Kerala: "Love Jihad (Alert) Campaign" Seeks Minds for Poisoning..

November 08, 2009

HOW SAD IT IS, IF WE REALLY LOVE TO BELIEVE THAT THESE EDUCATED HINDU

GIRLS ARE HARE WITTED AND LESS BRAINY THAN THEIR PARENTS, POLICE AND

THEIR 'JEHADI' PREDATORS, TO BE CHEATED BY LOVE..!

OR ,

DOES IT RATHER SUGGEST SOMETHING LIKE AN O-C-D (Obsessive Compulsive

Disorder) ROOTED IN (lack of)LOVE, FAMILY AND SECURITY?

Protectionist attitude toward women in Kerala is now seeing the limits of absurdity.

What is so much there to probe about love affairs between people of different faiths?

What is there to probe into cases of conversion from on faith to other so long as proselytizing is perfectly recognized as constitutional and legal in secular India?

You convince me by reason (or even by giving me soaps) that Islam or Christianity is a better faith than Hiduism; I start thinking that Hinduism is really not good for ME and take a decision to covert as a Muslim or a Christian.

How can then one assume that all this happen only because of inflow of mysterious foreign funds plus destabilizing motivations linked with it?

Why the mysterious inflow of foreign funds, rather,is not checked by routine regulatory measures than by resorting to ways producing hypes and instilling fears in the minds of people about forcible conversion?

True that parents of at least two Hindu girls allegedly lured by the activists of so called 'Love Jihadis' did come up with habeous corpus writs following the disappearance of these girls from their houses.

It may also be true that the girls ultimately decide to go back to their parents on the basis of own choice, in a court of law.

But why should this be a reason for widespread fear about girls of mature age being trapped into 'Love Jihad'? What is the connection between love, choice of life partner on the one side, and theinterventions by the parents of girls,the police and the court on theother in making out such inter religion love marriages involving conversions as a huge security threat for the entire nation?

Would it not have made more sense for the media to take up such stories beyond the 'user friendly' but boundlessly ridiculous new coinage in the lexicon of hate politics like "Love Jihad"?The hate response to the so called Love Jihad by the VHP and the obscurantist Durgavahini is also being enthusiastically propagated by a section of the catholic church, SNDP Gen Secretary and a section of the Malayalam press. Campaigning in favour of imposing more parental controls on educated Hindu girls of mature age, etc are proposed as solutions to the phantom of Love Jihad . Going by reports, moral policing perhaps even uglier than the one resorted by Sri Ram Sene in Karnataka is to set to take off in Kerala under the patronage of VHP, Christian Churches, SNDP and similar institutions.Fortunately, it seems less  probable that women will be attracted to these hate campaigns to the point of erasing whatever little assertions they try to make on citizenships

Please read four more documents here on the topic :-

1. For the past two weeks, the entire JNU community has seen anintense mobilisation against the latest MHRD circular of Sep 12. At a time when students are fighting for their fundamental right to a quality and affordable education, the ABVP has yet again shown its true colours by not just completely ignoring the ongoing student movement, but actively using its energies to build a viciously communal campaign. The ABVP’s highly offensive pamphlet yesterday was typical of its politics and ideology - revealing clearly that the sole agenda of the ABVP on campus and in society is to spread communal hatred and curb the freedom of women in keeping with its fascist norms.

The pamphlet tries to whip up a communal frenzy by revealing “evidence” of a massive well-organised racket - a “Love Jihad” – whose purpose is to brainwash gullible Hindu girls into loving and marrying fundamentalist Muslim men and subsequently becoming “Islamic terrorists” waging war against the Indian state. This entire communal campaign draws its “evidence” from observations of the Kerala High Court in two cases related to “abduction” of Hindu girls. Thefantastic revelations of a massive conspiracy to abduct Hindu girls and get them married off to “jihadis” (according to the ABVP, 4000 girls have been entrapped till date) are based on the sole evidence of a single witness - a girl who was forced by the Kerala High Court toleave her husband and stay with her parents. The girl apparently revealed the modus operandi of the Love Jihad after a week’s stay at her parents’ home. We have not forgotten that in innumerable cases of inter caste/inter religious marriages, where the girl has voluntarily married, her parents have falsely accused her of being an “abducted”, “brainwashed” minor, and have pressurized her into denying the relationship. In the Nitish Katara case and Rizwanur Rehman case for instance, the girls (Bharati Yadav and Priyanka Todi) eventually refused to complain against their fathers and brothers, even after overwhelming evidence that cold-blooded murders had been committed. Inseveral cases, girls are even pressurized into accusing the boy ofabducting or seducing them under force. In this specific case, thecase has not even been heard in the Kerala High Court. There is not ashred of evidence of any “Love Jihad”; it has not been established ina court of law if the girls’ accusations are in fact true or areobtained under coercion from their families. Far from beingestablished, no investigation has even taken place. Yet the court ispassing sweeping orders and encouraging communal myths. Such atravesty of justice is a shameful assault on the democratic andsecular fabric of the entire state machinery. In such a situation it is imperative that the Home Ministry take a strong position, and refute the Kerala HC orders and challenge it inthe Supreme Court.

The Kerala High Court’s orders in this case are highly irresponsible,to say the very least. Let us not forget that the HC’s orders comeclose on the heels of another order passed by the Congress-ledMaharashtra government that essentially sees any marriage betweenHindu women and Muslim men as an offence. The Maharashtra Minister ofState for Home has ordered a CID investigation into such marriages ona demand made by two BJP MLAs who smelt a “conspiracy to increase theMuslim population’’ in the growing incidence of such marriages in thestate’s rural areas. Such “enquiries” into every Hindu-Muslim marriage– be it by Kerala HC or Maharashtra Home Ministry – will be violativeof Constitutional right to privacy and choice in matters of marriage,enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

Without the backing of even basic evidence, the Kerala High Court isfeeding the communal common sense prevalent in society - thusproviding the ideal justification for the likes of the Sri Ram Seneand Babu Bajrangi types to pose as ‘nationalists’ fighting ‘jihadis’!Already, Babu Bajrangi and Sadhvi Pragya project the abduction(‘rescue’) of Hindu girls who have married outside community bychoice, as a ‘nationalist’ act. Why is it that there is no Courtorder, no action from the Home Ministry to ban Khaap panchayats andthe Sri Ram Sene? How come no enquiry is ordered into every suspiciouscase of honour killing?

Brahminical patriarchy has for long regarded women of upper castes as‘gateways’ or points of breach into the caste system – requiringcareful surveillance to preserve caste ‘purity’ – and this obsessiveconcern with policing female sexuality has become a stubborn featureacross caste groups. There is widespread consent within civil societyto regard choice, particularly when articulated by a woman asdisruptive of the whole social order. It is the existence of suchconsent for obsessive control of women’s sexual choice, suchwidespread fear of a ‘terrible tear’ inflicted by women’s free choice,that sustains and ‘naturalises’ Bajrangi’s mass abduction spree as apatriotic act. This anxiety unfortunately extends even beyond theHindu community – all communities share it. For instance, the evensome Christian groups in Kerala have unfortunately reacted to thecommunal bogey of a “Love Jihad” by joining forces with VHP andwarning Christian families to police their ‘wards’ more closely.

This agenda of spreading a campaign of a “Love Jihad” is inherentlyanti-woman and communal. Note that the “enquiries” ordered by theKerala High Court do not cover cases of Hindu men marrying Muslimgirls! The whole agenda is about demonising Muslim men AND aboutcontrolling the sexuality of Hindu women. The laughable notion of‘Love Jihad’ is a deliberate ploy to further the age-old Sangh agendaof attack on women’s freedom of choice in marriage, right to convert,and demonizing of Muslim men as ‘lustful’. The likes of Babu Bajrangiand Pramod Muthalik openly advocate attacks on women who wear jeans,choose their partners, visit pubs and dare to challenge patriarchalstrictures. During the previous Vidhan Sabha elections in UP, the BJPhad distributed shamefully communal CDs that were carefully engineeredto create the bogey of the ever-deceitful, violent, anti-woman Muslimyouth whose main agenda is to coerce, deceive and rape gullible Hinduwomen.

It is high time that we tell the ABVP: we have seen through your‘jihad’ bogey. “Love Jihad” is merely the new brand name of your oldagenda of ban on jeans and Sri-Ram-Sene-type assaults on young women’slifestyles and freedom to form friendships and love. It is high timewomen not just in JNU but all over the country tell the ABVP: we willlove and marry according to our choice. We defy your diktats – just aswe defy the khaap panchayats who tell us we are whores for marryingaccording to our choices. We will resist any attempt be it by Court orany government to police our freedom, or to bring our loves andmarriages, irrespective of community, under any scanner. We demand alaw against coercion in marriage, a law that will declare it illegal for any group or individual, be they khaappanchayats or Sangh outfits or parents like D P Yadav or Ashok Todi tocoerce adults in matters of marriage; spells out punishments for diktats and death sentences issued bykhaap panchayats, and also for justifications of such ‘executions’;

 that spells out punishments for concerned police and administrationauthorities who fail to protect couples and take preventive actionagainst those who issue death sentences

 that orders a magisterial enquiry to be ordered in every case ofsuspected honour killing

 that spells out punishments for parents who falsely accuse women ofbeing ‘minors’

 spell out punishments for those who impose ‘dress codes’ on women orindulge in any kind of threats or violence on women in the name of‘culture’ or ‘honour’

Forces like the ABVP and the YFE have made it a habit to bring outsuch communal and casteist pamphlets at regular intervals,particularly when the student community is engaged in a struggle forits basic rights. AISA warns the ABVP and the YFE that such attemptsto vitiate the atmosphere of the campus through such obnoxiouspamphleteering will be robustly resisted tooth and nail by thedemocratic sections of the JNU community.

 

(2.)"We have witnessed such inhuman acts in the form of propaganda inGujarat in the wake of carnage, that Muslim boys are luring Adivasigirls. There Babu Bajarangi, who was also a major participant incarnage, formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forcedthem to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this ispresented as defense of religion! We have the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman

where Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful businessmagnate also turned around under emotional blackmail from parents andrelatives. Later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to commit suicide. In allsuch cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totallyagainst the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law actingto support the things totally against the law."

(article by Ram Puniyani):-

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/myth-of-love-jihad.html

(3)

*BEFORE THE HONOURABLE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE, KERALA*

Grievance petition submitted by Smt. Sruthi P R, wife of Sri Ayoob V, nowresiding at Valluvanattu house, Copper Villas, Chembumukku, Kakkanad PO,Ernakulam – 682030 (permanent residence at Valassery house, Chellithodu,Punnappala PO, Wandoor via, Malappuram Dt. – 679328).

Sir,

I am a native of Trivandrum and Hindu Nair by birth, now I am the wife ofAyoob V whose address is stated above. While I was studying for B. Tech inTrivandrum, I happened to know and study about Islam. After understandingmore about Islam, I embraced the religion voluntarily.

My husband has been employed as head of technical department, inInternational Shipping Bureau, Cochin. We have been living as husband andwife ever since the marriage took place on May, ‘09. I have been leading ahappy and contented life along with my husband beyond all my expectations atthe above shown address at Cochin.However, in connection with so called ‘love jihad’, hue and cry, policepersonnel approached the husband’s Company referred above and threatened theCompany Authorities in the absence of my husband by stating that he is amember of ‘love jihad’ group. They have also scolded them by asking “why youhave deputed him abroad?” The police have also threatened the CompanyAuthorities by stating that, if my husband has not returned from deputation,Company will be held responsible as if my husband has committed any graveand gruesome crime or any act against the interest of our Nation.Actually my husband was deputed by the above referred company for attendinga Ship at Algeria. To my knowledge, my husband was a responsible employee ofthat shipping company. He was well paid and he was drawing a salary of 37,500+ Other Allowances / month. The company has granted advance increments considering the meritorious service of my husbandIn view of the threatening words of the police officials under your controlthe Company Authorities have decided to terminate the service of my husbandand on 17/10/2009 (the same day of his return from abroad aftersatisfactorily completion of the duties assigned to him by the company) havedirected my husband to offer his resignation voluntarily or else they willterminate him from the service. They have also directed to return thearticles such as laptop, ID cards, stamp, hologram, visiting cards etc. assoon as possible. If the Company by fearing the threatening words of thepolice officials terminates the service of my husband, we will be put toirreparable loss and mental agony, apart from huge monitory loss not due toany fault of my husband.

In fact there is no group like ‘Love Jihad’ as misconceived by policeofficials and Honorable High Court of Kerala. It is the creation of themedia and the anti social elements so as to damage the communal harmonyexisting in our State. I may draw the kind attention of your good self thatseveral girl students and ladies of Christian and Muslim community have beenliving along with men of Hindu and Christian communities. But nobody hasraised any hue and cry like the ‘Love Jihad’ now raised.

My husband is totally innocent in this episode. After I converted to Muslimreligion my well wishers found out my husband and arranged our marriage. Hehas never met me before I embraced Islam. He cannot be blamed for myconversion to Islam religion. I have embraced Islam after I obtainedmajority. My parents and relatives have neither made any complaints beforepolice officials nor before any court.

As I am major and an educated lady holding B. Tech degree in Electronics and Telecommunication, I have got every right to believe and profess anyreligion of my choice voluntarily. Nobody can be penalized for my voluntaryact. My husband is also not liable to be penalized or expelled from hisservice for the reason that he has chosen to marry me, protect me andmaintain me as a responsible husband. My parents are also having nogrievance in this matter.In these circumstances I request that your good self may kindly enquire intothe matter immediately and give necessary direction to the CompanyAuthorities not to penalize or terminate my husband from his service for thereason that he has married me.

Yours faithfully,

Sruthi P R

 

(4)

Article by Kavita Krishnanof All India Progressive Womens Association(AIPWA).

`Love Jehad' is a new phrase coined by the Sangh Parivar – that isbeing echoed in courtrooms and cabinets across the country. The SanghParivar has claimed that thousands of Hindu girls are being lured byMuslim boys into conversion to Islam and recruitment into `jehadi'outfits. And what is extremely worrying is that the Kerala HC,Karnataka HC and even the Maharashtra Government have expressed thesame sentiments.

The Kerala HC made its comments on `Love Jehad' in the context of twocases where Hindu women had eloped to marry Muslim men. The women'sparents had filed complaints claiming the women had been abducted, andthe Kerala High Court ordered them to stay with their parents for aweek. At the end of the week one of the women had given a statementclaiming she had been brainwashed into adopting Islam and shown`jehadi' CDs. Based on this single statement, the Kerala HC chose toorder the Kerala Government and the Union Home Ministry to probe whatit alleged was a nationwide `Love Jehad' racket. Following this, theKarnataka HC passed similar observations in the case of a 23-year oldwoman civil engineer who told the Court clearly that she had convertedto Islam of her own accord and wished to marry her lover Ashgar andlive with him. The HC chose to suspect the veracity of the woman'sstatement, ordered her to stay with her parents, and ordered a probeby the Karnataka police saying the matter had `national amificationsconcerning security, besides the question of unlawful trafficking ofwomen.' Earlier, the Congress-NCP Government of Maharashtra had passedan order to investigate into every case of Muslim men marrying Hinduwomen, alleging a trafficking racket, but had to withdraw this probein the face of protest.

The Kerala State DGP has submitted a report to the Kerala HC declaringthat there is no evidence of any `Love Jehad' movement anywhere in thecountry. Karnataka's Dakshina Kanada district police has also bustedthe myth of `Love Jehad.' Recently when Anitha (22) went missing inJune this year, Sangh Parivar organisations claimed that she wasforcibly converted to Islam by a Pakistan-backed, professional`jehadist lover'. The police, however, established that Anitha waspoisoned to death by Mohan Kumar, a serial killer arrested on October21, who allegedly confessed to having murdered her and robbed 17 otherwomen by luring them with offers of marriage. A top police officialtold an English daily: "By cracking the Anitha case, we hoped to putan end to this `Love Jehad' controversy once and for all….certainfundamentalist groups that have been carrying out vigilante attacksagainst inter-community couples for several years have now startedusing the `Love Jehad' theory to justify their attacks."

Let us recall that in innumerable cases of inter caste/inter religiousmarriages, where the girl has voluntarily married, her parents havefalsely accused her of being an "abducted", "brainwashed" minor, andhave pressurized her into denying the relationship. Nari Niketans inevery city are full of adult women imprisoned for months because theirparents have accused them of being minors; the Nari Niketans separatethe women from their husbands but freely allow their own parents tomeet and coerce them. In the Nitish Katara case and Rizwanur Rehmancase, the girls (Bharati Yadav and Priyanka Todi) eventually refusedto complain against their fathers and brothers, even afteroverwhelming evidence that their lovers had been killed or forced tocommit suicide in cold-blood. The Kerala and Karnataka HCs hasabsolutely no right to order adult women to stay with their parents;statements taken by such women in forced parental custody are certain to be taken under coercion, and the Courts are highly irresponsible tomake such statements the basis for sweeping orders that perpetuatecommunal myths without a shred of evidence. Such "enquiries" intoevery marriage of a Hindu man with a Muslim woman – be it by Courts orthe Maharashtra Government –violate the Constitutional right toprivacy and choice in matters of marriage, enshrined in Article 21 ofthe Constitution, and upheld by numerous Supreme Court verdicts.Let us also remember that the Sangh Parivar leader Babu Bajrangi ofGujarat boasts of having `rescued' thousands of women who have marriedoutside the caste or community, and forced them to give up theirhusbands. Sadhvi Pragya's organization too used to indulge in the sameactivity. And the Sri Ram Sene in the Dakshin Kanada district hasindulged in innumerable attacks on Muslim and Hindu women who befriendeach other – one young 15-year old schoolgirl even committed suicideafter public humiliation by the Sene. The Courts' observations providea shot in the arm for the Sri Ram Senes and Babu Bajrangis – they cannow claim their attacks on women are acts of `nationalism.' We wonderwhy neither the Courts never pass orders to ban Khaap panchayats andthe Sri Ram Sene; why Courts never order enquiries into suspectedcases of honour killing, but the same Courts are so eager to fan upcommunal and anti-women flames by making irresponsible comments about`Love Jehad'?

`Love Jehad' is a communal fantasy – a new pretext to attack thefreedom of women to love and marry by choice, and to witch-hunt Muslimmen. In the name of `Love Jehad,' every Rizwan-ur-rehman can bebranded a terrorist; every Priyanka's right to choose can be denied onthe grounds that she is `brain-washed' by jehadis; every policeofficer as well as every Pramod Muthalik justified in harassing theRizwans and Priyankas in the name of `national security.'

Women all over the country will certainly defy and resist any attempt– be it by Court or any government to police their freedom, or tobring their loves and marriages, irrespective of community, under any scanner.

kavitakrish73@gmail.com

(The writer is Secretary, All India Progressive Women's Association - AIPWA)

http://www.countercurrents.org/krishnan261009.htm

You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be awhole. -AMBEDKAR

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http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/11/kerala-love-jihad-alert-campaign-seeks.html