‘Love jihad' bogey: Why BJP sees hate in interfaith marriages

Some time in mid-2017, Reshma VK, a 23-year-old woman from Kasargod, Kerala, studying in Mangalore, eloped with Mohammed Iqbal Chaudhury from Mumbai, with whom she was in a relationship. She later married him of her own volition and settled there.

Reshma initially got acquainted with Iqbal on Facebook. They fell in love over a period of time and began to meet. Having attained the legal age for marriage (18), she decided to get married to Chaudhury and left a note to her parents before leaving home to live with him in Mumbai.

All this was against her parents’ wishes. Her father, a businessman in Kasargod, especially could not accept this. It was an apt case for the right-wing activists and soon the Bajrang Dal got involved.

In December that year, the group led by its convener Sharan Pumpwell dubbed the case ‘love jihad’, projecting Chaudhury as a Muslim radical. He even met then Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman seeking a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the matter.

But a few days before that, at the behest of Reshma’s parents, Bajrang Dal activists attacked her and Chaudhury while they were coming out of a mall in Mumbai. They abducted Reshma and brought her back to Mangalore to live with her parents.

While Chaudhury had filed a complaint of kidnapping in Mumbai, the family filed an affidavit with the local police, purportedly signed by Reshma, saying she was living with her parents out of her will.

With the case heading nowhere, Chaudhury approached the Bombay High Court with a habeas corpus petition, saying his wife’s life was under threat and she was being forced to live with her parents. The court ordered the police to investigate and later Reshma told the court that she wished to live with her husband and that she was not forced into the marriage by anyone. The police arrested one of the Bajrang Dal members for abduction.

This is not the first instance when the pro-Hindu outfit took to vigilantism and the case backfired. Several cases across the state, particularly in the coastal belt, where the syncretic culture of Hindus and Muslims reflect in people’s daily lives, have proved to be against the wishes of such pro-Hindutva outfits.

Making preparations to introduce Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Bill, 2020 in Assembly. It'll provide for 5 yrs of rigorous imprisonment. We're also proposing that such crimes be declared a cognizable & non-bailable offence: MP Home Minister Narottam Mishra on 'Love Jihad' pic.twitter.com/N4NA7Js8Ai

— ANI (@ANI) November 17, 2020

Pumpwell, a stauch right-winger, tells The Federal that while they could not save Reshma from the ‘clutches’ of a Muslim man, they haven’t stopped their activities. Just two days ago, he and his aides targeted and interfered in another interfaith couple’s marriage. They even took to social media to publicly shame them and warn people to be careful.

“While we could not save Reshma [as it went against her wishes], there are cases where women were forced to religious conversion for marriage purposes. ‘Love jihad’ cases are on the rise in coastal Karnataka,” Pumpwell says, although he could not substantiate the claim.

What is ‘love jihad’?

In the past few months, Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka have been making statements mulling law to curb the practice of ‘love jihad’.

Many oppose the interpretation of jihad as merely a holy war (against a certain religion) as the word is also used to describe different kinds of struggle, including spiritual and self struggle.

The oxymoronic term ‘love jihad’ was coined in 2009 for the first time by right-wing supporters to publicly decry an interfaith love marriage in Karnataka under the BJP rule led by BS Yediyurappa. Today, the same BJP government in the state plans to bring a law to curb ‘love jihad’.

Former Karnataka minister and BJP national general secretary CT Ravi put out a tweet, indicating the state may soon enact a law prohibiting religious conversion solely for the purpose of marriage.

On lines of Allahabad High Court's order, Karnataka will enact a law banning religious conversions for the sake of marriage.

We will not remain silent when Jihadis strip the dignity of Our Sisters.

Any one involved in the act of conversion shall face severe & swift punishment.

— C T Ravi 🇮🇳 ಸಿ ಟಿ ರವಿ (@CTRavi_BJP) November 3, 2020

They refer to it as an alleged campaign by Muslims to convert Hindu women in the ‘guise’ of love. While their campaign is not fact-based as so far there’s no evidence to show there’s a organised effort to convert Hindus/Christians to Islam, the BJP and right-wing groups have made it appear that if young men embrace Islam, it is for terrorism, and if young women do, it is because of ‘love jihad’.

In 2009, two different habeas corpus petitions (cases of missing persons) were filed in Karnataka and Kerala high courts, both of which ordered an investigation concerning women’s safety and national security.

While the Kerala HC sent back the two girls to live with their parents as per their wishes, in Karnataka, the woman stood by her decision that she married the Muslim man out of her free will and no one had compelled her to convert to Islam.

The cases propped up at a time when Cyanide Mohan, a serial killer, was caught by the police, and some of the girls went missing before they were killed by him. It created a commotion on women’s safety in coastal Karnataka.

But both the courts, however, ordered investigations into the alleged religious conversion for marriage purposes. These orders preceded a CID investigation into inter-religious marriages, ordered by the Congress-led government in Maharashtra based on a complaint (the same year) from a BJP MLA.

Within a year, the term had taken an ugly turn and right-wing groups took advantage of it to attack Muslim men, impose moral policing on women and created a sense of fear among college students in coastal Karnataka.

By 2014, with the rise of the BJP, the phrase caught on very fast and was largely used across the country to target the Muslim community and create a false sense of fear among the majority Hindus that they were under threat from a minority community.

In October this year, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath raised the ‘love jihad’ bogey and issued a veiled threat, asking those waging love jihad to mend their ways or be prepared for their funeral. In 2019, the UP State Law Commission submitted a report to the government making a case for such a law.

Govt has no definition

But the government (home ministry) has not defined what ‘love jihad’ means. In a reply in the Lok Sabha, the home ministry in February this year said: “The term ‘love jihad’ is not defined under extant laws. No such case of ‘love jihad’ has been reported by any of the central agencies.”

However, it said two cases from Kerala involving interfaith marriages have been investigated by the NIA.

The NIA, which examined 11 interfaith marriages from a list of 89 marriages in Kerala based on the SC order, could not unearth any evidence of coercion (forceful conversion) that could result in prosecution in these cases, Hindustan Times has reported.

Such (coercion) charges could not proved in the infamous Hadia case where a 24-year-old Hindu woman, converted to Islam and later married a Muslim man, Shafin Jahan.

Her father filed a case against Jahan accusing him of coercing her to convert. While the Kerala High Court in 2017 annulled the couple’s marriage and sent Hadiya back to her parents, the Supreme Court in 2018 overturned that order and restored Hadiya’s marriage with Jahan.

The apex court said it cannot intervene in a consensual marriage and she has the freedom to make her own marital choices.

Some questioned as to why couples should not marry under the Special Marriage Act, instead of converting one’s religion. But again, as Aarti Mundkur, a Bengaluru-based advocate, pointed out on CNN-IBN back in 2009, that as the Act requires 30-day notice period, two people who wish to get married under tremendous adverse situations, cannot wait as it would give ample time for the state, parents and vigilantes to intervene in their personal matter, and hence they were left with no choice.

Mundkur currently feels that giving attention to the issue will be like playing into the hands of right-wing people and vigilantes.

The withdrawal of Tanishq advertisement on Hindu-Muslim marriage after a backlash from a section of society is one such case. While some termed the ad ‘love jihad’, others slammed them for disturbing communal harmony.

Proposed law against Constitution

Senior lawyers see the statements about bringing a law against ‘love jihad’ more as a political gimmick and feel such a law would have no legal standing or basis in the Constitution.

Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to marry a person of one’s choice. And Article 25 entitles freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion of one’s choice, subject to public order, morality and health.

Bringing such a law to regulate matrimonial relationships between two consenting adults would infringe upon one’s personal rights.

The UP Law Commission in its report argues that Article 25 involves a separation between religious activities and secular and social activities.

“While the former are protected, the latter are not,” it says.

It further notes that the sub-clause (a) of Clause (2) of Article 25 reserves the right of the state to regulate or restrict any economic, financial, political or other secular activities, which may be associated with religious practices, advocating that state can legislate for social welfare and such a law would not be void on the ground of interfering with freedom of religion.

“Such a proposed law would only be laughable and there’s no jurisprudence for such cases. Even if states come up with it, it would only be a half-baked law and its constitutionality will always be under question,” says senior SC advocate KV Dhananjay.

He goes on to add that so far, no state has submitted a case of widespread religious conversion for marriage purposes and they will face trouble even to draft one such law.

“Governments cannot and should not interfere with personal choices of people. And if such a law is brought in, it would be as ridiculous as Malawi government’s (Republic of Malawi) proposal to bring a law banning farting in public,” he said.