Kerala love jihad case: Did the court err?
The case surrounding Akhila, renamed Hadiya, has two conflicting dimensions: liberty and terrorism. The backstory in brief: Akhila is a 24-year-old homeopath from Kottayam in Kerala. Her father KM Ashokan is a former serviceman. During her studies, Akhila drew close to radical Islamic groups. Her parents petitioned the Kerala High Court to restore her to their custody.
The petition was rejected by the court in January 2016. The court rightly held that, as an adult, Akhila was free to choose where and with whom to live. In August 2016, Akhila’s parents moved the Kerala High Court with a new petition, again seeking their daughter’s custody, claiming she was being indoctrinated by radical Islamic groups with terror links.
Parental demand
During the pendency of the case, Akhila appeared in court and declared she had married a 27-year-old man named Shefin Jehan who had earlier worked in the Gulf. She said she had converted voluntarily to Islam and her name was now Hadiya.
Days later, her parents filed an affidavit in the Kerala High Court claiming that Shefin Jehan was a member of a radical Islamic group and had been involved in three criminal cases. The affidavit said their daughter’s indoctrination and marriage to Jehan was part of a larger plot to send her to Syria (as 21 other young Indian women had earlier been) to serve the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS).
The Kerala High Court ordered a police inquiry into the allegations and counter-allegations. On receiving the police report, the court on May 24, 2017, annulled the Hadiya-Jehan marriage and sent her back to her parents’ home. In July 2017, Jehan filed a petition in the Supreme Court to re-establish his “conjugal rights” with Hadiya, calling the Kerala High Court order a serious human rights violation.
On August 16, 2017, the day after India celebrated 70 years of Independence, the Supreme Court ordered the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe whether there was a “love jihad” dimension to the Hadiya case. The NIA’s investigation is to be conducted under the supervision of retired Supreme Court Justice RV Raveendran. That is where the case rests today, a week after the Supreme Court’s order.
Human rights groups have questioned the Supreme Court’s intervention, terming it as one more example of judicial overreach. As an adult, they argue, Hadiya has every right to lead the life she chooses and with whoever she chooses. In principle, this argument is faultless. Inter-faith marriages are not the court’s business. Personal liberty supersedes parental demand for custody. The court must always protect the free choice of an adult against forcible custody by his or her guardians.
That thought is true if there is no larger public interest involved which, in exceptional circumstances, could supersede private interest. Hadiya’s case, her parents allege, is precisely one such case. The Kerala police concur. The Kerala High Court has endorsed the police report on Jehan’s alleged links with radical Islamic groups in India serving as a conduit for recruiting women to serve ISIS in Syria.
Sleeper cells
In the emotional reaction to the Hadiya-Jehan case — exacerbated by the Supreme Court wondering if it is a case of “love jihad” — the larger issue has been lost: the proliferation of sleeper terrorist cells that operate under the radar in Kerala. In normal circumstances, the Kerala High Court should not have annulled an inter-faith marriage.
In Hadiya’s case, it is important the Supreme Court decides on Jehan’s petition as swiftly as possible. If Justice Reveendran’s inquiry report points to an organised conspiracy to radicalise Indians and export them to medieval terrorist groups like ISIS in Syria —or enlist them in proscribed Indian terror outfits like the banned Islamist group SIMI and Indian Mujahideen — the case assumes an entirely different dimension.
India must have zero tolerance to terrorism. That includes stopping radicalisation by sleeper Islamist cells across the country. India must also have zero tolerance to the government infringing on individual rights and freedoms. The courts must protect those rights, not erode them.
Terror links
Whether or not the Hadiya case is the exception that merits court intervention will be decided by the Justice Raveendran-monitored NIA probe into the specific circumstances of Shefin Jehan and Hadiya. The case must not be turned into a proxy for communal, political or ideological arguments. The use of the term “love jihad” by the Supreme Court was unfortunate because it feeds into established prejudice on both sides of the ideological fence.
The only operative word should be jihad. Individual liberty is sacrosanct. Inter-faith marriages (I have one myself) are nobody’s business but the couple’s. However, when the Kerala police and a Kerala High Court bench, neither known for a majoritarian bias, provide prima facie evidence of terror links involved in the Hadiya-Jehan case, we must hold our judgment till the full facts are determined by the Supreme Court-appointed investigation. Just as India’s commitment to individual rights is inviolate, so must be our commitment to confront and defeat terrorism.