A Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde refused to entertain a habeas corpus plea seeking protection of a woman in an interfaith relationship with the petitioner. He has alleged that she has been allegedly detained by her parents and is under the threat of forceful marriage, reported LiveLaw.

The plea has been filed by the NGO Dhanak of Humanity, by Advocate P. Sureshan, and settled by Advocate Utkarsh Singh.

The Bench also comprising Justices AS Bopanna and Ramasubramanian asked the petitioner to approach the Allahabad High Court instead, remarking, “What we can’t understand is do you think Allahabad High Court can’t pass directions?”

The counsel reasoned that they did not approach the High Court as it was on a strike at that point, and now if they approach the state court, it will take 10 days to get the case listed, reported LiveLaw.

According to the media, the counsel appearing for the petitioner argued before the Court that a mandatory direction was passed by the top court in its judgement (Shakti Vahini) to make special cells, but no special cells or protection houses have been formed to protect interfaith couples.

But the top court refused to entertain these arguments and asked the petitioner to withdraw and approach the Allahabad High Court. This plea sought directions for compliance with the Supreme court’s 2018 judgement in case of Shakti Vahini, where directions were issued as preventive, remedial and punitive measures for protection of honour killing victims.

The petitioner Rajesh Gupta, as reported by LiveLaw, approached the police in February 2021 and informed them that his partner S. Nisha is under illegal confinement and prayed for her protection. He also asked the Police to produce her before a special cell as mandated by the Supreme Court’s order, but was informed that no such special cell has been instituted.

The top court’s judgment in Shakti Vahini vs Union of India had directed the police to take some steps to build a robust mechanism to meet the challenges of the agonising effect of honour crime. The judgment read, “Additionally, immediate steps should be taken to provide security to the couple/family and, if necessary, to remove them to a safe house within the same district or elsewhere keeping in mind their safety and threat perception. The State Government may consider establishing a safe house at each District Headquarter for that purpose. Such safe houses can cater to accommodate. Young bachelor-bachelorette couples whose relationship is being opposed by their families /local community/Khaps and (ii) young married couples (of an inter-caste or inter-religious or any other marriage being opposed by their families/local community/Khaps). Such safe houses may be placed under the supervision of the jurisdictional District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.”

The present plea, as per LiveLaw, alleges that the State owing to bureaucratic laxity and apathetic attitude have failed to comply with the mandate of directions and have wilfully and intentionally disregarded the Shakti Vahini order.

Related:

Punjab & Haryana HC says interfaith marriage invalid as Muslim woman did not convert
Intimacies of marriage private, can’t be affected by matters of faith: SC
Punjab and Haryana HC suggest safe houses for inter-caste couples

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Yesterday, we went on our latest such trip. N had collected some money which she wanted to give to a woman who had worked in her home as a domestic help when she was a child—which was perhaps more than 40 years ago. The woman, Bibi Jaan, is a Muslim. Now maybe 90 years or so old, she lives all by herself in a little structure in a slum in a distant part of the city.

Bibi Jaan had stopped working with N’s family many years ago. But sometimes during the Muslim fasting month of Ramzan, she would go all the way to N’s place, and N’s father (who is a Muslim) would give her some money in charity. With Ramzan this year scheduled to start shortly, N wanted to go over herself to meet Bibi Jaan and  hand  over  some money that she had collected for her, and M and I decided to accompany her.

A woman called Uma was the only person N was in touch with who knew where Bibi Jaan lived. Luckily, N had Uma’s telephone number. She spoke to Uma, and Uma readily agreed to take us to meet Bibi Jaan.

When we got to Bibi Jaan’s place in the slum, we found the door locked. Bibi Jaan had gone out and we didn’t know where she was and when she would be back.  It was pointless waiting for her. And so, we headed for Uma’s place.

Even though we missed meeting Bibi Jaan, our encounter with Uma made up for it. Uma’s love and concern for Bibi Jaan were palpable and truly touching, I discovered as we engaged Uma in conversation. Uma happened to be a Hindu, and Bibi Jaan a Muslim, but this religious difference didn’t seem to matter in what was their very obviously intensely close relationship.

Uma spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, but N translated bits of what she said, so I managed to get a rough idea. It was something like this: Bibi Jaan worked a domestic help in Uma’s home for a very long time. Uma had known her ever since she was a little child, maybe more than 50 years ago (Uma is now almost 60). Bibi Jaan had once served Uma and her family, but now she was old and infirm and alone and the roles had been reversed. It was now Uma’s turn to take good care of Bibi Jaan: which she does—and with seemed to me to be great love.

Every Thursday, Uma arranges for Bibi Jaan to come over to her home, where she gives her good food to eat and also gives her a ‘head-bath’. Bibi Jaan spends the night there, along with Uma’s family. The next morning, Uma takes Bibi Jaan in an auto-rickshaw to a Dargah, a Muslim shrine: perhaps Bibi Jaan likes spending time there. On several occasions, Uma has paid the bills when Bibi Jaan has fallen sick. Uma has also taken Bibi Jaan along with her on trips outside town.

Uma isn’t at all very ‘educated’ by the standards of the world.  She lives in a very modestly-sized house and receives a meagre pension—a thousand rupees a month, if I understood correctly—on account of her deceased husband (fortunately, her son has a job and helps support her financially). Yet, despite (or perhaps precisely because of) her educational and economic background, she seems to lovingly tend to Bibi Jaan.

This was truly interfaith harmony in action: A Hindu and a Muslim woman bound together by a relationship based on love and mutual service that began more than half a century ago and is still going strong! I don’t think I’d witnessed anything like this before!

I don’t suppose Uma and Bibi Jaan have ever heard of the phrase ‘interfaith harmony’, but that’s something they’ve been living out together, over many, many years!

One should give even from a scanty store to him who asks

(The Dhammapada)

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

The post Interfaith: What These Two Women Can Teach Us appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I’m proud of American Jews mobilizing to fight Islamophobia. But to fully fight hate, U.S. Jews must confront the role pro-Israel organizations continue to play in spreading anti-Muslim bigotry.

http://972mag.com/what-u-s-jews-must-do-to-fight-anti-muslim-bigotry/115113/
 
Anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from American lawmakers and presidential candidates reached a fevered pitch earlier this month when, standing before a cheering crowd aboard the USS Yorktown in South Carolina, Donald Trump called for a “total and complete” ban on Muslims entering the United States. This call came on the heels of Trump and Ben Carson calling for mosques to be monitored, Senator Marco Rubio suggesting that places where Muslim-Americans gather be shut down, and hundreds of lawmakers voting to turn away Syrian refugees.

These anti-Muslim policies, and the Islamophobia at their core, no longer reside on the fringes in America. They have seeped into the mainstream. Today, a majority of conservative voters support them, and poll numbers often rise for those Republican politicians who choose to double down by exploiting anti-Muslim sentiments. Such policies — and the hateful incitement politicians use when proposing them — are inspiring horrific hate crimes against Muslim-Americans. In the week after Trump’s Muslim ban comments, a California mosque was torched, an Arizona mosque was vandalized, two Muslim women in Florida were violently attacked, a Muslim deli owner in New York was beaten, and a Muslim child in Georgia was asked by a teacher, “Do you have a bomb in your backpack?”

I have been heartened in recent weeks to see many Jewish leaders and pro-Israel institutions, shocked by the historical reverberations, stand up for Muslims under attack. After all, in 1939 it was Jews fleeing Hitler who were demonized and blocked from reaching America’s shores. This stuff hits close to home for American Jews. Which is why 11 Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), recently signed a letter to Congress declaring that “to turn our back on [Syrian] refugees would be to betray our nation’s core values.” It is also why the ADL was quick to blast Trump last week.

However, such public pronouncements, as wonderful as they have been, conceal a troubling truth which the institutional Jewish community and U.S. Jews invested in Israel must confront if we are to root out anti-Muslim bigotry: in the post-9/11 era, pro-Israel donors, institutions and the Israel lobby have often fueled the very Islamophobia now suddenly catching fire in America, doing so as a strategy for smearing Palestinians.

Promoting and showcasing anti-Muslim bigots has become a troubling pattern for the Israel lobby, particularly its most powerful arm: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). One example occurred in 2007, when Pastor John Hagee – one of the loudest anti-Muslim voices on the Christian right – was invited to give a keynote address at AIPAC’s policy conference. Not only has Hagee engaged in Holocaust revisionism, but his Islamophobia prompted the Center for American Progress (CAP) to highlight him as a prime example of anti-Muslim hatred fomenting in evangelical circles. Even John McCain rejected his endorsement in 2008, despite the huge potential gains. And yet, crowds cheered him at AIPAC, where he has been given a platform.

Another example is Steve Emerson, who has been invited to speak at AIPAC’s policy conferences multiple times. CAP identified Emerson as one of the five most influential “misinformation experts” in America. Head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Emerson is best known for creating outlandish claims to support the theory that Muslim-Americans are plotting jihad in this country, such as the one repeated by a Republican congressman on Fox News that “80 to 85 percent of mosques … are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists.” With AIPAC giving platforms to such purveyors of hate, it is no surprise that the organization has remained silent as Syrian refugees are smeared and anti-Muslim bigotry runs rampant.

Of course, organizations are influenced by those who financially support them. And a deep dive into the world of Jewish, pro-Israel donors reveals that some of the most influential people spreading anti-Muslim bigotry are funded by American Jews with deep connections to the Israel lobby and pro-Israel organizations. This includes the Jewish Communal Fund, which has supported Pamela Geller and the Clarion Fund, and former AIPAC board member Nina Rosenwald, who has given millions to some of the most notorious bigots. This includes Daniel Pipes, who has made spreading Islamophobic misinformation a multi-million dollar profession as head of the Middle East Forum, where he has notoriously argued that Muslim-Americans should be racially profiled and denied constitutionally protected rights.

Why are pro-Israel organizations and donors fueling anti-Muslim bigotry when most American Jews reject such hate? Troublingly, too many Jewish institutions see propagating Islamophobia as a way of supporting Israel. Matt Duss, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (full disclosure: FMEP is a +972 donor), once wrote that for some, “support for the Jewish state is a zero-sum contest between favoring Israel and favoring Arabs and Muslims. For too many American Jews, smearing Islam is seen as a legitimate expression of Zionism.”
I’m proud of American Jews mobilizing to fight the Islamophobia being fomented by figures like Trump. However, to fully fight such hate, U.S. Jews must confront the role pro-Israel organizations have played – and continue to play – in spreading Islamophobia as a zero-sum justification for smearing Palestinians. Otherwise, even as U.S. Jews publicly fight the purveyors of hate from without, by giving cover from within to those spreading hate, not only will Muslim-Americans continue to be endangered, so too will those Palestinians being occupied and oppressed by Israel.
For they are the true target.

David Harris-Gershon is a writer for Tikkun and author of ‘What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?‘

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