By Burhan Majid
In my recent article, I flagged the executive-judiciary bonhomie in the wake of PM Modi’s visit to CJI Chandrachud’s residence for Ganapati puja, highlighting the crisis of reputation facing the Indian judiciary. The purpose of the article was also to draw attention to the judiciary’s aggrandising relationship with a political ideology. This palpable romanticisation of political ideology has, however, now literally entered the courtroom, spilling over to written judgments.
Uttar Pradesh court’s recent invocation of the Hindutva conspiracy called “love jihad”, leading to the life imprisonment of a Muslim man, demonstrates the romanticisation in question. The judgment ignored the accused’s plea of foul play, is oblivious to due process, and ignorant of criminal jurisprudence.
Notwithstanding the pretentious political neutrality of the “love jihad” laws, euphemistically referred to as anti-conversion laws, Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar had no qualms in masquerading islamophobia as legal reasoning.
In support of his “rational” reasoning, he writes, “In love jihad, Muslim men systematically target Hindu women for conversion to Islam through marriage and Muslim men marry Hindu women by pretending to love them to convert them.” It is another matter that the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, however, does not make any reference to “love jihad”.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.