediate context for these leaders to go out on a limb about curbing
inter-faith marriages is a recent Allahabad High Court judgment that frowned
upon religious conversion solely for the purpose of marriage; and the horrible
murder of a 20-year-old woman in Faridabad by a stalker who happened to be a
Muslim. By no stretch of imagination can the murder be used to denounce
consensual inter-faith relationships. Regarding the court verdict, the High
Court had declined to intervene on a writ petition seeking police protection
for a recently married couple, noting that the bride had converted from Islam
to Hinduism solely for the purpose of marriage. It had found such an expedient
conversion unacceptable, citing a similar 2014 verdict in which the court had
questioned the bonafides of conversions without change of heart or any
conviction in the tenets of the new religion. Although the court strayed from
the issue at hand, its objective was to underscore that conversion should not
become a device. It is indeed salutary as a principle that inter-faith couples
retain their religious beliefs separately and opt for marriage under the
Special Marriage Act. However, this principle cannot be used to derogate from
personal choice or become a ruse to interfere in the individual freedom to
forge matrimonial alliances.
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/uncivil-proposal/article33015946.ece
-----
Stop Attacking Interfaith Marriages
The Hindustan Times Editorial
Nov 02,
2020
The idea of
“love jihad” — where Muslim men ostensibly entrap Hindu women (sometimes by
masking their own religion) and lure them into marriage (and then force them to
convert), with the objective of changing the demography — has been a part of
the vocabulary of Hindutva politics. From the fringe, this idea has got
increasing mainstream acceptance within the political system. Now, Uttar
Pradesh chief minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath has threatened death for those
supposedly engaged in it, while Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar has spoken of
bringing a law against “love jihad”. This is surprising because as recently as
February, the home ministry told Parliament that the term isn’t defined in law
and that no such cases were reported by central agencies.
The use of
such vocabulary to describe interfaith relationships is insidious. It is a
reflection of bigotry and patriarchy and has tremendous inflammatory potential.
Indian society must embrace relationships across class, caste, and yes,
religion, for there is no more effective way to integrate communities, develop
empathy and understanding, and deepen national unity. No relationship or
marriage should of course be based on either coercion or deception — and if
there are any such instances, irrespective of the gender or religion of the
person, then there must be legal implications. But to bracket any relationship
which may involve a Muslim man and Hindu woman as an instance of a conspiracy
to undermine Hindus is outright false. It is based on treating women as the
property of others and denies them their agency; it is also based on
manufactured fears and false stereotypes about Muslims. If a couple wants to
get married, it is the State’s duty to enable them to exercise their right.
Instead, the political regime appears to be enabling a climate of fear,
distrust and violence and reinforcing the paranoia around interfaith marriages.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/stop-attacking-interfaith-marriages-ht-editorial/story-2dnF1CV4iGTA3l3l2mq0xM.html
-----
URL: https://newageislam.com/indian-press/indian-press-marriage-equality,-jamia/d/123363
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