Right to choice of women

Context: The Uttar Pradesh government has cleared an ordinance that enables the state to police and punish inter-faith marriages with “the sole intention of changing a girl’s religion”.

Discuss the issues associated with the law against love jihad.

• Law against fundamental rights: By clearing the ordinance, the state government has trespassed the fundamental right to marry guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
• Problem with this law: Neither clan council nor khap panchayat, and certainly not a democratic government, has the licence to vet personal choices as right or wrong.
• “Love jihad” ordinance is being peddled as measures taken for the security and “respect” of women.
• Law can be abused: Allowing the police to examine subjective “intentions” of men and women entering a marriage sets the law up for widespread abuse.
• It legitimises a rank communal fantasy: It continues the pessimistic politics that seeks to organise Hindu unity by fuelling the anxieties about the ‘Muslim Other’ and treasures it in law.
• Patriarchal fear: The law’s scrutiny is specially focussed on a woman’s change of faith reveals the patriarchal fear behind it.
• An attempt to police women’s lives: The pretentiousness of protection, indeed, masks a fear of female sexuality that will not be contained by caste and clan barriers.
• It is used to police women’s lives and choices, often by violence, as is evident in the history of “honour killings”.

Way forward

• The government must withdraw the proposed law as in the eyes of law men and women are not only members of religions, but individuals with “free will and choice”.

The Doha agreement and Afghan Peace Process