Pati, patni aur police

The course of true love never runs smooth, the Bard told us hundreds of years ago. In 2016, urban professionals aspiring to be pati and patni had to contend with a protest march, a call for a bandh, burning tyres and a posse of policemen as wedding guests, just so their true love could be solemnised. Last week, in Mandya, Karnataka, Ashitha Babu, a Hindu girl from the Vokkaliga community, and Shakeel Ahmed, a Muslim boy, both in their late 20s, MBAs, who have known each other for over 10 years and were deeply in love, decided to be man and wife. The girl converted to Islam out of her own volition. The two families knew each other and had no issues with the conversion or the marriage.

But a group, reportedly claiming to be members of the Swabhimani Vokkaligara Sangha, tried to stop the wedding. They said the alliance would be an insult to the Vokkaliga community because the woman was marrying outside her community, a Muslim to boot, and had converted. The bride, according to them, was committing a grave mistake, and it was the job of the “society” to drill “sense” into her and her parents. The wedding had to be held in Mysuru, nearly 50 km from Mandya where the bride’s parents live. While the wedding celebrations were going on, members of the group were holding a demonstration outside.

If this sounds like an old story with a new cast of characters, it is partially correct. Many Hindu-Muslim marriages have ended in tragedy in the past. But this time, despite all the verbal assaults and attempts to instigate trouble, the couple and their respective families held their ground and the wedding went ahead. But we cannot relax after this good news story. Assorted groups aligned to the Hindutva brigade are relentless in their attempts to keep communal tension boiling, and the phrase “love jihad” provides powerful fuel to them. What is even more disquieting is the silence of the political parties that profess secularism. Neither the Congress which is in power in Karnataka nor the Janata Dal (Secular) of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda has spoken out loudly and clearly to affirm the right of a man and a woman to marry whoever he or she wants to, irrespective of caste, creed or religion. Nor have they supported the right of an adult to convert to whatever religion he or she wants to.

The incident in this volatile patch of Karnataka has thrown up many important questions. Reading reactions to news reports about the wedding ceremony and comments on social media, one thing is clear — your marriage is everybody’s business. Stark pictures are being painted about the future of the bride now that she has converted to Islam. Some typical forecasts — she will soon wear a burqa, be forced to produce numerous children, live a life in captivity, be subjected to Sharia laws and so on and so forth. The most commonly-asked question is: “Why didn’t they opt for a civil marriage?” The short answer: Why do so many people find it so difficult to respect choices made by others, including the choice of a partner and religion?

This is not the first attempt to intimidate couples who marry for love, transgressing customary caste and religious barriers. Often, however, couples don’t have supportive families. Luckily, neither Ashitha nor Shakeel had that problem. But as writer-activist Gauri Lankesh, editor of Lankesh Patrike, points out in a recent article, another girl, Monica, who was also a Vokkaliga and a resident of Mandya, was not as lucky. Few days before Ashitha’s wedding, Monica was allegedly killed by her own father because she had dared to fall in love with a dalit boy and had eloped with him. More significantly, wrote Ms Lankesh, groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Swabhimani Vokkaligara Vedike, which vociferously protested Ashitha marrying Shakeel, did not utter a word of remorse when Monica died. In 2014, a newly-married Hindu-Muslim couple from Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, were killed by the brothers of the woman, a Muslim.

The good news is that the backlash against fundamentalism has begun. Progressive women’s groups and others hit the streets to raise awareness about Ashitha and Shakeel, to make sure their story grabbed the headlines. And a group of writers and activists in Karnataka is demanding that the state government reserve jobs and other benefits for people who marry outside their caste or religion, as well as for the children of such couples. They argue that such unions should be encouraged to disrupt communal thinking. Karnataka already offers cash incentives for marriages between dalits and non-dalits.

According to a report in the local media, while both Hindu and Muslim fundamentalist groups seek to vitiate the atmosphere in Karnataka every now and then, the region is seeing more inter-faith marriages. In 2006, the Supreme Court in Lata Singh vs State of UP, said, “This is a free and democratic country, and once a person becomes a major he or she can marry whosoever he/she likes.” Court directives, financial incentives and civil society activism are necessary. But political parties need to speak up. Not just in Karnataka, but across the country, wherever attempts are being made to stop couples from exercising their right to marry whoever they choose. Fundamentalists from all faiths need to be taught a lesson. Today, professedly secular politicians are keeping quiet about religious and caste fundamentalism because they think by speaking up they will lose many more votes than they will gain. They are failing to gauge the extent to which young India is changing — a trend they are ignoring only at their peril.

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