After the brutal
killing of Shraddha Walker, the over a month-long issue of ‘love jihad’ took a
serious turn. Her murder evoked anger. Why do such marriages even take place?
Why are girls not having healthy conversations with their parents? Such and
other issues came up when the religious, legal and social implications were
raised during extensive and brainstorming discussions on various platforms.
Since the last few
days, people are resorting to carrying out morchas and agitations against this
issue across Maharashtra. The outrage, angst and anger in the minds of the
people was very evident. And a common demand evolved that a law against love
jihad must be passed soon. Surprisingly, the congregation of senior journalists
and intellectuals, who consider it their right to voice their opinion against
everything happening around, refrained from exercising their right to speak. Is
there a harm if the society expects that these intellectuals speak against love
jihad and look at it from beyond its religious, legal and social implications?
Intellectuals like Ravish Kumar, Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Swara Bhaskar,
Javed Akhtar and Kanhaiyya Kumar who proclaim that they are pro-humanity seem
to have missed the plot of this love jihad issue and hence are still silent on
it.
It may be recalled
that in Uttar Pradesh almost 7 years ago, one Akhlaq Mohammad was allegedly
lynched by a mob over suspicion of storing beef. At that time, the
above-mentioned intellectuals had wailed. Is it that this congregation of
Ravish, Swara, Rajdeep and their likes didn’t find the whole issue of
Shraddha’s body being chopped into 35 pieces and being stored in a
refrigerator, heinous enough? Probably not, because these intellectuals check
on the religion, caste and other parameters of the victim before taking their
stance on any matter.
The issue really
is not whether the assassination of a young woman like Shraddha was heinous or
not but it is about whether we responsible and sensitive Indian citizens will
ever voice our angst against such heartless and inhuman deeds. The question
therefore is why do young women fall prey to things like love and then marriage
or live-in relationships, which has several social and family implications.
This needs to be evaluated on various parameters – from the societal and family
point of view, from ethics and freedom to express point of view and from the
culture point of view. On one hand the country is creating records in science
and technology and on the other hand systematic efforts are being made to recreate
a ‘stone age mentality’ that has been manifested after the killing of Shraddha.
What religion these forces belong to, is not important. The key issue is
whether should we make efforts at putting an end to these forces that work
behind rooting such mentality or should we sit idle with folded hands and
refrain from saying anything about it.
This congregation
of Swara Bhaskar, Ravish and Rajdeep have condemned Shraddha’s murder in barely
a sentence or two. This shows the double-faced approach of this cult. What
surprises me even more is the dangerous and shocking attempt by the media to
conceal the religion of the accused in this incident.
For the time
being, let us assume that the reason behind concealing this issue was not
religious. But when we look at similar instances that have taken place in the
previous year, the analysis of the information derived after police
investigations into 153 such incidents will reveal some glaring facts. In 99
such cases, the accused had concealed his religion from the concerned
girl/woman and had pretended to be a Hindu. In 6 other cases, the accused had
hidden the fact that he was already married. One thing common in all these
cases was that using means such as seduction, feigning love, deception andmarriage,
these Hindu girls/women were forced to accept Islam after marriage. They were
forced to wear hijab and were forced to eat beef. There were also cases where
the accused had vandalized idols of Hindu gods and goddesses. And in case the
girl/woman refused to let go off her Hindu identity, she would be beaten up and
raped. The modus operandi behind all these instances was the same – the
girl/woman is made to fall for the man through live-in relationship and later
she is forced to perform ‘nikah’. In case the girl/woman refuses, she is
brutally assassinated.
Also, it has been
found that in many cases of love jihad, the fanatical youth pressurises the
girl to marry him according to the ‘Sharia Law’ instead of the ‘Special
Marriage Act’. If the girl voluntarily agrees to tie the knot according to the
Sharia Law, she loses all her existing rights. Shraddha Walker’s case is not
one of its kind. Nidhi Gupta, Ankita Singh, Nikita Tomar, Kajal, Manasi Dixit,
Khushi Parihar, Varsha Chauhan, Hina Talreja and many other Hindu girls have
been subjected to similar brutality. The corpses of many girls landed up in
closed suitcases. Such instances force me to revisit and seriously think and
evaluate whether such acts of cruelty, that tarnishes humanity, must be
tolerated in a state like ours that has been created by the Constitution.
The statements of
the victims clearly pointed out that the idea behind these incidents was purely
to proselytize the Hindu girls/women. The Allahabad High Court’s judgement in
November 2022 regarding the marriage in a similar love jihad case clearly
stated that the modus operandi of the accused was to convert the victim. The
Allahabad High Court had also accepted that a young woman has the right to
change her religion and marry a Muslim man. But when two people from different
religions tie the knot, asking one person to abandon h/er religion and to
accept the partner’s religion is a matter of concern, the court had pointed
out. This was with regard to the
marriage of a girl
named Pooja. A Hindu by birth, Pooja converted to Islam and later married a
Muslim. Whether her proselytism was by choice, was the crux of the case. During
the investigation, the court had asked Pooja alias Zoya whether it was her
decision. She had agreed to proselytize since she wanted to spend her life with
her husband Shahvez. At that time, the court had settled the matter with the
observation that since she is an adult, she is independent to take her own
decision. The court had also opined that as per our Constitution, every citizen
has the right to practice and propagate any religion. But when two people of
different religions come together, asking one to forgo one’s religion is a
matter of concern.
Recently, the news
channel Times Now reported how certain sections of the society were distributing
money and also resorting to intimidating people to forcefully converting them
to Islam. The news was from Daund that became a well-known town for housing a
railway junction in Pune district. The channel reported that nearly 200 young
Hindu women and married Hindu men were converted in this manner in Daund. The
channel had also reported how a Hindu man after tying the knot with a Muslim
woman was forcibly circumcised and converted to Islam. There have also been
similar incidents where Hindu youths who married Muslim girls were forcefully
converted to Islam in Pune.
Even the Supreme
Court, during a hearing of a petition on November 14, had expressed concern
over the rising instances of conversion and had opined that these instances are
a concern for the security of the country. States of Himachal Pradesh and
Uttarakhand have already passed law against love jihad keeping in mind the
rising instances. In fact, the Kerala High Court had annulled the marriage of a
young woman who had converted before marriage. In the judgement to this case,
the Kerala High Court had expressed concern over love jihad. There seems to be
an uproar amidst people against the rising instances of love jihad and the
brutal killings of young women. Agitations and morchas are being staged in
protest of these incidents but still such killings must also be taken
cognizance of by all sections of the society.
(Article Pre-Published in Times of
India - 30 Jan. 2023)
Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson
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