Aaj hum nafrat nahi pyaar chhipaana sikhaate hain Jabki ‘Jihad’ ko ‘Love’ se hi jeet sakte hain

Aaj hum nafrat nahi pyaar chhipaana sikhaate hain Jabki ‘Jihad’ ko ‘Love’ se hi jeet sakte hain

  • Meenakshi Natarajan

It is a story that took place just a few days ago. A family that dwells in my neighborhood lives in complete harmony. There are two adolescents in the family - a daughter and a son. Both the children, struggling with the nuances of teenage, often come to me for advice. I am the daughter’s confidante.

It so happened that latter’s best friend, Sanobar, stopped coming to school, all of a sudden. Intriguingly, Sanobar’s absence from school started taking toll on this girl’s physical and mental well being. Despair began to engulf her life. After being persistently asked for the reason, she told me that no one talked to Sanobar in the class. Nobody even liked to share food with her. Sanobar hardly had any other friend except this adolescent girl of my neighborhood. Apparently, Sanobar must be feeling shattered. Her parents had decided to withdraw her from the school.

My neighbours are very sensitive. When they came to know about this, they decided to visit Sanobar’s house along with their daughter. They convinced Sanobar’s parents that the friendship between the two girls would never be snapped. Hence, Sanobar started coming to the school again. Children, of course, do emulate their elders. The effect of experiencing such a discrimination on an adolescent mind reflects the grim reality about the future society. Even today, Sanobar is her best friend.

The system must also bring in a statutory provision making an affidavit mandatory for this. What would happen if Sanobar tries to convert to some other religions? The ‘Protection Groups’ need to be activated. But what would have happened had a Samuel or a Sajid been there in place of Sanobar? The whole society would have been up in arms with unease. It would have become an issue of ‘Love Jihad’ and a hue and cry would have ensued. But it would not have been comfortable even with a Sameer? Had he, like George Floyd, belonged to a marginalized society, then who would have allowed friendship with someone from outside the four-Varna system? ‘Khap’ Panchayats could have ‘protected’ them, as nobody has the right to ‘Love’ someone without their permission?

Even if one belongs to the powerful and elite class, the society still goes haywire. Where has the society speaking so highly of ‘Love’ eclipsed? Where did the legacy, in which Radha and Krishna are worshiped, vanish? Today, we have grown into a community that is ashamed of love, it teaches how to suppress ‘Love’ and seeks to propagate ‘Hatred’ instead. Even while watching TV, channels are mostly changed at love scenes rather at the scenes of violence.

I remember that this girl once blurted out to me hesitatingly saying, “I am not as wayward as everyone says.” Instinctively, I asked her who would call her spoiled? What did it mean to be spoiled? She said that talking to boys, liking someone, talking to someone, befriending someone, loving someone are all signs of being spoiled. Now, how will one explain this? We have started taking pride in spreading hatred. What an attitude - hate is acceptable to us!

After all, a sister and a daughter are a symbol of prestige and pride. She is like a trophy in the patriarchal society. The suppression of her feelings and desires is the sign of her modesty that legitimizes her being a ‘Goddess’. It means to be a ‘Goddess’ you need ‘not to be a human’ anymore; she should be aloof from feelings and unmindful of human rights. Every thing is predecided- what to have, what and how to wear and speak. No doubt that a woman has been given freedom to read and write. After all, in a patriarchal set up freedom is given to its women in a way as if freedom is its copyright. However, the rich class does not even have this opportunity. But if a girl wants to choose her life partner, it is deemed as a ‘misuse’ of her freedom and she becomes an object of public disdain. People start saying, ‘it is not right to give freedom to girls only because of this reason.’

The common refrain is that ‘the girl is misled’, ‘has been tricked’ and so on. The patriarchy believes that girls are so innocents and ignorants that they can easily be misled and won over. That a woman is not born to be independent! Even an old woman should move up at the ladder of a temple holding the hand of her grandson, and not her granddaughter. A woman is an object of beauty in the house. Poor man is not even worth it! Despite being entangled in the cobwebs of patriarchy himself. He does not have the choice of being a ‘home maker’ even out of his free-will. Such men are teased by sarcastic comments like, ‘he sits among womenfolk (as being womanly himself).’

Now the system is framing laws. Such laws will exclude the powerful. But the dominant elite class would come out unscathed. Though, the branded jewelry’s advertisement depicting inter-faith marriages was banned, yet, if the people who could afford to buy those ‘Branded Jewelry’ get married, the head of the system would be present in it and would get himself clicked as well. All this provision is only for the weakest section that has always stood in queues, that has always been asked for proofs for every thing, be it Raashan (Provision), for proving its citizenship, for exchanging its hard-earned currency notes, for getting a certificate, for giving applications, for seeking justice. It will once again have to be in queue to seek permission to get married. Even after getting permission, everything will depend on the wishes of the ‘Rakshak Dal’ (The Protection Gang). Do the weak have the right to love?

The system seems to have accepted that the marginalized society cannot think and thus, the system will do the thinking for them. The marginalized class should view the world, society, culture, religion, politics, market, nature only through the eyes of the dominant elite class. ‘Rakshak dals’ have got the license to teach the marginalized sections a lesson. So far as the question of religion is concerned, there should be no use of force or coercion. No one has the right to do so. Jihad is matter related to conscience. One fights with the inner evils every day. It is in the same fashion as Devasursangram (tussle between the good and the evil) or the great churning continues unabated in the realm of mind. In this way, ‘jihad’ can only be won over by ‘love’.

The author is a Chairperson of AICC’s Rajiv Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sangathan