Recently there has been news of the marriage of T. Veena, daughter of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Veena, a software engineer by profession who runs a startup named ‘Exlogic’, is tied up with Mohammed Riaz of the Communist Party of India.
Riyaz is the national president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), a youth organization of the Communist Party and this is her second marriage, like Veena. Both are divorces. Veena is the mother of a ten-year-old child, Ishaan, and Riyaz also has two sons. The wedding took place on 15 June in the presence of both their families.
There is not much discussion in the meantime on social media. There are two reasons for this. One is that both of them have been married before and the divors and second marriage, especially in the field of women, are not very popular here. The second thing is that the religion of the two is different. The girl is Hindu and the boy is Muslim. Because of this, many people are calling this relationship ‘Love Jihad’.
‘Love Jihad’ is a term that fundamentalists often use to attack inter-religiously married couples. Their claim is that such marriages can never be successful because there is no thought but love behind them. Every such marriage in which husband is Muslim and wife is Hindu, there is a conspiracy to enslave Hindu women by forcibly converting them. To stop this so-called ‘Jihad’, fundamentalist organizations spew poisons against the ‘community specific’. Advise parents to ‘keep an eye’ on girls. Women are asked to keep distance from the men of a particular community.
The term originated in the year 2009 to claim that non-Muslim women are converted in many areas of Kerala and Karnataka by luring love and marriage. Its use spread throughout the country during the Hadiya Ashokan case in 2017, when the Kerala High Court stayed Hadiya’s marriage on the claim that she had converted under the pressure of proselytisation and marriage and the terrorist organization ISIS was behind it. . Despite this, the word is still being used to spread communal hatred. Even the news channels do not shy away from using it and even before Veena and Riaz, it has been used to lure many film actors, cricketers, even IAS officers who married outside the religion.
The marriage of T. Veena, daughter of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Mohammad Riaz of Communist Party of India, is being termed as Love Jihad.
This air of ‘love jihad’ is Islamophobic. Hatred spreads in society. But more than that, the word patriarchy is codenamed in this word. It is presumed that women who choose a partner of their choice on their own are unintelligent. She does not consider her good or bad. Because of which they need to ‘explain’ and ‘keep an eye’ on them. According to the law, after 18 years, a girl turns adult and can take her own responsibility, but the contractors of our religion are not ready to accept it. According to him, women are ‘stupid’, and easily get ‘caught’ in the ‘trap’ of men. There can be no possibility that they have taken their decision after thought.
From the above, this word is now originating from words like ‘Kokh Jihad’ and ‘Population Jihad’. The claim is that there is a conspiracy to create a population by converting Hindu women to Muslim women and raising more Muslim children. This type of thinking reflects nothing but a very low mindset, which considers a woman to be the only child. By making such presumptions about women marrying on their own terms, the so-called defenders of Hindutva are proving to be the biggest enemies of the women whose ‘defense’ contract they have taken.
As a proof of the existence of ‘Love Jihad’, many such incidents of sexual violence are mentioned in which the victims are non-Muslims and convicted Muslims. This is nothing but an attempt to communalise the issue of physical and sexual exploitation of women. Women’s murder, rape, and domestic violence are not confined to a single community, and comparing such incidents to a healthy, voluntary relationship with exploitative victims is a great injustice.
The hatred that has been perpetrated against Hindu-Muslim couples in the name of ‘love jihad’ is nothing but a way of promoting communal violence and keeping women under control by an exploitative social system. This brutal system rests only on hatred and patriarchal control and can only be done through love and harmony. Hopefully, we will not let ourselves be controlled like this anymore and will not be afraid of love and marriage outside of our religion and our caste. It is necessary for our freedom and a better society.
