MAHESH TRIVEDI
AHMEDABAD, FEB 17
A Gujarat-based minority rights group has urged the Governor to rein in lawmakers and others misusing the ‘sacred’ word ‘jihad’ to malign the Muslim community even as Chief Minister Vijay Rupani announced that a law to combat ‘love jihad’, or coercive interfaith marriages, would be enacted soon in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state.
Mujahid Nafees, convener of the Minority Coordination Committee (MCC), has, in a letter dashed off to Acharya Devvrat, said that ‘jihad’ meaning ‘struggle’ is a sacred word in Islam but it is of late being bandied around by Rupani and other politicians to create communal discord and this has hurt the religious sentiments of Gujarat’s six million Muslims.
“Dabhoi BJP legislators Shailesh Mehta, Bharuch BJP MP Mansukh Vasava and several Hindutva leaders have been demanding a law to curtail alleged cases of ‘love jihad’ in the state but Muslims have kept their cool. However, the last straw on the camel’s back came when even Rupani spewed communal poison by repeatedly mentioning ‘love jihad’ during his recent speech”, Nafees told indiatomorrow.net
Hence, he said, he had requested the Governor to stop the misuse of the blessed word ‘jihad’ as the latter was the Constitutional head of the state and expected to protect the statute.
With elections to the 323 local self-government institutions in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s homeland being held later this month, the Chief Minister had during his whistle-stop tour in Vadodara on Sunday said, “We are going to bring a law against love jihad in the Assembly. Such activities being done in the name of ‘love jihad’ will not be tolerated. The BJP government will bring strict laws against ‘love jihad’ in the coming days.”
Nafees said that instead of speaking about local issues, the deliberate mention of ‘love jihad’ by Rupani and other saffronites was aimed at dividing the 30 million voters on communal lines on the eve of elections to six municipal corporations, 55 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats to be held in two phases on February 21 and 28.
He said that Rupani would have understood the real meaning of the holy word ‘jihad’ and its importance if he had consulted any madrasa teacher, adding that BJP leaders were bent on maligning the Muslim community with baseless charges to shatter communal concord and divide society in the poll-bound state.
Rupani’s announcement that a stricter anti-conversion law was on the cards has raised many eyebrows as Gujarat has the Gujarat freedom of religion Act 2003 which prohibits conversion from one religion to another by the use of force or allurement or by fraudulent means.
Legal experts had also advised the government against enacting the ‘anti-love jihad’ law saying it might not be “legally sustainable”. Indeed, legality of similar Acts passed by other states has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
Under Gujarat’s existing law, there’s a provision to penalise a person involved in forced conversion under the pretext of love or marriage. The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003 also requires a citizen to obtain prior approval from the district authority for conversion.
The law provides for imprisonment up to three years and a fine of up to Rs 50,000 to whoever is found guilty of forced conversion. If the person who has been forced to convert is a minor, a woman or a person belonging to scheduled caste or scheduled tribe, the maximum imprisonment has been fixed at four years and a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh.
(Mahesh Trivedi is indiatomorrow.net Correspondent based at Ahmedabad)
