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The police in northern India have made their first arrest beneath a brand new anti-conversion legislation supposed to curb “love jihad” — a extremely contentious time period utilized by Hindu nationalists who accuse Muslim males of luring Hindu girls to marry them with a purpose to convert them to Islam.
The arrest within the northern state of Uttar Pradesh got here days after state legislators there accepted the legislation geared toward curbing interfaith marriage, which makes compelled non secular conversion by marriage an offense punishable by as much as 10 years in jail.
The legislation is the most recent in a sequence of measures which have steadily marginalized the nation’s Muslim minority, one of many world’s largest, since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist get together got here to energy in 2014.
Muslims have confronted a wave of violence by the hands of Hindu nationalists and final 12 months, the Modi authorities enacted a blatantly anti-Muslim citizenship legislation that critics mentioned was essentially the most alarming indication but that it was attempting to show India right into a Hindu-centric state.
The person arrested on Wednesday, Owais Ahmad, was accused of pressuring a Hindu girl who was married to a different man to go away her husband and convert to Islam so she might marry him. The police mentioned the girl’s father had beforehand filed and later withdrawn a kidnapping case, after his daughter had eloped with Mr. Ahmad in 2019 however then returned.
The current grievance was filed by the daddy a number of days earlier than Wednesday’s arrest, which the district police mentioned was the primary beneath the brand new legislation.
“I’ve no hyperlink with the girl,” Mr. Ahmad, who’s in his early 20s, informed reporters. “I’m harmless.”
One of many foremost proponents of the anti-conversion legislation is a firebrand Hindu monk, Yogi Adityanath, who’s the top of Uttar Pradesh state and a member of Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration.
Related payments have been thought-about in different states managed by the get together, together with Haryana, Karnataka, Assam and Madhya Pradesh.
In Madhya Pradesh, Netflix lately got here beneath hearth after Hindu nationalists demanded that the authorities examine a scene within the tv sequence “A Appropriate Boy” depicting a Hindu lady and a Muslim boy kissing in opposition to the backdrop of a Hindu temple.
Mr. Adityanath has lengthy been accused of rousing anti-Muslim sentiments. Electoral officers reprimanded him for hate speech and he as soon as known as Muslims “a crop of two-legged animals that must be stopped.”
Since coming to energy in his house state, a publish typically seen as a springboard for future prime ministers, Mr. Adityanath has made efforts to make the time period “love jihad” mainstream and he has overtly known as for India to be enshrined as a Hindu nation, which has deeply fearful most of the nation’s 200 million Muslims.
He as soon as created a volunteer vigilante group, the Hindu Youth Brigade.
In 2007, following the dying of a Hindu youth in clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Mr. Adityanath’s house state, he mentioned, “If one Hindu is killed, we received’t go to the police. As an alternative we’ll ensure that we’ll kill 10 Muslims.”
He was later arrested and held in custody for 15 days.
Intermarriage between Muslims and Hindus is comparatively uncommon in India due to conservative norms.
Whereas the nation stays overwhelmingly Hindu, almost 80 %, the concentrate on interfaith relationships by anti-Muslim forces has been criticized as an assault on the nation’s secular Structure, which ensures equal rights to all residents no matter faith. Points involving marriage, divorce, alimony and inheritance are dealt with in a different way amongst non secular populations.
To bolster secular beliefs, India in 1954 overturned a British colonial-era legislation that required both the bride or groom in an interfaith marriage to resign his or her religion.
Faizan Mustafa, an instructional and a Muslim, mentioned he was horrified on the velocity with which many states with Hindu nationalist governments had been racing to legislate in opposition to allegedly compelled non secular conversions.
He mentioned this legislation was in opposition to the very concept of India and that the governing get together was attempting to divert the eye of individuals from rising unemployment, an ailing economic system and its failure to cease the unfold of coronavirus.
“They’re speaking away freedom of individuals to decide on,” mentioned Mr. Mustafa, “which has been given to us by the Structure of this nation.”
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