Blocking Love Through Laws !

 BY R.K.MISRA

Courts are the last resort of individuals when politics seeks to overwhelm their lives.

On June 12,1967, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the case of  Loving v. Virginia when it ruled unanimously that state laws prohibiting interracial marriage violated the promise of equal protection before law. The case became a touchstone of civil rights laws, says Anastasia Boden in a treatise titled ‘The Courts are a haven from political fights’ .The extracts of it  find place on Pacific Legal Foundation,  a non-profit legal organization that defends Americans’ liberties when threatened by government overreach and abuse.

According to Anastasia, The Constitution(and by extension, the justices who enforce it) take some aspect of our lives off the political table so that we can live it free of the backdoor deals, lobbying, cajoling, compromising and unholy alliances that come with partisan politics.

Last week, in an interesting case of near similar vein , the Gujarat High Court upheld a woman’s right to choose her spouse and junked the family’s custody plea. She had married a Muslim man who converted to the Hindu faith. The Ahmedabad based mother sought custody of the daughter suspecting coercion  though she had been mailed a marriage certificate to prove that the marriage had taken place according to Hindu rituals. Post-marriage the couple sought protection from the High Court  which was granted.  ”She is a major and entered a marriage with a person of her choice  and has neither been illegally confined nor  abducted against her will”, it ruled in finality.

This case brings into sharp focus the immense stress that couples who seek to brave religious divides in quest of matrimonial bliss are facing in a democratic country whose Constitution guarantees them a mate of their choice.

According to published reports, the love jihad laws being enacted in BJP- ruled states are nothing but old wine in new bottles. Since these are beyond existing legal bounds, age-old anti-conversion laws or the Freedom of Religion Acts that deal with forced conversions are being re-dressed with ‘majoritarian’  intent to fulfill politically polarising purposes. According to available information, these laws were passed or sought to be passed in at least 9 Indian states including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand.

Gujarat is a case in point for Narendra Modi’s initiatives in his home state became the sacrosanct template for his party governments  after he assumed power at the Centre in 2014.

In 2003 when he was chief minister, the Gujarat Assembly passed a Bill providing for freedom of religion by prohibition of conversion from one religion to another through use of force or allurement or by fraudulent means. It received the assent of the Governor and was published in the Gujarat Government Gazette on April  8,2003. In April 2021, The Gujarat  government was back in the State Assembly with an Gujarat Freedom of Religion(Amendment) Bill 2021 that prohibited forcible conversion by marriage. The amended Bill that includes ’better lifestyle as an allurement and awards imprisonment punishment of  three to ten years for religious conversion was passed by the BJP with majority but Congress opposing. Since conversion is not possible ,even for marriage under the Gujarat Act, couples seek safer havens in other states to by-pass Gujarat. Basic instincts and matters of the heart are least enamoured of laws or politically delineated boundaries !

Interestingly ‘Love jihad’ is a Sangh Parivar coined term to conceptualise a ‘muslim’ conspiracy to convert unsuspecting ‘Hindu’ women to Islam.

However, it again fell to the lot of the judiciary to stand up for the Constitution when in August 2021,The Gujarat High Court granted parties in inter-faith marriages protection from being  “unnecessarily harassed “ and stayed the operation of several sections of the Freedom of Religion Amendment Act ,2021 including the provision that termed inter-faith marriages as means for forceful conversion. The Gujarat government moved the Supreme Court against the stayed sections even though the then deputy chief minister ,Nitin Patel went on record to state that the Constitution, secularism will last only as long as Hindus are in majority in Gujarat. Ominous observations coming from a gentleman in authority and indicating intent.

In January  this year, the apex Court began hearing on two PILs challenging two  anti-conversion laws passed in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh which sought to prohibit religious conversion by marriage and make it mandatory to give notice of conversion to state authorities. It was filed by the Citizens for Justice and peace, an NGO.

Interestingly the UP cabinet granted its approval to the UP Unlawful Religious Conversions Prohibition Ordinance 2020 just a day after  the Allahabad High Court stated that the right to live  with a person of his/her choice, irrespective of religion is intrinsic to life and personal liberty”.

Political configurations have a polarizing poll agenda, the judiciary stand  overwhelmed by pending  numbers, the genuine justice seeker oscillates in- between, caught between a rock and a hard place. Purola in Uttarakhand is the latest example wherein an allegedly attempted abduction saw itself transformed into a love Jihad case in the pursuit of a   political objective. The final outcome is anybody’s guess.

First published in editions dated June 27,2023.

http://epaper.lokmat.com/articlepage.php?articleid=LOKTIME_NPLT_20230627_6_1

http://odishapostepaper.com/edition/4550/orissapost/page/9