Dev 360: Vote jihad

If elections come, can conspiracy theories be far behind? With bypolls around the corner, Uttar Pradesh is abuzz with talk of a sinister plot of young Hindu women being tricked into marriage by Muslim men, and made to convert to Islam. Over the past week there has been a flood of reports about “love jihad”. National-level shooter Tara Shahdeo’s allegations that she was duped into marriage by her husband — a Muslim who posed as a Hindu, and tortured her when she refused to convert to Islam — has only added grist to the mill.

“Love jihad” is neither a new idea nor unique to the Hindi heartland. The term “love jihad” is an import from southern India. It surfaced in 2009 in Karnataka and Kerala. In Karnataka, Right-wing organisations such as Ram Sene led the charge, alleging that Muslim groups were forcing conver-sions following romantic lure as a method to increase their numbers. The matter went up to the court. But the police told the court they could not find any evidence of a “love jihad” conspiracy. In recent years, converts to the idea of “love jihad” have included outfits like the Global Council of Indian Christians. Academics say the idea goes back much further.

Writing in the Economic and Political Weekly in December 2009, Charu Gupta, a history professor at Delhi University, noted, “The fake claim by the Hindu right that there is a ‘love jihad’ organisation which is forcing Hindu women to convert to Islam through false expressions of love is similar to a campaign in the 1920s in north India against alleged ‘abductions’.” Whether in 1920 or 2009, patriarchal notions lie at the core of the “love jihad” idea. “Images of passive victimised Hindu women at the hands of inscrutable Muslims abound, and any possibility of women exercising their legitimate right to love and their right to choice is ignored,” says Ms Gupta.

But how has “love jihad” become such a key element of the political discourse in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh? Why are those crying hoarse about forced marriages only talking about love marriages between Hindus and Muslims?

While the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national spokespersons have typically refrained from directly commenting on “love jihad”, and the political resolution passed at the party’s two-day Uttar Pradesh executive meet did not make any direct reference to it, there has been no attempt to stop footsoldiers from venting their emotions. The BJP’s state unit has cautioned local youth against entanglements between Hindu girls and Muslim boys and openly accused the Samajwadi Party government of being “lenient” on youth belonging to the minority community. That the Samajwadi Party has a shameful record in law and order does not help.

The revival of the Hindu-women-in-danger narrative raises many important questions which go beyond the electoral calculations that underpin the hullabaloo over “love jihad”.

Cheating, deception and use of force in a relationship, including marriage, are crimes. The culprits must be punished irrespective of the faith they profess. But through the popularisation of the term “love jihad”, those who marry people from another faith are being increasingly persecuted by self-professed protectors of Hindus, even when there’s no fraud, deception or coercion. When this is pointed out, many ask why anybody in an inter-faith marriage needs to change his or her religion.

A marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim is perfectly valid if it is solemnised under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. But as Shubhangi Singh, a lawyer with the Lucknow-based Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), explains, the Special Marriage Act that recognises inter-faith marriage has one complication — it requires a one-month public notice, which an eloping couple is afraid to give. Conversion is the short-cut. Though there is no estimate of how many of these conversions are forced, clearly this legal issue needs to be sortedout.

But an equally important issue is why the talk is only about love marriages between Hindus and Muslims? What about other forms of forced marriages, such as child marriages that are widespread across the country, despite laws that criminalise them. Are those railing against “love jihad” suffering from selective amnesia?

Uttar Pradesh, currently the epicentre of the “love jihad” controversy, has one of the worst records in the country on child marriage. Last year, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) wrote to the Uttar Pradesh government, seeking an explanation about why around 73 per cent females in Maharajganj district were being married off before turning 18, the legal age of marriage. The national picture is dismal. Over one-fifth of Indian girls get married before 18.

This proportion is much higher in states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. This is not a poll issue because it is a vote loser. But ignoring these forced marriages is not an option if we are serious about human development. Teenage girls forced into marriage by their families are mostly pulled out of school. As a result, they lack basic education and skills for gainful employment, thus exacerbating the vicious cycle of poverty. They often suffer domestic violence and are unable to break out of what effectively becomes their prison. There are serious health consequences.

The risk of maternal death for girls below 15 is double that of older women. These facts are well-known and are recorded in report after report. Ms Singh of AALI says that many girls who sought their help were minors who wanted to study further, make something of their lives, but feared they would be married off. In many other instances the girls are adults who wanted to marry someone whom their parents did not approve of, and had to run away to escape a forced marriage. It is a common predicament, affecting both Hindus and Muslims.

It is for the police to take action against forced conversions. For those choosing statesmanship over politicking, the fight should be against all forced marriages and for an adult woman’s right to choose her partner.

The writer focuses on development issues in India and emerging economies.
She can be reached at patralekha.chatterjee@gmail.com