On November 28, the Uttar Pradesh government cleared an ordinance to prevent “love jihad”, a right-wing conspiracy theory which claims tha...
On November 28, the Uttar Pradesh government cleared an ordinance to prevent “love jihad”, a right-wing conspiracy theory which claims that Muslim men are seducing and marrying Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam. The new law, while penalising forced religious conversions, also makes it mandatory for an individual to seek the state government’s permission if they wish to convert to another religion in order to get married.
Uttar Pradesh has already arrested about 35 people under this law, but is not the only state cracking down on “love jihad”. Last week, the Madhya Pradesh cabinet cleared a similar bill while three other Bharatiya Janata Party-led states – Karnataka, Haryana and Assam – have announced plans to pass such laws.
Hindutva organisations have been raising the bogey of love jihad for nearly a decade, targeting inter-faith couples and Muslim men even though no evidence of such forced religious conversions through marriage have been found so far. The demand for laws hindering inter-faith marriages, however, is incongruent with the right wing’s other favourite demand: a uniform civil code.
By definition, a uniform civil code involves having a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce, succession and adoption for all Indians, instead of allowing different personal laws for people of different faiths....
