Political Diary

New Delhi, 30 August 2014

Love Jihad Or Romeo War

HOLIER THAN THOU CONVERSIONS!

By Poonam I Kaushish

India is caught up in a battle royale between the Gods, in a new age avatar: Love Jihad (LJ). Whereby, ishq-mohabat-shaadi cutting across caste and religious boundaries inter-meshed with forced conversions has churned the political cauldron resulting in an unholy clash between the ‘holier than thou’!

It all started last month with the Hindutva Brigade led by the ruling BJP crying blue murder in the aftermath of the sensational Meerut gang rape and forced conversion case. Topped by the arrest of national shooter Tara Shahdeo’s husband Raqibul Hasan Khan alias Ranjit Kumar Kohli after she accused him of deceiving her into marriage and forcefully converting her to Islam. Thereby, reopening the can of worms of the old familiar enemy, Love Jihad nee Romeo Jihad country wide.

In UP the RSS, VHP, Sri Ram Sena and Bajrang Dal have banded a “Bahu-Beti Bachao Sangharsh Samit, Bharat Bachao” and unleashed an aggressive, systematic campaign to create “awareness” and combat ‘Hindu Auraton ki Loot’ via Love Jihad. Towards that end rallies have been planned against the forceful conversion of vulnerable Hindu women to Islam through trickery and marriage. The Dharma Jagran Manch is busy tying rakhis on Hindu girls, requesting them not to fall prey to Muslim men.

In fact, this phenomenon is fast gaining popularity in already deeply communalised political atmosphere of Western UP notorious for its brutal practice of honour killings, specially post the Muzzafarnagar riots. It has added to communal tensions amongst religious groups thereby endangering peace and harmony. The modus operandi is simple. Young Muslim men call themselves Sonu Bhai, Pappu bhai wear red hand bands to appear Hindus and then trap girls to elope and marry.

Not many are aware the LJ programme started in 1996 with blessings of some Muslim organizations in Kerala, though the term was first heard in the State’s Pathanamthitta district in September 2009 and used in a Kerala High Court judgment three months later. Dubbing it ‘an alleged Muslim plot to forcefully convert young brilliant Hindu girls to Islam by having Muslim boys entrap them in love affairs’, it asked the State Government to consider enacting a law to prohibit such “deceptive” acts of LJ”.

Notwithstanding denials by Islamic fundamentalist outfits like National Democratic Front (NDF) and ‘Campus Front’ of Popular Front of India (PFI), the State’s Chief Minister Oommen Chandy informed the Assembly in June that 2667 young women were converted to Islam since 2006. Police figures, on the other hand total over 4000 conversions in the last four years alone. Add to this another 30,000 girls have been converted in Karnataka alone according to the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti.

Importantly, religious conversion has become the most exploited and explosive social and political issue in India. Reminiscent of the flurry of orchestrated propaganda campaign and popular inflammatory and demagogic appeals launched by the Arya Samaj and other Hindu revivalist bodies in the 1920s in UP, against the “abduction” and conversions of Hindu women by Muslim goondas, ranging from allegations of rape, elopement to luring, conversion, love and forced marriages to draw sharper lines between Hindus and Muslims. Although the term “love jihad” was not used at the time.

Turn North, South, East or West, the story is the same. Religion is turning out to be a question of money, big money. Recall, flush with funds from their headquarters in the US, a number of church groups allegedly converted hundreds of Hindus to Christianity in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Kashmir and Karnataka by giving them money and jobs in the decades post Independence.

On the flip side, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal too established groups of armed youth, called Raksha Sena, in every village of Chhattisgarh, in order to stop conversions to Christianity.  And where conversions had taken place another movement called the Ghar Wapsi (“Return Home”) was launched in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Orissa for reconverting the tribal Christian back to Hinduism.

To put an end to this six States: Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat have enacted anti-conversion laws that bar conversions but allow re-conversions to Hinduism. Jharkhand has declared its intention to enact a similar law.

The tragedy of it all is that Hindu, Muslim and Christian fundamentalism does not occur in a vacuum. It has a context. Of political and intellectual double-speak. Thus, pseudo-secularism has become a populist stock in trade.  Wherein secularism has degenerated from its lofty ideal of equal respect for all religions to a cheap and diabolical strategy for creating minority vote-banks.

In fact, Article 25 of our Constitution which lays down the tenets of freedom of religion has an important rider.  It specifies the limits within which religious freedom can be exercised. All persons, it states are equally entitled to freedom of conscience, and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health. 

Dispute, if any, can only be on the interpretation of the expression “propagate any religion”.  Suffices to say that the State will not allow its citizens to do whatever they please in the name and under the guise of religion.  Clearly, our political Parties debunk Article 25 in quest of minority votes.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court settled this matter in 1973 wherein it distinguished between the right to proselytize and the right to convert. Upholding the Constitutional validity on anti-conversion laws enacted by Orissa and Madhya Pradesh in 1967-68, it ruled: “What the Constitution grants is not the right to convert another person to one’s own religion, but to transmit or spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenders.” The Court also observed that organized conversion was anti-secular and that respect for all religions was the essence of India’s secularism.

Undeniably, the tales of the 1920s and of 2014 have certain common strains. Both campaigns are critically tied to a number-crunching politics and claims of Hindu homogeneity. Also, what the Muzaffarnagar riots were to the Lok Sabha elections in UP, the BJP is perhaps hoping ‘Love Jihad’ will be to the State Assembly elections in 2017.

Clearly, religious conversions have nothing to do with protecting the sanctity of a religion. Nor does religious freedom justify extension to a planned programme of conversions. Such exercises are an aggression against the religious freedom of others.

Surely, no quarter should be given to Muslim or Hindu communalism.  At the same time, however, secularism cannot be a one-way street. Said Nehru, following the Mahatma’s assassination: “The combination of politics and religion, resulting in communal politics, is a most dangerous combination, and must be put an end to”.

The tragedy of India is that its political class wants the present show to go on. Forgetting, that there is no mysticism in the secular character of the State.  The State is neither anti-God nor pro-God. It is expected to treat all religions and people alike. But so caught up are all in their frenzied pursuit of political nirvana through separatism, that they confuse themselves and history. Time we put a stop to converting religious gush into political slush. True love jihad, anyone? ----- INFA  

(Copyright, India News and  Feature Alliance)