PLAYING TO ANXIETIES

Allahabad Court’s varying interpretation of ‘love jihad’ law has implications. Courts must ensure the law doesn’t imperil rights

THE FACT THAT consenting adults should require the state's approval — and protection — for their relationship with a person of their choice is telling in itself. But a report in this paper shows how in UP, the interpretation of a provision of the state's anti-conversion law has led to contrasting outcomes in orders by the Allahabad High Court in matters related to inter-faith live-in relationships. Since August last year, different benches of the Court have dismissed pleas for police protection for at least 12 interfaith couples in live-in relationships, stating the criminalising of such relationships underup'sprohibitionofunlawfulconversionofreligionact,2021.inthreeothercases,including one from early last year, conditional protection was granted. The law has already been challengedinthesupremecourtalongwithsimilarlawsfromseveralotherstatesbutthearbitrary nature of interpretation has implications for those who find themselves at its receiving end.

In February 2020, in response to a written question in the Lok Sabha, then Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy had said, “The term ‘love jihad’ is not defined under the extant laws. No such case of “love jihad” has been reported by any of the central agencies”. The Constitution empowers citizens with the freedom to practise and propagate any religion, he had added. Yet, the bogey of “love jihad” continues to stoke paranoia. It puts interfaith relationships under intense scrutiny from family, society and state machinery in a manner discordant with the notion of diversity that guides Indian democracy. The anxieties around such relationships have led to the formation of “love jihad” laws in several states, including Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. Worse, prejudice has put individual rights enshrined in the Constitution under constant threat of violence, infantilised women and undermined their independence and agency.

In circumstances where relationships have to overcome such insurmountable odds, often, the only hope of justice rests with the judiciary. Arbitrary interpretations of an already narrow law set a precedent for other restrictive explications and put young people at grievous risk. The challenge before the court, therefore, is to ensure that it is consistent in upholding the individual's constitutional rights. It also falls upon the Supreme Court to speed up the process of hearing the petitions pending before it on the matter so that the autonomy, dignity and privacy of individuals are not imperilled at the altar of a bad-faith law.