[Right-wing Hindu nationalists have labeled the case an instance of what they call “love jihad,” after a belief that India’s minority Muslims will take over the country by persuading Hindu women to marry them and convert to Islam.]
By Maria Abi-Habib and Suhasini
Raj
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The Supreme Court ruled
that Hadiya, center, had a right to choose her spouse
and convert to another
religion. Credit Sivaram V/Reuters
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India’s Supreme Court has upheld the right of
citizens to choose their spouse and convert to another religion, a landmark
ruling in a case involving what right-wing Hindu nationalists refer to as “love
jihad.”
The judgment, which came on Monday, was seen
as a blow to the governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The
court’s decision effectively ended a two-year quest by a father to nullify his
daughter’s marriage to a Muslim man in the southern state of Kerala, saying
that she had been forced to convert to Islam.
The daughter says she acted of her own free
will.
Right-wing Hindu nationalists have labeled
the case an instance of what they call “love jihad,” after a belief that
India’s minority Muslims will take over the country by persuading Hindu women
to marry them and convert to Islam.
Hindus make up around 74 percent of the
country’s population of 1.3 billion, and Muslims 14 percent. Hindu nationalists
also oppose conversions to Christianity.
Although India’s Constitution is secular and
provides protection to all faiths, the issue of “love jihad” has gripped
headlines, pitting secular activists against their religious peers and
government officials.
Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director at
Human Rights Watch, said it was “sad for India that a court needs to remind the
country of these very basic constitutional liberties.”
“That there’s an increasing group of people
who think they can get away with forcing their ideology on people — that speaks
to a lack of rule of law,” she said. “The courts stopped two consenting adults
from continuing their marriage.”
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi — an
avowed Hindu nationalist — came to power in 2014, sectarian violence has risen,
according to a study by the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom, a government body.
Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision is the
culmination of a two-year battle between Hadiya, a 26-year-old student, and her
father, Asokan K.M.
When Hadiya converted to Islam in January
2016, her father filed a report with the police, claiming that his daughter’s
conversion had been coerced as part of an elaborate tactic by the Islamic State
to recruit her to fight in Syria. Months later, she married a Muslim man,
Shafin Jahan, adding to her father’s resolve to have his daughter placed in his
custody, at the family home.
Hadiya, who was born Akhila Asokan and
changed her name after converting, said she had converted of her own free will
and did not even have a passport that would have enabled her to leave the
country to join the Islamic State.
The high court of Kerala State, where the
family lives, annulled the marriage last May, ruling that “a girl aged 24 years
is weak and vulnerable, capable of being exploited.”
Hadiya, who then returned to her family home,
has told activists and the courts that her father beat her and committed her to
a yoga center, where she says she was tortured and forced to convert back to
Hinduism. Hadiya’s father declined to comment.
Her lawyer, Haris Beeran, said on Tuesday
that she was keeping a low profile. Worried about threats from right-wing Hindu
nationalists, she filed an affidavit in the courts in February saying that she
fears for her life.
Her husband, with whom she has been reunited,
is being investigated by India’s National Investigation Agency, a government
counterterrorism body, for possible links to radical Islamist groups. His
supporters call it a trumped-up charge to derail the couple’s marriage in the
courts by making it seem that her conversion was part of a larger jihadist
plot.
“They have been married and forced to live
away from each other for the past year, facing harassment from her family and
the N.I.A.,” Mr. Beeran said in a telephone interview.
“They are relieved” after the court’s
verdict, he said.
Secular activists hope the ruling will help
protect future interfaith relationships and religious conversions, though some
worry that India’s rule of law is too weak to prevent future such cases from
arising.
Hindu nationalists vowed to continue trying
to prevent interfaith relationships.
“Love jihad is a reality,” said Rakesh Sinha,
who is referred to as an “ideologue” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a
right-wing group widely seen as the parent organization of the B.J.P. “A lot of
organizations lure Hindu girls in the name of marriage.”
The “intention is to destabilize the Indian
society by initiating conversions,” he added.
