The News Minute on 19th January 2021 published an article titled ‘Brahmin brides fund’, state enforced endogamy and the criminalisation of love. The author of the article has expressed her fears over a ‘Hindutva Project’ run by ‘laws of Manu’, and seems greatly concerned about how a patriarchal structure is being enforced upon women of the country through the project. According to the article, the ‘Hindutva Project’ is premised on these three goals
1. Control of women and their sexuality
2. Othering of non-Hindus
3. Perpetuation of the caste system
At the outset, the author needs to be lauded for her creativity in this wishy-washy piece that seems all over the place. However, the author’s creativity needs more clarity on facts and reality before it can be translated into a movie plot.
The author’s terrifying fears about the imaginary ‘Hindutva Project’ revolves around the recent ordinance introduced in Uttar Pradesh to stop forced religious conversions. Any commoner reading it would buy the stuff peddled in the article. Hence, the misplaced contexts and obnoxious attempts to mislead, need to be countered.
Before venturing into what the article has stated, let us clear the mist surrounding the Love Jihad ordinance. Inter-faith marriages have not turned illegal because of the ordinance. The law aims to penalize religious conversion done using dishonest means, such as false representation, through force, influence, torture, allurement or for the sake of marriage. A marriage will be declared null and void if the woman is married for the sole purpose of converting her religion. But the uninitiated might wonder – is there a requirement for this law in the first place?
Yes there is.
The whole issue of Love Jihad gained prominence from the state of Kerala with the Kerala High Court asking the Government to frame laws to stop Love Jihad. The idiom Love Jihad gained recognition when the Kerala High Court asked the police to investigate the intermarriages of Muslims with non-Muslim women.
In 2009, the Kerala High Court made the observations that religious conversions were being conducted in the state under the garb of ‘love’ and Justice KT Sankaran of the Kerala High Court concluded that there were indications of forceful religious conversions.
From the police reports of the investigation, it was clear that there was a concerted effort to convert girls of a particular religion to the other with the ‘blessings of some outfits’. Way back in 2009 itself, the court said that during the previous four years, 3000- 4000 religious conversions had taken place over love affairs and according to the reports by special branch of police, fundamental outfits like National Democratic Front and Campus Front have roots in various college campuses. As per the available information during the investigation, the plan was to “trap” brilliant upper caste Hindu and Christian girls from well to do families. The court also observed that the Love Jihad programme was started in 1996 with the blessings of some religious organisations.
As elaborated by S Gurumurthy in a recent article to The New Indian Express, the initial attempts to pass off Love Jihad as a campaign by Hindutvaites received a setback when the Christian Association for Social Action alleged Love Jihad against Christian women.
To quote from the article,
The Union of Catholic Asian News (13.10.2009) headlined the report on loving for religion in Kerala as “India: Church, state concerned about ‘Love Jihad’”. The Karnataka government too began viewing Love Jihad as serious. In 2010, the Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, belonging to the CPM, said the Popular Front of India had plans to Islamise Kerala in 20 years using “money and marriages” (Times of India, 26.7.2020), again mainstreaming the debate. Oommen Chandy’s data (2012) on intermarriage of Muslims with other communities also rekindled the Love Jihad debate in Kerala.
Christians, Congress and the CPM have varyingly emphasised the issue. In 2017, the Kerala High Court directed the DGP Kerala to investigate the cases of Love Jihad. Later, the NIA reported on the existence of Love Jihad cases. In 2019, the Kerala Minority Commission Vice-Chairman wrote to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the organised conversion of Christian women not just into Islam, but into terrorism, adding “love jihad is on”.
In 2020, the Syro-Malabar Church expressed concern over rising Love Jihad cases.
Hence, the very term “Hindutva Project” needs to be reviewed by the author because the issue has been emphasised not just by Hindu families and outfits but most repeatedly by Christian groups.
Here is one more reality check for the author espousing her woke-ness. On October 26, 2020, a young college going girl Nikita Tomar was shot dead in broad day light by a former classmate outside her college in Faridabad for refusing to convert and marry. This case had led to the reopening of a 2018 case of abduction. The woman’s family has alleged that the accused in the shooting incident had kidnapped her in August 2018 and held her hostage at a place in Sohna, threatening her to convert to his religion and marry him.
The issue of “love jihad” came up at a meeting between Rekha Sharma, the chief of the National Commission of Women and Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in October in the backdrop of the recent row over a Tanishq advertisement. The Commission said Ms Sharma had highlighted the “rise” in ”love jihad” cases in the state.
“Madam Chairperson raised the issue of rise in love jihad cases in Maharashtra. She highlighted a distinction between consensual inter-faith marriages and love jihad and said that the latter required attention,”.
The Ordinance that has been passed by a few States like Uttar Pradesh aims to address the issue of forceful conversions for marriage and doesn’t attack inter-faith marriages as claimed in the article under the heading of an imaginary Project. Love Jihad is a problem that needs to be curbed and curbing a problem that is faced by several families does not mean ‘curbing love itself’ as claimed in the article.
Can the law be misused? Yes, it can be.
India’s Supreme Court noted in July 2017 that the Dowry law is being increasingly “misused by some disgruntled wives” to frame their husbands and his relatives. There are a large number of cases where men are falsely implicated under laws covering sexual harassment at work place. Can we ask for the removal of such laws because of its misuse in certain cases? This logic should apply to forced conversion as well. Unlike the fanciful imaginations, the ordinance does not criminalize love. Only forceful conversions have been criminalized. So, it is but natural for the religious conversion groups and fundamentalists waiting to prey on women who are not of their religion to be angry.
The next feature added to the innovative Hindutva Project in the article is the enforcement of Caste System. There has been a scathing attack made at the recently launched initiatives in Karnataka to benefit the Brahmin Brides. The Karnataka State Brahmin Development Board will provide ₹25,000 to newly wedded Brahmin women under Arundhati Scheme and brides marrying priests will be assured a bond of ₹3 lakh under the Maitreyi Programme.
The author has severely criticized the schemes, as she claims that they are meant to enforce Caste system using Tax Payers’ money.
Let’s look at the context of the situation.
Unlike places of worship of the minority religions, several Hindu temples are under the control of the state and are at their mercy of the government for maintenance and salary for the priests.
As of March 2019, archakas of Karnataka’s state owned temples were paid meagre ₹1500 per month for doing pujas and rituals, which is below ₹50 per day. In 2019, 2000 priests decided to protest to urge the state government to fix the wages at the rate of ₹249 per day, which is the minimum daily wage fixed by the Centre. Janakiram, then president of Karnataka State Religious Endowment at that time alleged that the government has given ₹400 crore to the Muslim community and ₹200 crore to Christians, but has not provided funds to Hindu temples, except for the ₹60 crore provided to religious mutts. Earlier Siddaramaiah’s Government had granted ₹50 Crore for Madrassas and the same Siddaramaiah provided a measly ₹25 lakhs for Veda Pathashalas.
Lord Subrahmanya temple at Kukke in the Karnataka happens to be the temple with the highest income in the state. Its income stood at ₹98.92 crore last year. Surprisingly, the priests there draw a basic pay of only ₹96 per month as of 2020.
Situation of priests at state controlled temples in states like Andhra Pradesh is even worse, where the temple funds meant for the temple are diverted to minority welfare schemes.
The COVID situation has added to the woes of the priest community with many unable to support their families during the lockdown. Muralikrishna, joint secretary of the Uttarandhra Archaka Sangham said,
“A Supreme Court order says that the archakas are the most important persons in a temple after the deity and that their salaries should be paid first. The Pay Revision Commission scale is being implemented for attenders, junior assistants and other employees, but not for archakas. We have represented the issue to the authorities and Ministers several times in the past, but justice was not done to us so far,”.
As long as states control temples, lives of priests will be financially difficult because the governments will only to loot the temples under the pretext of control, while doling out several welfare schemes for the minority communities. The temple community is under severe threat of existence with such poor treatment of the priests. Also, Brahmins who take up the job now or in the future, will face huge difficulty in finding brides, as they are now. The state governments which have looted the temple money are accountable to the priest who find difficulty in getting a bride and it is only normal to expect them to give incentives to brides who marry priests.
The author thinks that these schemes are an incentive to trap and imprison women, limits the choices of women and turns them to Reproductive machines and objectifies women as “Brides”. When former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah doled out ₹50,000 per girl under Shadhi Bhagya scheme for Muslim and Christian Brides, were the girls not treated like ‘reproductive machines’ and ‘objects’?
Under the Dulhan scheme, the Government of Andhra Pradesh provided ₹50,000 to Muslim girl for her marriage ceremony. Under the Shaadi Mubarak scheme, the Telangana CM gave financial assistance of ₹1,00,116/ for Muslim Brides. Is this not endorsement of Patriarchy through incentivizing marriage? Or is ‘patriarchy’ and ‘control of sexuality’ limited to Hindu Marriages only?
So, readers, it is not their stance against of caste system that evokes criticism against these recent schemes for Brahmin brides. It stems out of the eternal hate they have for the community. Thanks to vote bank politics that decides who “deserves mercy and who doesn’t”.
The very fact that there were 2.37 crore Muslim beneficiaries of Government scholarships during PM Modi’s first terms, while the figure under Manmohan’s second was 2.33 crore is enough to trash the claim of othering non Hindus. Data shows that Central Government spent ₹8,715.4 crore on education scholarships between 2014 and 2019, against ₹5,360.4 crore from 2009-2014. According to 2019 data released by Ministry of Minority Affairs, ₹22,000 crore has been spent in the past six years on minority welfare and scholarships have been awarded to 3.2 crore students belonging to minority community. The government has identified minority concentration areas in the country where is carries out development works. The Hunar Haat scheme to promote India’s Indigenous traditional legacy of master artisans and craftsmen was available only for artisans of the minority communities. Therefore, author’s terrific claims under her imaginary ‘Hindutva Project’ needs serious re- examining. Perhaps, too much creativity leads to fact distortion.
The imaginary fanciful ‘Hindutva Project’ of the author can make a good script for a Pa. Ranjith movie as these distortions have the potential to find a place only in that.
But issues like these needs to premised on facts and reality, because that is what matters!
