Love Jihad: The elephant in the room

I have been reading with much amusement the write-ups and views of various commentators from the wide spectrum of India’s pretentious intellectuals. They differ according to their persuasions, benefits, and urgency herewith. In most cases they follow the template of mullah-pandering-pompous-sickularism or rabid patriarchal majoritarian rant. The fratricidal war to save us is on. Few centuries back these were fight between gotras, between horizontal and vertical, completely bypassing common people. It’s a rarified field of self aggrandizement, grandeur and nitpicking –also referred to as debate -vaad samvaad parampara -the kind Amartyas of the world expertise in, without any connection with any reality.  

When you divide people in the name of religion then you will have anachronisms of love jihad, to believe that these are fictitious is pushing the issue under the carpet for greater good of sickularism and lovely world constructed herein. Some intellectuals with hand on the heart ask how could love be divided like this? Love should triumph all the barriers, they are unison about it. A kind of mush that market loves to feed on. One writer masquerading as feminist calls it as triumph of women’s right and her right over herself. While another refers to choice of partner as individual freedom and so on. Nobody has problem with these nice words but the intent is questioned. Last few years as I gain understanding of these pretentious people I have become quite careful about their intent, it’s a deep malaise. After all one needn’t forget that these have pupated from squatter’s framework. They speculated grandly on nature of universe and the very next instant cannibalised common people. Nicer words with no intent or compassion, and so secularism becomes sickularism, a potent means for social climbing and liberal exhibitionism. They carry these with flourish these days and market pays them well. What they ignore in their heightened righteousness is my concern here.

Ofcourse many are right on money but the context is quite messed up. They quite persistently don’t see the elephant in the room. Nobody is against love nor is anyone denying rights of individual, indeed one is glad about female rights being asserted in an overwhelmingly patriarchal society. But we are not living in an isolated grandness. One need to understand that extreme and biased nature of civil laws are the basic cause of these discrepancies. The muslim civil law which seem to have given free hand to blatant patriarchy as religious freedom is the concern here. Primitive practice of polygamy has created lots of problems. One cannot be naïve not to see that increasing the numbers has been the motive of controllers of religions, this give them the clout. Clearly their counterpart in Hinduism (or Sikhism or Christianity) will react hence claims of love jihad don’t go without context. Also, it need be noted that relatively limited nature of freedom accorded to muslim females also go into ‘advantage’ for the patriarchs of the religion, the issue of face cover maybe religious expression for some but it has social ramifications. One shouldn’t be surprised, it restricts space for interaction and acts as a control. How is my expression affecting others cannot be ignored. We are not living in isolation, the happening of the world and increasingly communalization of societies is a known fact. As also the history of the region has some lesson for power brokers. People will be concerned and these genuine apprehensions will be capitalized by vested interests. 

In the patriarchal nature of religion marriages are seen as an instrument to acquire child producers, to increase the numbers. Democracy is not about freedom to explore or opportunity to cherish the world but is just another god granted opportunity to work on numbers. Thus democracy has not improved democratic values instead it has become an alibi for patriarchal norms as traditions and expressions. It is as crude as that. This is the reason why conversion of religion by only woman happens in the marriage. If marriage is about love then why is there conversion of religion? Clearly it means it is more than love. Religion is very much involved.  Also, as long as love leads to conversion through marriages the patriarchal forces on the other side of the spectrum (i.e. hindu right, in this case) will cry foul and create problems. This reaction is expected. Religions are controlled by power brokers who have simple arithmetic and simpler surer dangerous view of world -and even after world. Therefore it becomes incumbent on civilized society to recognize these problems and disincentivise patriarchy in whatever forms they appear. 

Uniform Civil Code (UCC) that is based on egalitarian worldview and seeks to create gender parity is the need of the hour. That is the basis of secularism and democratic rights. Masquerading feminist will ignore the fact that it is women’s right that is curtailed when only women converts in marriage, or that a system recognizes only polygamy as choice. They may try their best to classify this as choice, but cannot ignore the reality that there is crude insistence and dire expressions of patriarchy embedded in the religion. ‘Mixed’ marriages where women convert is not an example of love or egalitarian world of choices, on the contrary it is acknowledgement of primitive patriarchy wherein uncivilised norms are sought to be mainstreamed. This is true for Hindus as well as Muslims or any other religions, deviant norms cannot be sought to define secularism. Indeed, we also need to evolve from limited world of secularism to egalitarian world of humanism.      

Freedom means the right to choose what faith one wants to follow, or better still not to fall for these degradations and anachronistic nonsense that is constant threat to humanity. If marriage is based on conversion then it is violation of that right, or least the freedom is conditioned, also keep in mind the enormous pressure people face in the society, so sometimes the decisions are based on social coercions which ofcourse is an agency of patriarchy. It could also be individual coercion by male member/partner, clearly an extension of patriarchal control. Under these circumstances marriage (what should be an extremely personal issue) no longer remains personal. It becomes focus for arbitration of power. Patriarchal nature of society sees the game plan of the other side, religion becomes fertile source for divisions, and extension of prejudices and stereotyping. Love jihad gains credence.