When Hindu-Muslim, Brahmin-Dalit marry, what dies? Quite simply the dominance/politics surrounding these identities
Women protest against 'Love Jihad' in Ahmedabad. Pic/AFP File
A common mating ritual in the late 2000s, if you observed casually on the roads of Tehran (where a sixth of Iran lives), involved young women holding placards with their phone numbers across it by car windows — soon as traffic stopped at a junction, and they saw boys in parallel lanes, showing interest through the eyes.
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Yes, the girls made the first move. Which is the surest sign of gender equality. Something you couldn't otherwise gauge about the place of women, under an Islamic/Iranian government, that actively employs special moral-police forces outside malls, etc, to mind women's dresses, and intermingling of sexes.
How do Tehranis negotiate love now? Haven't been back since. But even in 2008, Iran had the world's second-highest number of bloggers, despite an Internet connection slower than Indian dial-up of the '90s.
Pretty sure the young have naturally adapted to FB/Insta/Snapchat/TikTok, or most likely, dating apps Bumble/Tinder/Hinge to establish gentle contacts, that naturally develop into connections/companionships, casual/serious — all of it safely away from prying eyes of the State on the street, and conservative oldies at homes/neighbourhoods.
Which is at least progressively becoming the case, I sense, in small-town India — hitherto altogether segregated genders, finding ways/means of being in touch, through personal technology that frees you up to be who you are. Rather than simply the caste/religion you're born into, after boy or girl.
Both of them can potentially match online, over a series of identities that define them far more — how they're like (to each other); what they like doing (together); how they view the world (in its future, or the past); who they love on screen (Shah Rukh or Salman; it tells you a lot0...
Who loses out again in this natural selection between equals? That loveless, luckless, charmless, involuntary celibate, living inside an ugly mind, consequently an unbeautiful body, with a stick in his hand — going around harassing/beating up consenting couples in parks and cafes in towns like Ujjain/Aurangabad/Bijnaur/Meerut, on Valentine's Day — upholding morality.
What does morality really do? Benefits him the most! And he finds a political cover for his own inadequacies. Because this upholder of civilisational values is firstly the voter, who's enlisted himself as supporter, campaigner, and a self-styled activist. He's useful for politics. Only an arranged marriage will save his love-life anyway.
Also, what if the girl in the park is Hindu and the boy Muslim (even vice versa); likewise, the couple belongs to different castes (lower and upper)? In one fell swoop, you destroy with love an identity politics built on hate. Now, who's the 'other'?
What if the guy and the girl, from different religions, wish to marry? Fact is they ordinarily can't. Families of both the girl and the boy will not allow. God knows, centuries of bread-and-butter romances have been scripted over this rebellion alone. Why look at literature/screen, pretty sure, over time, there lies a similar story in most Indian homes, more likely resulting in the defeat of love.
India's Constitution, instead of seeding suspicion/doubt, actively encourages inter-faith marriage. Even if the procedure/red-tape on ground may not always play out well. So how does an age-old, identity-based politician navigate this space still?
He introduces a concept called 'love jihad'. Chiefly involving an adult woman, who is empowered/smart enough only to vote for him. But way too dumb to tell she's been duped by an imposter, who poses to be from her religion, while he's not. That fellow resorts to similar other trickeries so he can vow to live with her — all his life! And that this is a serious epidemic.
It must be stopped through a proposed law in multiple states. I haven't read the law. There is no need to. Enough already exists to protect citizens from cheats/touts. Here's what we know: Intuitively speaking, majority of inter-faith marriages happen against wishes of parents (or extended families). Degrees of resistance may vary. A legislation that sides with parents (arming them to go after the boy they won't like) — sides against love. Let alone that this is state-capture of even an institution like marriage.
Why had we never heard of 'love jihad' before? What's changed? The woman, especially the young — inevitably the Achilles' heel for extremist/conservative thought. Her irreversible independence (financial included) threatens a male-dominated civilisation, if it looks only to its past, through a singular prism, like religion, to imagine a status-quo/future. She has the world and a cellphone in her hand, and an even more sorted place under the sun, up ahead.
The other reason for alleged bogeys like 'love jihad', of course, is quick-term/electoral gains. Best explained in House of Cards, if I may totally paraphrase: "The only way to lose power in politics is to forget, even for a second, how you got there!" The winners are always at it. But this jihad/war against love will inevitably fail. We've come too far. Tough luck with that girl; she's really not into you.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper
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