Limits Of A Moral State: Love and hate as state policy

There is nothing more dangerous than a leader who believes he is morally right. You cannot question him, nor criticise him, for he has seen the truth. He is the Enlightened One and is fighting for a cause; whatever that may be, his country or community. When entrusted with power his righteousness may cause untold misery to the people, for he uses the state as a moral weapon.

Such a Leader believes he is the moral custodian of his people, for he wishes to build a moral society. At a mundane level, it comes down to ‘my women and my cows are my property and thou shall touch them at the peril of death’.

This leader believes he is fighting a ‘Dharma-yuddh’. That he is protecting his flock and their faith from the trickery and treachery of others trying to convert them. The problem is that the concept of right and wrong, good and evil is always community-specific. ‘Show me the community and I will show you the rules’ is the unstated dictum. He also assumes that destiny has chosen him to destroy the enemy that threatens his folk. The binary division of citizens into ‘Us /Them’, is so implicit in policymaking that it is seen as an act of benevolence.

Take the case of UP Chief Minister. He is the `Monk who became CM’, according to one of his biographers. Why monks become politicians and aspire to become ministers and CMs is a moot point. In the Hindutva hierarchy, saints and monks occupy a higher pedestal than normal politicians, though there is no evidence to suggest that they provide a more just and honest governance.

Certain obvious questions, however, seem totally beyond their ken. Is it the task of state to protect our morals or change them? Did we elect politicians or ‘Dharma gurus’? By what authority vested in them can they tell me who our daughters shall marry or what religion my family believes in. And how can anybody be punished for choosing a partner or religion? That is the central question of the new ordinance issued by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The ‘UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Order 2020’ states that ‘a marriage will be considered null and void if the sole intention of the same is conversion of a girl’s religion.’ Only Hindu girls are the subjects of this ordinance, secondly, only Hindu girls need to be protected from ‘misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means’ in this act of marriage which may lead to conversion.

Hindu men are clearly exempt from such legislative hurdles either for marrying Muslim girls or for their conversion which may be celebrated as ‘ghar wapsi’.

HC rulings

Already the High Courts of Karnataka and Allahabad have weighed in on the debate and categorically stated that ‘the right of any major individual to marry the person of his/her choice is a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution and the said liberty relating to the personal relationships of two individuals cannot be encroached by anybody irrespective caste or religion.’

The Allahabad HC added for good measure that this ‘would also be a threat to the concept of unity in diversity’. One may give Yogi Adityanath the benefit of doubt that he is neither aware of what is written in the Constitution nor has he heard of the principle of ‘unity in diversity’ but what about his government? Is the UP bureaucracy so inept that no one could tell the CM that his ordinance is bad in law and in morality?

And why are only the BJP-ruled states seem so worried about the morality of their gullible daughters? All the BJP CMs, as if on a cue, seem threatened by Muslim men seducing Hindu girls. Who is giving them this ‘policy-diktat’? Is it our ever-caring Home Minister or is the directive coming from Nagpur? The latter seems more likely because what is it stake is the creation of a society based on Hindutva principles.

A social engineering that will take us back to the Golden Age when the rule of the patriarch prevailed. Love for the ‘pitru-bhoomi’ cannot bloom unless the role of the ‘pitru’ is re-established. Hark back to the age when the women folk implicitly obeyed the command of the male in the household. The male has been traditionally idealised in our society. He is the ‘Yajamana’ who can perform ‘yaga and yagna’ and he is the one with a legal standing in the Hindu Undivided Family as the ‘Kartha’- the one who will divide and allocate properties to his children.

There is a more insidious social engineering in this project. That is to remove the centrality of the ‘individual’ with all her ‘free will’ and ‘autonomy’ and replace it with ‘family’ as the ultimate unit of society. It must be remembered that the ‘individual’ is at the heart of our Constitutional universe. The vision of our Constitution and the ensuing human rights and values, such as Equality, Liberty, Fraternity and Justice are all attributes assigned to an individual and not to the family. It is her rights and liberties that are guaranteed by the Constitution and they are justiciable in a court of law. And that is precisely what is being snuffed out.

The foundational purpose of the new ordinance is to curtail the Hindu girl’s choice in her marriage. For she ‘knows not’ what is good for her. It’s her family, preferably her father who will decide that for her. This is to legalise what the ‘Khap Panchayats’ in Haryana used to do without any legal sanction. The other objective, of course, is to criminalise the Muslim youth who marries a Hindu girl.

(The writer, who had worked at the Cabinet Secretariat, is Visiting Fellow, Observer Research Foundation)