With a million other issues pressing upon our country, our policymakers have decided to focus on something uniquely exotic this week: the ‘Love Jihad Bill‘, a bill made to ‘restrict conversions in the name of love’. Where, on one end, our country is fighting to amend the special marriages act to include same-sex marriages or removing gender altogether from it, the other half is fighting to put men in jail if the women they love wish to change their religion on their own accord.
While we should be looking at issues like marital rape or honour killing or killing women in the name of dowry, it is a shame that all our top brass can think of is how to penalise a section of our country: the members of a certain religion. This law, which will only focus on a specific type of conversion, that too only among women, is draconian and a step backwards for us as a country, which, honestly, seems to be the trend in our country these days.
India is a secular country. The freedom to choose one’s religion and not be targeted on the basis of it is an Indian’s right. The one’s out there vouching for such a law should read our Constitution first.