First the disclaimer!
This post is not intended for those who have chosen
to live the way they have known to. Rather it is for cynics like me who will oppose,
object, reply and resist for my right to decide for life’s choices.
I am a Muslim woman married to a Hindu man. And Yes!
We are as we have been.
We had been pursued, coerced, intimidated, hated,
threatened, persecuted and jeered but we still remain as we are. Rock solid in
character and together in relationship!
I look forward to a life for my eleven year old daughter
where she would be the commander –in- chief of her life and its choices and I playing
her mentor and facilitator.
A newspaper report immensely disturbs me today.
“Top Counter-Terror Agency,
NIA, To Probe Kerala 'Love Jihad' Marriage”, it reads. It sounds like a victory
story written gleefully by over enthusiastic journalists. “The accused husband
has expressed hope that he will be united to his lovely wife”, implying it is
an achievement that the top court (Supreme Court) had intervened and asked the
country’s top investigating agency to investigate the motive of the interfaith marriage.
And that NIA would report back truly “that the marriage was out of love and not
for jihad, hence the couple will be reunited”.
The Kerela High Court order had
declared their marriage invalid in May this year and had asked the girl to go
and live with her parents. Hadiya the said wife is a twenty four year old
homeopath practitioner. The top court while comparing it to the blue whale
challenge usually taken by teenagers observed that the investigating agency
should look into aspects of “Love Jihad”.
Her father alleged that his vulnerable
daughter was targeted by the Muslim boy and he had ISIS links. What is
appalling is the fact that even the lawyer of the investigating agency observes
that there is a certain pattern. “Girls who have differences with their parents
are targeted’, first they convert and then they are married”, he was explaining
on TV.
Ironically in this matter, terror
cases are not being investigated. The agency is rather looking at the motive of
the marriage between the convert girl and her Muslim husband. The girl converted to Islam two years back and
then met the guy and married him.
But today let’s not discuss the
merit of terror allegations against the couple. Had there been any I am sure
the top court would have directed the top investigating agency to get on top of
it and bust the links and arrest the couple.
The court hasn’t.
It has rather declared their
marriage invalid. Never has a dowry killing, rape, domestic violence,
alcoholism, unnatural sexual behavior, extra marital involvement, captivity,
slavery been the reason to declare a marriage invalid. In several cases of
rape, rather the court has tried and mediated and proposed marriage to the
victim, to bring in legitimacy to the sexual violence.
But in this case the court
seems to be very enthusiastic to learn about the objectives for marriage.
Although the marriage was solemnized according to Shariah personal law (Islamic
law), ie the civil law prevalent in the country under Article 25, yet the Indian
top court intervenes to learn about the motive of the conjugal union.
I am deeply concerned about the
factors that must have played in the minds of the honorable judges when they declared
the marriage null and void. Even if the marriage is for a purpose of terror activities
as goes the allegation of the girl’s father, how does it turn their union invalid?
Can you reboot a marriage? What
if the girl was not married according to the Islamic rituals but according to
Hindu social wedding with the Mantras and the Pheras for seven lives! How would
have the marriage been undone then? Is this an apt scene for an “Ulta Fera”
witnessed in Hindi TV soaps where a wrong matra or punditji misdemeanors could only
reverse the “feras”.
A women, all of twenty four
years, independent professional is declared vulnerable enough to be duped by a
boy to change her faith and agree to be his life partner. All of this is
because the father has objections to her change of faith. And she is sent back under
police protection to stay at her father’s house that she had willfully left to
convert and marry the man of her choice.
In usual circumstances most women
change their name, family, home, appearance, dreams, desires all to adjust to
her marriage willfully. Most cases it is considered so normal that a change of
name, home or family is considered to be matter of her choice. Her sacrifices
are hailed as virtues. But here just that it has been decided by the girl
herself, it is unacceptable to her parents, society and even the highest law
body.
Never has a government
investigating agency investigated and submitted reports on the “pattern of the
crime”, and caught any invalidity in any other marriage?
In this case it does. Is it
because the father of the girl has objections to her faith? Or is it because a society cannot accept a
woman taking decisions of her own life! How long will it take for women to slip
out of the control of dominating privileged people to take her own life’s
decisions?
It is not just painful, but
terribly shameful.
The courts full of men deciding
for a woman and her choice in life. They object to her knowledge, her understanding,
her decision and even her marriage conducted by her sole choice. Why has ever
no courts looked into motives of marriage when parents choose guys for their
daughters and pay hefty sum of money as dowry in exchange of taking her. Why
has ever no one investigated to find out why does an ugly looking man go bride
hunting the most beautiful faces in the country.
Women have equal rights to
decide, defy, deride and disregard a prevalent system. If she does not get
along with her parents and she decides to live alone or with someone else she has
a right to?
If the right of the father to
propagate, preach and procure a faith of choice is not a concern for anyone,
why is it a concern for a daughter who decides on her own? Why will she be sent
to live in her parent’s house that she had willfully left? How does a twenty
four year old remain vulnerable while a fifty something father is not?
This story is heart breaking.
Not because it is an interfaith love story that I personally relate to but
because it is anti-women as citizens.
Had she been the boy? Had there
been same faith marriage yet with terror links? Would the court still call the
marriage invalid?
A court is a the highest
institution for ordinary citizen expected to provide social justice of the
highest order that includes safeguarding decision making rights of all
citizens. I say even if the case was of love jihad, and the couple could have
been guilty of harboring terror, they should be tried for their action not for
their motive to get married.
Terror cannot be countered with
inculcating more fear in the minds of the vulnerable sections that the court
considers a woman to be. If we are unable to stand by her we as a society fail
to provide basic human rights to a woman who was just deciding for herself.
