Hadiya case: Let’s not kill love

All eyes were on Hadiya, the brave young woman from Kerala, who travelled to New Delhi to plead her case in the Supreme Court of India.

She stood out, a gentle determination visible on her face. Armed with that force of conviction that only love can ignite, she looked fearless and confident as she arrived in New Delhi, to plead for her freedom! Out from the clutches of her parents, she wanted to be united with her husband, to be able to live with him.

Imagine, in this day and age, an educated adult woman is pleading to be united with the love of her life, her husband. Why do we have to punish her? Why? Simply because she fell in love with a Muslim, converted to Islam, and married this man to live happily ever after.

Quite obviously, she defied her parents who seem to be fed on the exaggerated claims of the reach of the ISIS and al-Qaeda. Using these outfits’ names is another ploy that the political rulers use to intrude into people’s personal lives. The communal surcharge unleashed here and there only compounds the problem. Myths and misconceptions about the Muslim community are doing the round. In this polluted mahaul, anti–Muslim cries are gaining ground. And along the expected strain, the State is doing little to contain the political mess that’s begun hitting people’s psyches. After all, this is exactly what the political rulers want. They have to do very little in terms of governance, as non–issues are distracting us to such an extent that real issues don’t ever come up.

In those earlier decades, communal rioting left dozens dead or nearly killed but today’s communal propaganda is affecting hundreds and thousands: all sorts of bizarre notions heaped on the Muslims of this country. Dissections cum discussions are on, on what they eat or wear or do! Lynching is on, not just on the beef alibi but even if one covers the head with a rumaal or a scarf. Yes, last week, three clerics were attacked inside a train when it passed through Uttar Pradesh. Their fault: In their traditional Muslim attire, they looked Muslims!

Today the State is controlling our lives either directly or through the various Agencies in its grip. It gets worrying because the fears of the ‘other’ are growing and will grow still further, as polarisation accelerates. Also, with Muslims and Hindus living in separate colonies, away from each other, there are fewer occasions for any of those expected interactions to take place. Whilst visiting Mumbai University, I was told by one of the academics that love rarely happens between a Hindu and a Muslim, because of the propaganda of the ‘other’ and also because there are no ways and means to see through those false notions. Why? Because, in Mumbai, the Hindus and Muslims reside in their ‘own’ housing colonies. So, how will one get to see or sense the living patterns of an average Muslim family? In fact, ghettoisation is creeping into other towns and cities of this country as well and it’s directly linked to the hyped apprehensions of the ‘other,’

I couldn’t fully comprehend the absolutely dangerous offshoots of communal polarisation till that fateful morning when I had landed in Ahmedabad for a day-long convention. This was a few years back but till date, I cannot erase from my memory the poison-dripping words of the taxi driver, driving me from the airport to the venue in the heart of the city. Of course, right till the end of the long drive, he didn’t realise I was a Muslim and had continued uttering – muttering what Muslims do or don’t do in Ahmedabad: “Yeh log bomb banate hain, yaa yeh log bachcha paida karte hain…in logon ko marna hai …yahaan se nikalna hai, marna-katna hai!” This taxi driver, who hailed from Rajasthan but was raised in Ahmedabad, wasn’t to be blamed. He had been the victim of propaganda!

And as I have mentioned in one of my earlier columns, its during train journeys that I heard the worst possible communal comments about the Muslims. Nah, I couldn’t confront the surcharged lot, for fear of getting thrown off from the moving train. And to the best of my knowledge, there are no helpline numbers where one can get instant relief from communally charged characters travelling in train compartments. In fact, going by the rising number of communal clashes taking place in compartments, it’s essential that emergency contact telephone numbers do exist and function.

Getting back to Hadiya, it’s essential her constitutional rights are not snatched from her. She has every right to fall in love and to be with the man she loves. Love is love …one of those spheres which should not be intruded into, though politicians have been doing exactly that under the so many garbs; be it Yogi Adityanath government’s anti – Romeo squads or other governments linking Muslims to the ISIS and al-Qaeda networks! Do we realise that these networks could have a hundred prefixes to them but are in the grip of the American and Israeli Agencies!

Let the murky mahaul not kill love, not hound those who are blessed to have found love. I’m finding it difficult to describe the strange situation. We have given sanction of sorts to live–in relationships to flourish but are sabotaging the very marriage of a woman who has not just declared her love but also crossed many hurdles to be with her love.