From the recent FIR against the makers of Netflix’s ‘A Suitable Boy’ to the pulling down of the Tanishq advertisement that was trolled immensely for showing a positive bond between a Muslim mother-in-law and a Hindu daughter-in-law to several states in India going ahead and thinking about the passage of ordinances against what has popularly been termed as love-jihad. The Uttar Pradesh government has now gone ahead an approved a draft of a stringent law that will deal with the issue of religious conversions for the sake of marriage. This is what has often been called love-jihad. The approval of the ordinance was given during a meeting of the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet chaired by CM Yogi Adityanath.
In the recent weeks many BJP ruled states have been thinking of issuing ordinances to negate the possibility of cross religious marriage between the Hindu and the Muslim communities. In what has been termed as love-jihad, it is alleged that Muslim men seduce Hindu women to convert into Islam. It has also been thinking of introducing a legislation that would make mass conversion of Hindus into Islam a punishable offence. It is expected that once it is approved as a law, the punishment for engaging in love-jihad will be five years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 15,000 and when found to engage in mass conversions, the fine and punishment will be much bigger. The culprits will be taken to the court of the magistrate and the offence will be non-bailable.
It is believed that with this new ordinance, the government is likely to introduce the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion Bill 2020. The ordinance has been finalised and the chief minister has gone ahead and given his approval to it. The ordinance is soon to be presented before the Cabinet.
