[A Muslim man was held under a state law passed to address accusations by Hindu nationalists that women are being lured into marriage in order to convert them to Islam.]
The
arrest in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh came days after state legislators
there approved the law aimed at curbing interfaith marriage,
which makes forced religious conversion by marriage an offense punishable by up
to 10 years in prison.
The
law is the latest in a series of measures that have steadily marginalized the
country’s Muslim minority, one of the world’s largest, since Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014.
Muslims
have faced a
wave of violence at the hands of Hindu nationalists and last year, the
Modi government enacted a blatantly anti-Muslim citizenship
law that critics said was the most alarming indication yet that it was
trying to turn India into a Hindu-centric state.
The
man arrested on Wednesday, Owais Ahmad, was accused of pressuring a Hindu woman
who was married to another man to leave her husband and convert to Islam so she
could marry him. The police said the woman’s father had previously filed and
later withdrawn a kidnapping case, after his daughter had eloped with Mr. Ahmad
in 2019 but then returned.
The
recent complaint was filed by the father a few days before Wednesday’s arrest,
which the district police said was the first under the new law.
“I
have no link with the woman,” Mr. Ahmad, who is in his early 20s, told reporters. “I am innocent.”
One of the main proponents of the anti-conversion law
is a firebrand Hindu monk, Yogi Adityanath, who is the head of Uttar Pradesh
state and a member of Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Similar
bills have been considered in other states controlled by the party, including
Haryana, Karnataka, Assam and Madhya Pradesh.
In
Madhya Pradesh, Netflix
recently came under fire after Hindu nationalists demanded that the
authorities investigate a scene in the television series “A Suitable Boy”
depicting a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy kissing against the backdrop of a Hindu
temple.
Mr.
Adityanath has long been accused of rousing anti-Muslim sentiments. Electoral
officials reprimanded him for hate speech and he once called Muslims “a crop of
two-legged animals that has to be stopped.”
Since
coming to power in his home state, a post often seen as a springboard for
future prime ministers, Mr. Adityanath has made efforts to make the term “love
jihad” mainstream and he has openly called for India to be enshrined as a Hindu
nation, which has deeply worried many of the country’s 200 million Muslims.
He
once created a volunteer vigilante
organization, the Hindu Youth Brigade.
In
2007, following the death of a Hindu youth in clashes between Hindus and
Muslims in Mr. Adityanath’s home state, he said, “If one Hindu is killed, we
won’t go to the police. Instead we will make sure we will kill 10 Muslims.”
He
was later arrested and held in custody for 15 days.
Intermarriage
between Muslims and Hindus is relatively rare in India because of conservative
norms.
While
the country remains overwhelmingly Hindu, nearly 80 percent, the focus on
interfaith relationships by anti-Muslim forces has been criticized as an attack
on the country’s secular Constitution, which guarantees equal rights to all
citizens regardless of religion. Issues involving marriage, divorce, alimony
and inheritance are handled differently among religious populations.
To
bolster secular ideals, India in 1954 overturned a British colonial-era law
that required either the bride or groom in an interfaith marriage to renounce
his or her faith.
Faizan
Mustafa, an academic and a Muslim, said he was horrified at the speed with
which many states with Hindu nationalist governments were racing to legislate
against allegedly forced religious conversions.
He
said this law was against the very idea of India and that the governing party
was trying to divert the attention of people from rising unemployment, an
ailing economy and its failure to stop the spread of coronavirus.
“They
are talking away freedom of people to choose,” said Mr. Mustafa, “which has
been given to us by the Constitution of this country.”
