Daily Times

Discussion, this essay here circles around as to how a non-issue like the Love Jihad carries too much weight because it involves religious-political connotations that too during the Hindutva regime in India. And for the interest of readers if one peeps into genesis of the Love Jihad controversy, it makes a very interesting study that how a non-issue has assumed national and international importance and continues hitting the headlines worldwide only because it involves two major religions viz, Islam and Hinduism.

The word “Love Jihad” is coined by mixing two popular common words-Love and Jihad-from two different languages English and Arabi, not spoken in India and which don’t even have any distant relationship between them. This (Love Jihad) word has politico-religious connotations, and has been coined into one by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a wing of India’s rightist political party-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-in 2007, with the intention to target young Indian Muslims.

The notorious word” Love Jihad” has now got international fame after the ruling party BJP at the Centre gave it recognition as a dangerous political development which is impacting the secular fabric of India’s multi-religious and multi-cultural society. The Love Jihad is painted as an anti-Muslim move of the government, wherein Muslims are shown as seducers of the “innocent” Hindu young girls, who are motivated into wedlock and converted to Islam before or after the marriage/or Niqha.

The India’s population is about 135 crores and the Muslim population is close to 20 crores (14 percent). If one looks at these above mentioned two figures it appears to be a ridiculous idea to presume the inter-religious Muslims-Hindu love marriages would change the demography of Muslims in India to such an extent that they would of-their-own-votes be able to form Government and again become the rulers in democratic India.

Though, there is no data available based on any survey as to how many Hindu girls got into love-wedlock with Muslim boys in India since 2007 when the love Jihad issue was raised for the first time by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).  It was for the first time raised in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state of Gujarat in 2007. Yet again under the auspices Paramon Muthalik, a former RSS member who founded “Sri Ram Sena”, a religious-politico organisation and with whose efforts the “Love jihad” reappeared in Kerala in 2009. To make Hindus aware of the design of Muslims, it was also pointed out that “in Love Jihad, fanatic young Muslim men are encouraged to attract and entice young Hindu girls roaming around Ice cream parlours, girls’ schools and colleges, cinema houses and theatres.  In fact, it is an organised attempt to demoralize the Hindu community”.

But, the figures that have been floating in news columns and anti-Love Jihad TV Channels that appeared to have failed to produce an alarming situation or figures of such inter-religious or inter-faith Hindu-Muslim marriages. To the maximum the number of such marriages points to a figure of only up to 1,500. What a microscopic figure/numbers. These could be called as negligible and would make hardly any difference, if these could be ignored as a natural development in a multi-faith and multi-cultural society. But the issue has quite serious politico-religious ramifications in Indian society after the rise of Hindutva ideology.

Some people also, talk about and also raise the issue of Muslim girls getting into love wedlock with Hindu males. Some of them converted to Hinduism but many more stayed into or retained their religion-Islam-and living with their Hindu husbands and raising their families as well. One or two or more have also brought such Muslim girls in TV programmes, who have been into love marriage wedlock with Hindu males and living a peaceful happy married life. Some Hindu women spoke of their happy married life with Muslim husbands on TV Channels during Prime Time. These women went up to the extent of targeting the “Love Jihad” issue which has grown out of infectious polluted minds. People have no problem with inter-religious marriages among Hindu-Muslims or Muslim-Hindus but the BJP’s Hindutva propagators do have.

Why the Hindutva promoters prop-up such communal and fanatic issues is a moot question to understand? And it has a simple answer that it helps them polarize the society vertically on communal lines and gets them enough Hindu votes, Thus, by raising the scarecrow of Muslims related issues after issues that contains/fill the space of the newspapers with non-issues and TV channels spend their time with issues where they have to hardly pour in any money to craft/design video programmes but attract too heavy TRPs.

Now, the BJP governments have taken over the “Love Jihad” controversy from vigilante groups like VHP. To stop the so-called “Love Jihad” four BJP ruled states have announced to pass laws to prevent them. Earlier, Uttar Pradesh CM Adithya Jogi had formed some “anti-Romeo squads” to protect Hindu girls from Muslims. Making religious conversions a criminal act with the imposition of jail terms of various periods/lengths, and monetary fines as well. Jogi’s UP is the first state to have issued Ordinance to make “Love Jihad” and conversion for marriage as a criminal offence/act and proposed jail term from two years to 10 years and a fine penalty starting from Rs 20,000 up to 50,000.  This comes as some BJP ruled states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, and Haryana are also mulling an anti ‘Love Jihad’ law.

Aditya Yogi went a step ahead and in another 14 cases of Love Jihad got investigations. The Special Investigating Team (SIT) formed to investigate these marriages, and its findings came two days after the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government announced that it would bring an ordinance to check unlawful conversions in the state. Allegations of funding from abroad to the “Love Jihad” marriages were also investigated with no evidence to prove that.

In three of In the 14 cases, the SIT found that police had filed closure reports after the Hindu women, all above 18 years, had given statements in favour of the accused, stating either that they had married Muslim men or joined them with of their own free will.

The SIT found that in three cases, the Muslim youths had allegedly used false identities, including preparing fake documents, to impress the girls. In these three cases, police have added charges of fraud against the accused, police disclosed.

It is confusing for the people when courts and state governments go in opposite directions over this contentious issue. The Allahabad High Court has reportedly asserted that no individual, family, or State can interfere in the decision of two consenting adults, irrespective of their religion, to marry or live together.

But, the UP CM is determined to formulate a law against interfaith marriages. The law would prevent “love Jihad”, in which a woman from the majority community changes her faith to marry a man from the largest minority community as part of the latter’s conspiracy to increase the minority population. No proof of this has been found in UP or in any of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led states.

Establishing the primacy of the right to life and personal liberty of two mature individuals, the latest two-judge bench of the same high court pronounced the earlier judgments as “bad in law”. The court found the first information report filed by the father of a woman who had converted and married a Muslim prompted by malice and mischief, describing such moves as a serious encroachment on the right to personal liberty.

The Allahabad High Court made an outstandingly important point at a time when the dominant regime is encouraging a divisive approach to religion. The court does not see the man and woman in the interfaith union as Hindu and Muslim, but as two grown-up individuals who had married of their own free will.

Interference in such a relationship was not only a violation of rights but also a threat to the concept of unity in diversity. Without mentioning the myth of love jihad, the Allahabad High Court struck at its root from every angle, underlining its lawlessness — as did the Delhi High Court’s insistence on freedom of personal choice — and pointing directly to the Constitutional ethos of secularism and equality of all religions. This is deeply reassuring for all those fighting against discrimination.

The Delhi High Court, too, responding to a habeas corpus petition by a 20-year-old woman’s family said that an adult woman was free to live wherever she wished with whoever she wished to.

Amid debates over ‘love jihad’ and rising clamor for a stringent law to deal with it, the Allahabad High Court quashed an FIR against an interfaith couple saying the right to life with a person of one’s choice is intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty. These rights are guaranteed under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

Behind all this hype of “Love Jihad”, there appears to be a hidden agenda to prevent Dalits’ conversions to Buddhism and Christianity. Though this is not being highlighted anywhere but some slightest references do appear and are also being referred by some informed leaders. Once laws are made criminalizing the conversion of religion, the Dalits would also be prevented to take such drastic steps to get out of or leave infectious Manuwadi caste-based Hindu social structure to free themselves from the burden of being marginalized human beings because of their birth in a particular low caste.

The writer is a senior journalist and Indo-Pak peace activist.