The Politics of Love Jihad and its Constitutional Validity
Published on: 1 February 2021, 07:06 am
Love jihad is a tool of propaganda that creates social divides. It has no connection to the lived reality of Indians but its scourge is spreading across the country. The Supreme Court must address the constitutional morality of the enactments and promulgations on love jihad, which militate against freedom of religion and dignity of women and polarise society, write ZEESHAN AHMAD AND ZAIN HAIDER.
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Noted political scientist Ishtiaq Ahmed wrote in his book, Jinnah: His Success, Failure and Role in History, that once "ideas [such as of Pakistan as a separate nation], or more concrete forms of them as ideology, gain popular currency and become part of political discourse, they acquire a life of their own and… [it] may no longer be possible for those who originally created or popularised them to control or withdraw [them]."
Ahmed's observations eerily reflect how the divisive "love jihad" debate has progressed in India. Two recently promulgated anti-conversion ordinances in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020, and the Freedom of Religion Act, 2020, respectively, are attempts to impart legal sanctity to what Ahmed refers to as ideas that acquire a life of their own and refuse to be tamed.
For long, the idea of carving out Pakistan as an independent nation was espoused only by a fringe in undivided India, but once out in the public arena the idea gathered steam until it became reality. So is the case with the idea of love jihad. It has grown over the years, as Hindu right-wing leaders carried out systematic campaigns that have given it a life of its own. Now it has become a force in itself, and, like the idea of separate nations for Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent, love jihad has the potential to communalise everyday life and drive a sharp wedge between India's Hindu and Muslim communities.
Facts and reason are alien to emotive campaigns such as love jihad. They are solely based on the imagination and seek brew a sense of victimhood among the majority community. Yet, contrary to perception, love jihad has neither emerged spontaneously nor is the undue alarm over interfaith marriages spreading in isolation. History holds a lesson here.
The love jihad controversy can be traced to the 1920s, when the Arya Samaj launched the Shuddhi (purification) movement to bring Hindus back into the fold from other religions they had adopted. Pamphlets with provocative titles such as "Hindu striyon ki loot ke karan—Because of the loot of Hindu women", were circulated and often led to deadly riots across north India, especially in the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh).