Roar writer Manya Sareen on proposed laws against so-called “Love Jihad” in India, and why she feels they cannot be allowed.
Since India’s independence, the world has commended its peaceful amalgamation of different cultures, traditions, and religions. The Indian Constitution gives every individual the right to be treated as equal, irrespective of any differences.
When the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the central government in 2014 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power, it began to propagate anti-Muslim sentiment through hate-provoking speeches which deepened the divide between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. After his re-election last year, the BJP government began to advance its Hindu nationalist and anti-Muslim propaganda with even more force; they interpreted their second win as popular consent to make secular India a practically Hindu state.
To do this, they enacted the Citizenship Amendment Act to prevent Muslim refugees from attaining Indian citizenship before dismembering India’s only Muslim majority state, Jammu and Kashmir.
Following this, a new campaign was begun to try and assert Hindu primacy and spread islamophobia. Love Jihad is a conspiracy theory propagated by right-wing groups accusing Muslim men of using marriage to lure Hindu women into converting to Islam. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India, made religious conversion a non-bailable offence, leading to penalties of up to 10 years under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Ordinance 2020. If a couple wishes to get married and convert into another religion, they will have to provide the District Magistrate with written consent at least two months in advance, allowing time for any investigations to be carried out. The burden rests on the defendants to prove that the marriage is legal, rather than on the police to prove any crime. Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath announced that he intends to enact a law against Love Jihad, stating those who are deemed guilty deserve to be killed. Four other BJP states plan to enact similar laws.
What is the need for such a law? Despite many investigations, there is no evidence that points to the existence of such a conspiracy. Additionally, offences such as forced conversion and marriages under false pretences are already punishable by law in the Indian judicial system. All this piece of legislation aims to do is make the Muslim community feel like outsiders in their own country. A Love Jihad law enacted in Himachal Pradesh last year disallowed the use of inducements or force for religious conversion, defining inducement as all temptations in the form of material gifts, free education in a reputed institution run by a religious body, better lifestyle, and divine pleasure. What is most outrageous about this law is that most individuals only convert their religions for greater divine pleasure.
Last month, a popular jewellery company was made to withdraw an advertisement featuring an interfaith couple’s baby shower after the advert received backlash from the Hindu right-wing. Recently, the state of Madhya Pradesh registered a police case against Netflix for their portrayal of a Muslim boy kissing a Hindu girl in front of a temple backdrop, saying that it hurt the “Hindu sentiment”. It was said that the scene “encourages Love Jihad”. These examples show not only the impact such legislation has on the Indian Muslim community, but how threatening they are to the existence of India as we know it today.
Indian Political Society president Rhea Kher told Roar in a statement: “It’s disappointing to see that a nation that prides itself on being secular is moving to a future where inter-faith relationships are being used to push a political agenda. These beliefs are regressive and inculcate a false sense of nationalism and promote an ‘us versus them’ behaviour. Unfortunately, they also take away from the empowerment of women, who are being lessened to a degree where people assume they are no longer in control of their own beliefs, and can simply be ‘brainwashed’ into changing their faith or what they believe in.”
Statistics show that only 2% of marriages in India are interfaith and 10% inter-caste. These laws are bound to make such occurrences even more uncommon. Indian women already have a hard time releasing themselves from the shackles of their families and communities in order to choose their own life partners, but in the face of such laws, they could face threats and violence as well. In a speech, Adityanath has stated that with such laws, the community protects the “honour of our daughters and sisters”. This implies that women have weak agency and are unable to make sound decisions when choosing their life partners without external restrictions. It also endangers a woman’s right to privacy by implicitly questioning their consent to marry and change their religion.
This legislation defames Muslim men as untrustworthy, further impacting the general public mindset. Forcing identification by religion implies a commitment to “religious warfare” in even something as sacred as love. This ideology further attempts to make them second class citizens unable to take their fundamental right to freedom for granted. It is now solely up to the Supreme Court to prioritise individual’s basic rights to marry whomever they wish and change their religion without the need for permission from any government, religious community, or family.
