Debby Rai for BeyondHeadlines
As the much-hyped issue of ‘Love Jihad’ gathers steam across the country, several women’s rights and human rights activists have united to condemn the term as ‘insensible’ and ‘politicised’. These representatives are either advocating the right to life of the youth or questioning the political parties if they have concrete evidence of a particular community involving in a said malpractice.
Love Jihad is allegedly a practice followed by the Muslim men, wherein they lure the non-Muslim women into marriage and eventually converting them to Islam, regardless of their will. This practice is alleged to be aimed at spreading Islam.
“After the Sangh’s effort to polarise the society in the South failed, when Kerala High Court (2009) and Karnataka High Court (2010) asked police to investigate Love Jihad, only to find that there was no such mission run by Muslim boys, they have made a come-back, this time in Western UP”, claimed Vrinda Grover, a lawyer and Human rights activist. She also added that a woman, who has attained adulthood, has the capability to judge whether her partner is genuine and not misleading her.
Terming the propaganda as a tool to control the autonomy and freedom of women, and ensure that the girls don’t enjoy their right to chose the partner of their choice, women’s rights activist Jagmati Sangwan of AIDWA said, “If these leaders are so concerned about the women of their community, why is there a deafening silence about the recent suicides of two girls in Rohtak due to eve-teasing?” While citing the example of more than 30,000 same-religion marriages by Punjab’s fraud NRIs, she stressed that the right-wing is only trying to spread hatred between communities.
Activists wonder why the political leaders are not active in the areas like Haryana where Dalit women are subjected to rape every now and then. They further allege that the absence of hue and cry in such areas is because the culprits form a major chunk of the votebank.
Social activist Swami Agnivesh termed the propaganda as a ‘serious threat’ to the unity of the country and calls for the evidence before levying such sensitive charges on a particular community. “Cheating in love is prevalent in all the communities, but the linking of the term Love with Jihad clearly exposes the very motive of targeting a particular community”, he said. He further added that Arya Samaj promotes inter-religion and inter-caste marriages with an aim to promote unity within diversity.
