The legal ramifications of the recently promulgated Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 are examined by juxtaposing popular perceptions of inter-religious marriages as “dishonourable” to the concerned families and communities, with a feminist perspective of women’s agency and exercise of choice in marriage. The key to preventing the phenomenon of conversion for marriage lies not in enacting draconian legislations that arm the state machinery with arbitrary powers, but in streamlining and simplifying procedures under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 that allow for inter-religious marriages without religious conversion of either person.
In light of the renewed demand from certain sections of society to enact laws against religious conversions for marriage, this reading list analyses the harmful impact of the narrative of “love jihad” on Hindu women.
The differential growth rates of Hindu and Muslim populations in India, as well as differences in acceptance of family planning practices, have always formed the subject of controversial debate. Based primarily on five national level surveys conducted between 1970 and 1998, this paper makes an attempt to analyse the differential growth rates of the Hindus and Muslims in India, their fertility levels and family planning practices observed by them.
This study explores how socio-economic factors interlink producers' businesses and production activities, and how business interlinkings cause extra-economic coercion on producers of both the Hindu and Muslim communities, as well as those of various sub-castes and investment sizes. A cooperative could help alleviate many problems of the producers, and also mitigate caste and religious prejudices.
Understanding Communal Violence Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India by Ashutosh Varshney; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2002; pp ix+382, 35 pounds (Indian edition: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp ix+382, Rs 495).
From the late 19th century onwards the development of a conscious Hindu political identity manifested itself in the emerging Indian polity. In Benares with a history marked since antiquity by an uninterrupted line of sacredness, the process was more fractured and conflict-ridden with memories of Hindu-Muslim conflicts that were a frequent occurrence after the mid-17th century. Growing economic cleavages and the available political and educational opportunities increasingly fostered divisions among communities that in turn assisted in the formation of a robust, aggressive Hindu identity. Since the late 1990s, however, it has been the vocal members of the Sangh parivar who have taken over the domain and definition of Hindutva.
Anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim sentiments had been building up in Gujarat long before the revival of the Ayodhya temple campaign. Godhra was not mere a spark but a bomb in itself. The fall-out has been both mammoth and horrifying. What is now happening in Gujarat is not heightened Ram Janmabhoomi stir, but a vigilante administration of 'justice' for whatever are considered historical wrongs. What happened in Gujarat may not be an aberration, and if similar developments are to be arrested elsewhere, the underlying reasons prompting such wide-ranging violence and moving the masses need to be genuinely understood.
