Love Jihad - Entrenched In The Public Landscape
By Teesta Setalvad
November
13, 2020
On October
6, 1998, two years and five months before the Taliban blew up the 6th-century
Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, I interviewed the then Director-General of
Police, Gujarat, C P Singh, after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal had
launched a series of vicious attacks on minorities falsely alleging that
inter-religious marriages had happened through abduction and use of force. The
DGP told me that the “allegations of forced inter–religious marriages and
conversions are entirely baseless in most cases”. He also explained that women
often exercised their autonomous choice to marry and associate of their own
free will. While the DGP was candid and forthright, in the following years
(1998-2000), the state police set up a special cell to “investigate”
inter-community marriages, an action directly violative of the fundamental
rights of equality (Article 14), right to life with dignity (Article 21) and
right to freedom of faith (Article 25).
Representative Image (Photo
Courtesy: Social Meida)
------
On March 2,
2001, the orders of Mullah Mohammed Omar to demolish the ancient Bamiyan
Buddhas, great symbols of Gandhara art and Buddhist faith condemned by the
Taliban government as “idols”, inaugurated the weaponised use of the term
jihad. Gifted by proponents of a violent and political Islam to other
supremacists on paper, no amount of explaining what this Arabic term Jehad
really means (a monumental and meritorious struggle or effort) could thereafter
make a difference.
In Gujarat,
the state machinery targeted couples who broke caste and community barriers and
used the constitutional vision encompassed in the Special Marriages Act, 1954
to marry and co-habit. Babu Bajrangi, today convicted as core conspirator in
the cold-blooded and pre-planned massacre at Naroda Patiya in 2002, also ran a
trust called Navchetan trust, which as per his own claims “saved” 700 girls who
had left their homes to marry outside their community. Many of these were girls
from the Patel community, who married Hindu boys from other castes. A report in
Frontline claimed that the organisation used intimidation and violence to
forcibly end the marriages done outside the community. Police did not actively intervene
to stop these criminal acts. Bhim Rao Ambedkar saw in inter-caste marriage a
significant step to reduce caste prejudice, abolish untouchability and spread
the values of liberty, equality and fraternity in society.
“Love
jihad” is now entrenched in the public landscape. The term is today wielded by
an aggressive majoritarianism, woven into a dominant caste Hindu narrative of
religious extremism, Islamophobia, and communal hatred that has crept into
Indian courtroom discourse as well. We have had cases coming out of Kerala
(Sahan Sha A vs State of Kerala, 2009) that referred to the “functioning of
radical organisations pursuing activities of converting young girls of Hindu
religion to Islam on the pretext of love”. More recently, there was the case involving
Hadiya alias Akhila, who converted to Islam and married Shafeen Jahan against
her family’s wishes. In many of these cases, we see a woman’s independence, her
choices, her freedoms being pitted against family or community honour.
A recent
Allahabad High Court order (Pooja @ Zoya vs State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors,
October 8) has once again sparked a fuse. The order is brief and to the point.
Unlike what has happened in scores of cases in Gujarat, the court asked the
woman seven pointed questions and when it was determined that she was a major
(Pooja alias Zoya, 19 years) who wished to stay with her husband, Shahwej, the
court dismissed the matter and ruled that as an adult, she was free to stay
with whom she chose. However, the court passed this remark: “Though, under the
Constitution, a citizen has the right to profess, practise or propagate the
religion of his/her choice but it is disconcerting that in matrimonial matters
one party should change his/her faith to the other’s just for the sake of matrimony
and nothing more.” The single bench drew a distinction between marriage and
religion and said, “Marriage is one thing and religion quite another. If two
citizens of India professing different religions wish to marry, it is open to
them to do so under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which is one of the
earliest endeavours towards a uniform civil code.”
It is this
order that has led to assertions by the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and
Haryana that they would enact laws to prevent “love jihad”. Both CMs symbolise
a politics that is the epitome of violent supremacism where rights of
minorities are suppressed. We can see before us another “legal” threat to
trample over constitutional foundations of liberty, dignity, autonomy and
freedom. The rest of us need to think hard and deep about how we should fight
the battle.
Take the
recent Tanishq advertisement that sentimentalised inter-community marriages in
a distant aesthetic. It was removed when Hindu right-wing trolls launched their
tirade. In the past, Mani Ratnam’s Bombay (1995) had, in a similar vein,
romanticised an inter-community union in the backdrop of the violence
post-Babri Masjid demolition. The imagery in the film reinforced a stereotype,
which has become the reality in India today — images of the burqa and Ghunghat
hover, ghost-like, in public minds, even while we barely recognise gender
autonomy and other freedoms.
To reclaim
the narrative, Indians need to reflect on what Ambedkar said about a
caste-less, communal prejudice-free society.
Original Headline: The love jihad spectre: It
has now crept into judicial discourse, to the detriment of a woman’s freedom
and autonomy
Source: The Indian Express
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/love-jihad-entrenched-public-landscape/d/123460