That there is no bar in the law against a woman who has reached marriageable age to marry a man of her choice, irrespective of his identity or antecedents gives us the hope that justice will be eventually done to the inter-faith married couple from Kerala (“Produce Hadiya on Nov.27: SC tells father”, Oct. 31).
The “well-oiled machine’’ said to be going about with “indoctrination and psychological kidnapping” of Hindu girls is only a figment of right wing’s imagination deployed to fight a political battle. If a Hindu girl has found in Islam a faith to which she relates better and in a Muslim boy her life-partner, so be it.
To be blunt, “love jihad” is a bogey created by the right wing to malign a community. The canard that young Hindu women are brainwashed and made to fall in love with Muslim men and convert to Islam stems from the fear that inter-faith marriages will bring about demographic changes. The false narrative of “love jihad” is flagged to circumvent the twin constitutional provisions guaranteeing freedom of religion and individual choice. Inter-religious marriages need to be celebrated, not opposed. Religious considerations should not come in the way of “the marriage of true minds’’ (Shakespeare’s sonnet: 116). The Hindu revivalists must let the inter-faith couples live. We wish Hadiya all strength, come November 27, “to stand by her man” in the face of “impediments”.
G. David Milton
Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu
Kerala offers very famous cases of Hindus who have converted to Islam
What was so strange about Hadiya’s conversion, when she herself appeared in court and said that her conversion was voluntary? What’s interesting is that this case isn’t even a classic example of so-called love jihad. The woman converted much earlier and got married years later. When we have a constitution which guarantees freedom of religion which includes the right to convert to any religion, why must she be prevented from marrying a man of her choice?
Padmini Raghavendra,
Secunderabad
