A day after Gujarat’s Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said that the Constitution, secularism and the law will last as long as Hindus are in majority in India, while talking about instances of “love jihad” through interfaith marriages, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Saturday asserted that the State was committed to stopping forcible conversion through marriages.
He also reiterated that the State would approach the Supreme Court against the High Court’s interim order staying several Sections of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021 .
Earlier on Thursday, Gujarat’s Minister of State for Home Pradipsinh Jadeja in a statement said that the menace of “love jihad” was real and the State government would approach the apex court challenging the interim order of the High Court, which has stayed the provisions of the anti-conversion law dealing with the interfaith marriages in Gujarat.
The assertive remarks by three top functionaries in as many days suggests that the amended anti-conversion law would be the ruling party’s centrepiece for the campaign in the run up to the Assembly polls to be held next year in the communally sensitive State, where polarisation along religious lines is always sharply shaping the political narrative.
On August 19, the Gujarat High Court in an interim order stayed Sections 3, 4, 4A to 4C, 5, 6 and 6A of the amended Act pending further hearing, saying that they “shall not operate merely because a marriage is solemnised by a person of one religion with a person of another religion without force or by allurement or by fraudulent means and such marriages cannot be termed as marriages for the purposes of unlawful conversion”.
On Saturday, Mr. Rupani said, “The State government is firm to protect Hindu girls who are made to elope, and later forced to undergo religious conversion. The law against love jihad was brought in this very context and to take strong action against such acts.”
Reiterating the State government’s commitment to take the legal fight to the highest court, he added, “the State government will certainly approach the Supreme Court against the High Court’s order staying Sections of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021, and will do all that is required.”
The amended law enacted in the State legislature in 2021 penalises forcible or fraudulent religious conversion through marriage, and was notified by the Gujarat government on June 15.
The original Act has been in force since 2003 and its amended version was passed in the Assembly in April 2021.
In July; the Gujarat chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind filed a petition in the HC, challenging some of the amended Sections of the new law, calling them unconstitutional.
Among the other Sections, which mainly deal with religious conversion through interfaith marriages, the Division Bench of the High Court also stayed the operation of Section 5, which according to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is the “core” of the entire Act and a stay on it effectively stays the entire legislation that seeks to ban religious conversion in the State.
The government on Wednesday told the High Court that Section 5 has nothing to do with marriage per se . A stay on Section 5 would actually stay the application of the entire law itself, and no one would approach the authorities for seeking permission before getting converted.
However, the HC on Thursday turned down the State government’s plea seeking rectification of its order.
Section 5 of the Act mandates that religious priests must take prior permission from the District Magistrate for converting a person from one faith to another.
On Friday; Deputy CM Mr. Patel said there would be “no Constitution and no secularism the moment Hindus decrease and others increase”.
“Let me tell you something and you can video record this if you want: those talking about the Constitution, secularism, law, etc., will do so only till the Hindus are in majority in this country, and the day the number of Hindus decreases, and of others’ increases, there will be no secularism, no Lok Sabha, no Constitution. Everything will be flung in the air and buried. Nothing will remain,” he claimed.
Mr. Patel also broached the topic of love jihad and asked why only some organisations from a particular community challenged the law enacted by the State to stop religious conversion through interfaith marriages using allurement, force or fraudulent means.
