There have been incidents wherein majority community has felt outraged with what is perceived as a deliberate attempt to hurt their sentiments
A point of view has been projected in the national dailies that love jihad, and the societal reaction to it has become so frequent that it has become a leading cause of death among Indian youth. The net result of this fear psychosis is driving the smartest young Indians to foreign shores and thus threatening the country’s social fabric such emigration is likely to hurt the future of the country.
In the context of India’s 140 crore citizens, the incidence of love jihad is minuscule. Nor all those who die are highly educated or particularly talented. In any case, if these few incidents can say to be leading to large-scale emigration, the phenomenon, often looked upon as some sort of brain drain, need not be seen as a disadvantage to the country. The émigrés of yesteryear can also be seen as our ambassadors of today. The more the number of non-resident Indians (NRIs) the bigger the advantage; they are also a source of influence for India abroad. Right through history, India has not had an imperialistic or colonizing mindset and record. Yet, influence overseas is important, more so as the world is proceeding towards becoming a village.
Was it not desirable to see our Prime Minister being sought after by American President (s), seeking the vote of Indian immigrants who have become citizens of the United States of America? In case we are apprehensive of a brain drain, preventing or discouraging emigration is hardly the step to resort to. We have a population huge enough to be able to absorb emigration of any size. What we do not have in adequacy are the educational facilities, in quantity as well as quality to educate and train the young population.
In fact, in the basket of education, we should include the teaching of foreign languages. For example, it is believed that at the current rate of decline in population, there would be no Japan left in another hundred years. Our aspiring youth should consider learning how to live and flourish in Japan. As far as population goes, Russia has already fallen to becoming a country smaller than Pakistan.
Coming back to the subject of love jihad, has anyone asked why no one has protested against a “love crusade?” Christianity, like Islam, is also a religion of the book. From a bride’s point of view, a Christian male can have only one wife. If he wishes to divorce her, the challenge before him would be like that facing any other husband. For a Roman Catholic, the Church does not permit divorce under any circumstances. In any case, the fundamental Christian ethic is that marriage is a sacrament; it is as if oneness, divine and indivisible.
In Islam, marriage is a contract, cancellable by divorce, by the husband giving the wife three notices of ‘talaq’ spread over three months even if verbally. Moreover, even without resorting to divorce, the husband can take on three more wives at a time. If the reader were a parent of daughters, would they prefer a ‘love-jihad or love-crusade?’
A recently came across a book The Long Divergence: How Islamic Laws Held Back the Middle East by Prof. Timur Koran, Timur Koran, who is a Turkish scholar teaching at Duke University, USA. In the course of his lengthy presentation, he pointed out several laws that have held back the progress of West Asia for centuries. It is only petroleum that has brought prosperity for as long as demand lasts or the wells dry up. While discussing the views of Prof. Koran with (the late) Dr Yoginder Alagh, who had been vice-chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as well as a minister in the Deve Gowda, Inder Gujral regimes at the centre during 1996-98, same interesting points arose. That the Green Revolution logically should have taken place first in the UP-Bihar. Bengal belt because the waters of the Ganga and Yamuna flow through these states. UP has begun progressing recently, whereas Bihar and West Bengal. Prof. Alagh attributed this phenomenon to the socio-communal profile of the people, an opinion that may understandably cause disquiet to many, but one that would be hard to dismiss, statistically and objectively speaking.
The discussion at hand merits a more dispassionate analysis than the usual hand-wringing and the often one-sided blame game one is accustomed to seeing. It is true that there have been incidents wherein members of the majority community have felt outraged enough to take the law into their own hands to settle what is perceived as a deliberate slight to their sentiments and even way of life.
Also, incidents where the womenfolk of only a particular section are targeted for fraudulent marriages that usually have ulterior motives, namely, religious conversions have only added fuel to the fire of an already inflamed polity. With past administrations either turning a blind eye to repeated offences by one community, either in a bid to appear secular or more acutely, to perpetuate their hold over vote banks, this problem had already assumed a gargantuan nature. That many among the majority have become emboldened now so as to resort to lesser subtle methods of reclaiming their identity merits an honest look and not a diatribe based on worn-out shibboleths.
(The writer is a well-known columnist, an author and a former member of the Rajya Sabha. The views expressed are personal)
