Can Law Curb ‘Love Jihad’?

AFTER building up the narrative of “Love Jihad” over the years, the Bharatiya Janata Party led Uttar Pradesh government has taken the controversial step to deal with “unlawful religious conversions” through an ordinance.

Some more BJP-ruled states have announced plans to prevent the so-called ‘Love Jihad‘, a term coined by Hindutva activists to describe an alleged conspiracy to convert Hindu women to Islam by marrying them, by bringing up similar laws.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had been building up his case that there are large scale conversion of Hindu girls where they were allegedly enticed to get married by falling in love or false promises.

He had claimed that a large number of such cases were being reported in Uttar Pradesh and they it was a conspiracy to spread Islam and increase population of Muslims.

The ordinance provides for an imprisonment of one to 10 years and a fine of Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000 under different categories.

If a person wants to perform love marriage after converting into any other religion, they will need to take permission from the district magistrate convened two months before marriage, as per the provisions of the ordinance. This provision is enough to expose the inter-faith couples to great harm.

The move is bound to evoke strong opposition particularly when it has come days after the Allahabad High Court upheld the right to freedom of choice and had pointed out that its earlier judgments “were incorrect and did not lay down good law”.

Ironically the Yogi Adityanath government had justified its plans to go for the ordinance on the basis of some old high court judgements.

In its latest judgement, the high court had said that “a person’s right to live with people of their choice, irrespective of religion, is intrinsic to their right to life and personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution”.

A bench comprising Justices Pankaj Naqvi and Vivek Agarwal ruled that two of its earlier verdicts — which said that religious conversion solely for the purpose of a marriage was prohibited — are incorrect and do not lay down “good law”.

The judgement delivered on November 11 said the government should not interfere in any relationship between two adults, noting, “We fail to understand that if the law permits two persons even of the same sex to live together peacefully then neither any individual nor a family nor even State can have objection to relationship of two major individuals who out of their own free will are living together.”

Uttar Pradesh government has, however, gone ahead with its move and some other governments are likely to follow it. The move has come under severe criticism and certainly has dangerous portents.

There have been a large number of instances where mobs have attacked and even lynched couples from different religions. Such gangs would now gain legitimacy and shall be all the more encouraged to look out for such couples and indulge in goondaism.

That indeed is one of the biggest dangers and the backing of the state government would encourage them to take law in their hands to beat up and harass couples belonging to different castes.

Also Read: Democracy is not for rewriting History

Yogi Adityanath had himself darkly hinted at the possibility when he said recently that those who were waging “Love Jihad” should either mend their ways or be prepared for their final journey – “Ram naam satya hai ki yatra nikalne wali hai”. Then usage of such words can embolden those who consider it their duty to prevent love marriages between Hindu girls and Muslim boys.

There are thousands or perhaps lakhs of cases of successful inter-faith marriage, and not necessarily between Hindus and Muslims. Evidently the aim of the ordinance is limited to Muslim boys wanting to marry Hindu girls and not vice versa.

There are enough laws to deal with the issue of men misleading women on the pretext of marriage. These also include laws relating to rape and attempt to rape.

The apprehensions about the misuse of the newly inducted provisions of law are genuine and the government must address those concerns rather than talk of “Ram naam satya hai”.

What also remains to be seen is that when the fear of physical harm has failed to deter young couples from marrying out of choice, will the fear of laws prove effective.

Also Read: How Modi Govt ignores ‘Unanswerable Questions’?

____________________________

Watch video: