India's most populous state bans 'love jihad' involving Hindu women marrying Muslim men
India’s most populous state has vowed to fight what it calls “love jihad” and has declared interfaith marriages illegal if the purpose is the religious conversion of the woman, in the latest move that could potentially further divide the South Asian nation along religious lines.
States led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party call interfaith marriages “love jihad” – a reference to an alleged conspiracy of Muslim men luring Hindu women into marriage for conversion. Ministers in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) firebrand priest Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday approved the law that also proposes jail sentences as long as 10 years for offenders.
The heated election campaign rhetoric that’s turned into legislation has triggered a debate on whether such a law will curb religious and civil liberties guaranteed by the constitution of the world’s largest democracy. At least five BJP-ruled states have announced their intention to pass similar laws but until now, only Himachal Pradesh has enacted its Religious Freedom Act, which came into force last year.
Since his re-election in 2019, Modi revoked Article 370 of the constitution that granted special autonomous status to India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, and approved a citizenship law that discriminates based on religion.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3111376/indias-most-populous-state-ends-love-jihad-involving-hindu
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