A flurry of FIRs against consensual inter-faith relationships and marriages have been registered in Uttar Pradesh ever since the government introduced a law against forced conversion by marriage. Omar Rashid reports on couples who live in fear and the police that is invoking the law with fervour
Around on November 24, Sarvesh Kumar Shukla woke up to discover that the blue metal gate of his humble, unplastered brick house was unlatched. Shukla, who lives in Makhu Behar village in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, first assumed that one of his three sons had gone out, but he found them sleeping inside. In the adjoining room, his younger daughter was fast asleep. Beside her, there was a large lump covered by a mattress. He thought it was his eldest daughter Neetu, aged 19. “But when I lifted the bichauna (bedding), she was not there,” says Sarvesh, 42, a saffron gamcha dangling over his half-sleeved pink cardigan. Sarvesh assumed that the Class 12 student was in the bathroom or had gone to the fields. But by now, apprehension had turned to fear.
Perhaps, Sarvesh had already anticipated the worst. He sent a boy to check on Jubrail, a Muslim van driver in his early twenties, who lived with his two brothers and mother around 50 metres away, in a house facing a mosque. Jubrail had been missing since the night before, he learnt. Sarvesh quickly joined the dots: Jubrail and Neetu had run away together.
Sarvesh claims that he had no idea that his daughter was going to leave home, let alone elope with Jubrail. In the First Information Report (FIR) lodged at the Tambaur police station on November 26 against an unknown person for “kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage”, Sarvesh submitted that his daughter would talk to someone on the phone at night, but he did not know her phone number. There were no religious undertones in the FIR.
On the same day, some 130 km away from Makhu Behar village, in Lucknow, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet gave its nod to an ordinance that makes religious conversion a non-bailable offence inviting penalties up to 10 years in prison if found to be effected for marriage or through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or other allegedly fraudulent means. The ordinance was cleared by the Cabinet weeks after Adityanath promised to bring an “effective law” against “love jihad”, a legally unrecognised term radical Hindu groups use to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
Invoking the ordinance
The next day, Sarvesh submitted another application to the police in Tambaur, this time naming Jubrail as the accused and Jubrail’s family members as accomplices. In his complaint, Sarvesh alleged that Jubrail had lured his daughter into eloping with him. Two days later, Sarvesh curiously submitted yet another application, this time to the district police chief, alleging that Jubrail had induced his daughter to flee from home with the intention of converting her to another religion. In contradiction to the earlier application, Sarvesh now claimed that his daughter was a minor, aged 17. “The opposite party is Muslim. They have made my daughter disappear. Her life and honour are in danger,” pleaded an illiterate Sarvesh in a Hindi application signed with his thumb impression.
Incidentally, on the same day, Governor Anandiben Patel promulgated the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020. It was based on “facts” presented by the Shukla family in the new application that Sections 3 and 5 of the new ordinance were added to the FIR, says Sitapur Superintendent of Police (North) Rajiv Dixit.
While Neetu and Jubrail have not been traced yet, a police officer says 10 persons accused of facilitating the elopement, all of them Jubrail’s family members or acquaintances, have been arrested. Police teams have been sent to Lucknow, Bahraich, Barabanki and even Punjab in search of the couple.
Ever since the promulgation of the ordinance, the U.P. police have displayed uncanny expediency in invoking it in cases involving Muslim men and Hindu women. Apart from Sitapur, FIRs have been lodged in Bareilly, Moradabad, Mau and Muzaffarnagar. According to police records, at least 18 persons have been arrested under the new ordinance so far: 10 in Sitapur, five in Mau, two in Moradabad and one in Bareilly. Barring one, all of them are Muslims.
In Makhu Behar village, Neetu’s parents are livid and ashamed at once. They are angry with themselves for failing to anticipate their daughter’s actions. “If one of my children had died, I would have felt less pain,” says Rekha, Sarvesh’s wife. “We have not been able to show our face in the village.” Standing in front of the facade of his house, Sarvesh says, “If he was not taking her to convert her, why else would a Muslim man take away a Hindu woman?” Sarvesh, a Brahmin, is a farmer. He owns eight bighas of land and five head of cattle. The family still uses wood fire for cooking.
Neetu left home with ₹2 lakh in cash, which her father had acquired in exchange for buffaloes, and all her mother’s jewellery, allege the couple. Locals think the claim is exaggerated.
“Now all I have left is this body. Either you fire a bullet into me or ask the daroga (inspector) to do it,” Rekha says.
The ‘dishonour’ of their daughter having eloped with a Muslim man has upset the Shuklas more than her disappearance. Sarvesh and his family have not ventured out much since November 24. A relative of the Shuklas sums up their sentiments: “Saath pushtin ka daag lagai gawa (The blot will last for seven generations),” he said. Another gives a threat to the couple, “Shaadi nahi hoti, post-mortem hota (The wedding won’t take place, only the post-mortem will).”
Could Neetu, prima facie an adult, have gone with Jubrail willingly and not been induced or coerced? Was there any trigger for the elopement that the parents were unaware of? These questions irk Sarvesh. “I don’t know how and what happened. Suppose I’m sitting here and someone goes to the shed and steals a buffalo of mine, how would I know who has done it,” he asks. And what if Neetu had eloped with a Hindu? “If that was the case, I would not react,” he says. Rekha adds: “We would give them a jaimala (wedding garland).”
In Makhu Behar, where even inter-caste marriages are considered quite scandalous, a marriage or elopement between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man is nothing short of outrageous. Both communities say the elopement has brought them badnaami (shame).
Jubrail’s single-floor, tarpaulin-roofed brick house is deserted. The only signs of life in this decrepit house are the overgrown papaya plantation in the tiny backyard, wood ash at the brick stove, and fresh lumps of cow dung in the courtyard. Jubrail’s relative’s home is also locked. An eerie silence hangs in the air; most neighbours are reluctant to talk about the case.
Jubrail’s brothers Israil and Moinuddin, who is physically challenged; their mother; Israil’s wife; uncle Usman; relatives Rafiq and Shamshad; and three friends, including a Hindu van driver Saroj Shukla, who allegedly dropped the couple at the bus station are all in jail. The arrests have instilled fear among the village’s Muslims, many of whom have temporarily shifted to other places or have remained indoors.
Locals whisper about Neetu and Jubrail’s friendship but refuse to comment on their alleged relationship. The two families shared a cordial relationship but maintained distance over the past year due to a minor dispute over cattle.
There is a general consensus in the village that the man and woman had planned their elopement. But Neetu and Jubrail were rarely seen out together. Both Hindus and Muslims say Jubrail was always focused on earning a livelihood. He had recently purchased a second-hand van, which incidentally he did not use for the elopement. Neighbours describe Neetu as being discreet but bright.
Old files, new case
Some 250 km northwest of Tambaur, in Sharif Nagar village of Bareilly, septuagenarian Rafiq Ahmad is waiting for his son Uwaish, 21, to return from jail. Barely 24 hours after the ordinance was promulgated, the U.P. Police lodged a case in Deorania police station against Uwaish, a labourer, for criminal intimidation. Sections of the new ordinance were added to the printed FIR with a pen as the police system was not updated with the law. In the FIR, a local Hindu man, Tikaram Rathore, accused Uwaish of trying to coerce his married daughter, aged 20, to convert to Uwaish’s religion and marry him. Tikaram said Uwaish had developed a friendship with his daughter during their school days, and intended to “coerce, coax and allure her into converting”.
However, a day later, the woman’s brother, Kesarpal, contradicted the narrative and said that his sister had planned to elope in October 2019 but was tracked by the police within days. Uwaish faced a kidnapping case but to preserve their ‘social honour’, the Rathores changed their statement and the matter reached a compromise in court, say Kesarpal and a police officer. The woman got married to another man this May.
It remains unclear how the ordinance fits in this case and what prompted the family to re-open an apparently resolved grievance. The local Station House Officer says Tikaram submitted a fresh complaint and contended that Uwaish continued to harass and threaten his daughter even after her marriage. But Kesarpal, who works in a private firm, claims that his father did not approach the police. He says the police came to their house to question them about some “old files” before taking Tikaram to the police station for questioning. The police subsequently arrested Uwaish on December 2.
Rafiq claims that his son and the woman had not been in touch since the settlement. The police booked his son under the new ordinance to “add stars” to their badges, he says. Rafiq also claims that the Rathore family were pressured by the police to file the fresh complaint and blames the administration for falsely implicating his son. Rafiq says last year, the woman left her house due to some domestic grievance, but Uwaish did not accompany her. “Even they (the Rathore family) are with us,” he says. Kesarpal has been inaccessible since November 29.
A tool for harassment
Though there is no mention of ‘love jihad’ in the draft of the ordinance, the law was introduced against the backdrop of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s promise to introduce measures to curb inter-faith marriages and relationships involving a Hindu woman and a Muslim man. Government spokesperson Siddharth Nath Singh said the ordinance would help provide justice to women, especially to those from Dalit and tribal communities.
However, others argue that the ordinance is being used to harass inter-faith couples and expose them to vigilantism. Pranvesh Om, a law research scholar from Prayagraj, one of the petitioners challenging the ordinance in the Supreme Court, argues that the FIRs lodged so far do not prima facie disclose the offence and are based on mere apprehensions.
In Sitapur, for instance, sections under the new ordinance were later added to the FIR on the basis of apprehensions of the informant, says Pranvesh. “Only unlawful conversion and attempts of conversion have been made punishable. Here, neither was there an attempt nor was there any offence committed. This ordinance gives room to lodge a false FIR stating that someone is preparing to convert someone unlawfully,” he says.
Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Professor at Ashoka University, says the ordinance is “another tool to criminalise behaviour of Muslim men”. He says, “The goal seems to be to deepen the social gulf between the two communities so that there is more distrust and subsequently it is easier to dehumanise the other.”
Already living in fear due to societal pressures, conservative customs, and restrictions, inter-faith couples now have another worry — the ordinance. It threatens to criminalise inter-faith love and marriage and places the burden of proof on the accused.
Disregarding the agency of women
In two cases, the consent and agency of adult women have been disregarded. On December 5, the police in Kanth arrested Rashid and his brother when Rashid was allegedly attempting to get his marriage to a Hindu woman registered. He and Pinki, from Bijnor, had been in a consensual relationship and had been living with each other for the past few months. They had known each other for two years. Pinki says the couple had got married on July 24 in Dehradun.
When they reached the marriage registration office in Kanth, Rashid and his brother were arrested based on an FIR lodged by the woman’s mother who alleged that Rashid had induced Pinki into marriage and converted her under the garb of providing a job, the police say. According to Section 4 of the ordinance, any aggrieved person, his or her parents, brother, sister or any other person who is related to him or her by blood, marriage or adoption may lodge an FIR of unlawful conversion.
At the tehsil, Pinki was heckled and humiliated by members of a right-wing group. She asserted that she was an adult and had married willingly but it fell on deaf ears. “This law is made for people like you,” one of the nameless vigilante leaders was heard telling Pinki in a video of the incident.
The police have not found any document as proof of Pinki and Rashid’s marriage or conversion, says Vidya Sagar Mishra, Superintendent of Police, Rural Moradabad. While the right-wing group claimed that they handed over the couple to the police after chasing them near a temple, Mishra says the vigilantes had reached the spot after they heard that the police had arrived there. The woman’s mother brought the police there, he says. Pinki is now at a shelter home run by the government as she did not want to go back to her family, says Mishra. “We cannot force her to go. Also, this makes sense from a security point of view,” the officer says.
‘State has no right to intervene’
While no FIR was lodged in Lucknow, the police on December 2 controversially intervened to stop a marriage ceremony between a consenting couple — a Hindu B.Sc student (20) and a Muslim pharmacist (25) — citing the new ordinance. The police reached the venue allegedly on the complaint of a fringe outfit, the Rashtriya Yuva Vahini, which describes itself as a “sahyogi (partner)” of the BJP. The police asked the couple to first seek the permission of the District Magistrate before getting married. The ordinance declares void any marriage done with the sole purpose of “unlawful conversion or vice-versa”. Also, one who desires to convert his or her religion has to give a declaration in a prescribed form at least 60 days in advance to the District Magistrate or the Additional District Magistrate stating that this was being done of his or her own free will and without coercion. Violation of this provision can land a person in jail for three months or even three years. The Lucknow couple agreed to marry only after acquiring the District Magistrate’s nod.
The marriage ceremony was planned much ahead of the day when the ordinance was passed. After participating in the religious ceremonies of both faiths, the couple had planned to register their marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
The episode at the venue has shaken the two families who have gone under the radar. In their lower-middle class locality on the outskirts of Lucknow, the families say they prefer to stay indoors. They agree to talk after much persuasion under the condition of anonymity. Despite the episode, the families are firm on the marriage. Happy to report the unflinching support of her parents, the woman says the government or outsiders have no right to interfere in consensual inter-personal relationships. The man, mehndi colours still fresh on his hands, says the marriage was stopped only to harass them.
“In our locality such cases keep coming up, but nothing happens. They appear in the thana, the consent of the man and woman is taken, and the two are asked to go live together,” says the man. While stressing that the couple had no plans of converting post-marriage, he also added that if needed, one of them would change their religion. He wouldn’t mind becoming a Hindu for her either, he says.
The woman’s parents say they would rather see her happily marry a man she loves rather than see her being forced to elope. “We are happy if our children are happy,” says her mother, a cook from the Gupta community. The father says, “If we didn’t agree and tomorrow they take a wrong step, what will we do?”
Vague terms in the new law
The new ordinance was also invoked in Muzaffarnagar where two Muslim brothers were booked on November 29 for allegedly trying to force a married Hindu woman to convert. In his complaint at the Mansoorpur police station, Akshay Kumar Tyagi, who works in a prominent pharmaceutical company as a labour contractor in Haridwar, where he had been living for five years with his wife Parul and two children, alleged that one Nadeem had “trapped” her in a “net of love” with the aim of converting her. Nadeem, 32, a resident of Bhagwanpur in Haridwar, is a labourer and used to frequent their house. He became friends with Parul, Akshay submitted. By alluring her, Nadeem planned to marry Parul and convert her, alleged Akshay in the FIR. The allurement? An Oppo F15 mobile phone that Nadeem had gifted Parul. She used the phone to secretly communicate with him, he said. Nadeem’s brother Salman was also booked for allegedly helping him in the “conspiracy”. No arrests have been made in the case. Akshay did not respond to requests for an interview.
Five persons were arrested in Mau district’s Chiraiyakot days after a Muslim man, already married, and 13 others were booked for allegedly abducting the daughter of a prominent Hindu gold trader on the eve of her wedding. The ordinance was also slapped against them. The police say the man, said to be a driver, and the woman fled from their homes and are yet to be traced.
In the context of these cases, Pranvesh further states that the offences under the law have been defined in vague terms, in particular the word ‘allurement’. This could result in the lodging of fake cases by the member of one religion against the member of another, in order to harass them. The ordinance is also silent on the point of live-in relationships, he says. “What will be the fate of cases wherein two adults of different religions live together without marrying or converting their religion,” he asks.
Also when the procedure for declaration while solemnising inter-religious marriages has already been prescribed under the Special Marriage Act, a Central law, what prompted the State government to provide for a cumbersome procedure for declaration under the new law, he asks.
Meanwhile, in Sitapur, the distraught Shuklas await the return of their daughter. Sarvesh says there is no question of his daughter ever marrying a Muslim, even if there is no conversion. And what if she is adamant? “There is no way I’ll allow it,” he says sternly. “If I get back the girl, I will get her married off and liberate myself [from this responsibility].”
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