Caste, Gender and anti-love jihad of the HNOs
Caste, Gender and anti-love jihad of the HNOs
The Hate “Foreigner” Jihad of Hindu Nationalist Organisations Part – 4
Irfan Engineer
Campaign by the HNOs against “love jihad” is not simpliciter opposition to abduction and rape or even seduction of Hindu woman by Muslim men, but it is opposition to “mixing of blood” between various castes and between the two communities. Caste system prohibits intermarriages to perpetuate hierarchical social division based on birth. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in his essay on “Castes in India” feels that prohibition of intermarriages or endogamy is the essence of caste. Ambedkar writes, “Caste in India means an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy. Thus the conclusion is inevitable that endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste, ...” (emphasis as in original). Caste based hierarchies cannot be perpetuated without controlling women’s sexuality.
Though the anti-“love jihad” campaign appears to be campaign against an “enemy community” having evil designs, it is also simultaneously a campaign to strengthen control over Hindu women and assert patriarchal authority by the men of the family and community. The family and the caste decides where they should get married following the exogamous gotra (prohibited degree of matrimonial relations) considerations and endogamous norms, economic status of the families, agreement over dowry etc. The khap panchayats enforce these norms and dealing violent and immoral punishments to those who cross these boundaries, which include sexual assault on the woman involved and murder, which ironically is called honour killing. The khap panchayats have drawn the limits – lakshman rekha – which confine the young women of the community and include not travelling after sunset, unless accompanied by a male relative, not carrying mobile phones, restrictions on internet usage, dress code to be followed and places to be visited. The Muslim community and the khap panchayats impose same restrictions on the women of the community. The anti-love jihad campaign finds ready and willing support among the men in particular and elders in general having daughters in the family as it is a backhanded campaign for restrictions on women’s movements impacting their education, participation in livelihoods, access to family assets, liberties and choices.
HNOs’ anti-love jihad campaign not only targets the ‘enemy community’, it also targets the women of Hindu community by imagined incidences and exaggerated claims as in all other campaigns. Without substantiating, according to the campaign, there have been 25000 cases of Muslim boy-Hindu girl marriage in Kerala alone since 2006! Social media, print media and violence is deployed to repeat the inflated figures and so widely broadcasted that it is accepted as factual position. This creates a situation where Hindu women themselves submit to the restrictions imposed by the men of the community and see them as protectors. However, Hindu women need to be protected from Hindu men as well, just as Muslim women face marginalization and oppression from Muslim men as well. Female foeticide, dowry deaths, sexual assaults by men within the family and close relatives, teasing, pawing and pinching in crowded places, stalking, denying inheritance, discriminating in every field, domestic violence, matrimonial disputes etc. are but a few examples. The HNOs are not known to have taken up the cause of gender justice and security of women from the men of the family they belong to.
Indian Democracy and interreligious marriages
The HNOs want us to believe that there is something devilish about young people getting attracted to each other, developing friendship and choosing their life partners. Will the 100 “smart cities” that PM Modi wants to develop practice gender and communal segregation? If communities inhabit together, they interact, including young people and attractions are natural. Interaction between followers of different religions and cultural traditions in fact helps people understand themselves better and learn good things from each other. Interaction not only enriches all cultures, it also produces interesting cultural diversity. Urban cities provide spaces for such interactions be it neighbourhoods, markets, educational institutions, recreation spaces, work places, public transports, and common struggles to improve quality of life and better environment. Such spaces make segregation of communities and gender extremely difficult if not impossible. Young people will explore the world afresh and unlearn the prejudices and limitations of previous generations and look at the world with their own perspective.
Indian Constitution gives rights to citizens to profess, practice and even propagate religion of their choice and have individual liberties and right to exercise their choice within the confines of law. While the communal elite want those rights to be vested in the elite of the respective community and to impose uniform, homogenous and hegemonic culture that restricts liberties of individuals. The khap panchayats and communal elements want to negate the liberties and choices which individuals are vested with in a democracy.
The people of India emerging out of colonial rule gave themselves a democratic constitution with a vision of social justice, pluralism and embracing diversity. The Constitutional vision, unlike the khap and communal vision was to allow the individual freedom to choose and fashion their lives, including their life partners. Therefore, in 1954, Special Marriage Act was enacted for two individuals, whether belonging to different religion, caste, linguistic or ethnic group or not they could solemnize their marriage without any religious or traditional rituals with mere vow to accept each other as their life partners. While the Hindu Nationalist view, as indeed of other communal and caste elite, is to invade and fetter individual liberties and monitor choices of individuals and set up organizations, institutions and mechanisms to force communal and parental choices on people. Gujarat Model empowering the revenue officials to invade personal choices of life partners. Affording liberal choices would steer India towards a stronger democratic country with rich diversity.
To achieve this goal, we will have to build robust educational institutions which encourage students to critically explore the world. The educational programmes should not be confined to schools and colleges but to the sites where feudal hierarchies are asserting and essentializing religion and caste identities. Education and knowledge comes from the sites of struggles to change the world and to empower the marginalized. We must ask the younger generation – the aspirational generation which was mislead to vote for those who put restrictions on individual choices – What would they want – India that is marching towards democracy and liberating the marginalized or feudal hierarchies investing in perpetual supremacist and hegemonic claims, conflicts and stigmatization of the other. I have no doubt that the aspirational generation would choose the former.
The Hate “Foreigner” Jihad of Hindu Nationalist Organisations Part – 1
Why does Hindutva problematize Love?
Love Jihad Campaign and the BJP
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Caste, Gender and anti-love jihad of the HNOs, The Hate “Foreigner”, Jihad of Hindu Nationalist Organisations,Indian Democracy and interreligious marriages, stigmatize interreligious marriages,Love Jihad Campaign and the BJP,Love Jihad,BJP
