NUSRAT JAHAN JAIN ... 3
Nusrat Jahan's marriage to Nikhil Jain is being described by certain hard-line Muslim clerics as invalid and her relation to her duly wedded husband as a live-in relation because she has not been married as per Islamic rites of the nikah which would mandate the prior conversion of the bridegroom to Islam.
Nusrat's marriage has been conducted presumably as per Jain-Hindu rites. I say so because the two dharma traditions have now overlapping rituals and practices which make them often apparently indistinguishable. Therefore, to say from the strictly theological Islamic perspective that her marriage is invalid is, perhaps, not incorrect. But to make such a coarse and corrosive statement that she is in a live-in relationship with her non-Muslim husband is not only uncalled for but is a gross violation of the spirit of our democratic polity where individual liberty of choice of heterosexual marital partner is sanctioned by the Constitution of the country. To cite the Quran and the Hadees (Hadith) and, so, pronounce the invalidation of the Jain-Hindu marriage of Nusrat is a direct affront to her dignity as an individual and her fundamental human right to free choice and liberty to live the way she wishes to live. It is also a pointer to the incompatibility of these absolutist injunctions of the scriptures in the modern context where civil laws have been tested to have been far superior to so-called God's laws passed by men posing to be intermediaries between God and man.
All laws ever passed or imposed on societies have been made by men and passed off as God's laws merely to derive authority over men. It is time these laws are put to the test of reason and the democratic circumstance of the modern world. Where they are found compatible with democracy, they may be retained, but where they are found wanting in ethical content and the universal principles of human rights, they ought to be rejected after due consideration of their relative merits, for these scriptural texts are not open to amendment, derived as they are from archaic superstition mistaking itself to be divine utterance, inviolable and sacrosanct.
To label a Jain-Hindu marriage as invalid for a Muslim participant of it may be true from the Islamic scriptural perspective but it shows itself poorly in today's context when we ought to be living lives of greater enlightenment whose precursor for the Muslim community is Nusrat Jahan. Her marriage to Nikhil Jain, notwithstanding the Quranic rejection of it, nonetheless, stands the test of the universal principles of human rights whose early declaration we hear in the Shvetashvatar Upanishad in the pronouncement of the essential divinity of living beings, and, therefore, is perfectly valid on all counts except the intolerant theological count. That she was nonchalant in going ahead with the Jain-Hindu rituals of marriage despite her obvious knowledge of the consequent backlash from Islamic clerics across India that she would have to face, redeems her as a truly modern, enlightened and highly liberal individual who can, with persistence in such philosophy of living and its actual practice, bridge differences among conflicting communities and, through her revolutionary acceptance of the universal religion of humanity, usher inter-community understanding that the Indian polity is in such dire need of today.
Nusrat Jahan Ruhi Jain, thus, remains the face of emergent India, a rebel against archaic religious practice, the prototype of future womanhood in India and in the world at large who shall be the synthesis of all that is best of womanhood of all times and climes. Let us pay her our due respects and never even in imagination cast such calumny of declaring her nuptial rites invalid and her sacred life of loving companionship with her beloved husband as a live-in-relationship with obvious carnal connotations. God bless Nusrat ! May man bless her, too ! I, for one, bring in my best wishes for this brave girl who has the courage of conviction to do what she feels is right, come what may come in the process by way of reward or retribution.
Nusrat Jahan Ruhi Jain is the toast of the hour as she embraces the various cultural facets of our country into her person and then goes on to represent the people of her Constituency of Bashirhat in the Indian Parliament.
Vande Mataram !
Written by Sugata Bose
Nusrat Jahan's marriage to Nikhil Jain is being described by certain hard-line Muslim clerics as invalid and her relation to her duly wedded husband as a live-in relation because she has not been married as per Islamic rites of the nikah which would mandate the prior conversion of the bridegroom to Islam.
Nusrat's marriage has been conducted presumably as per Jain-Hindu rites. I say so because the two dharma traditions have now overlapping rituals and practices which make them often apparently indistinguishable. Therefore, to say from the strictly theological Islamic perspective that her marriage is invalid is, perhaps, not incorrect. But to make such a coarse and corrosive statement that she is in a live-in relationship with her non-Muslim husband is not only uncalled for but is a gross violation of the spirit of our democratic polity where individual liberty of choice of heterosexual marital partner is sanctioned by the Constitution of the country. To cite the Quran and the Hadees (Hadith) and, so, pronounce the invalidation of the Jain-Hindu marriage of Nusrat is a direct affront to her dignity as an individual and her fundamental human right to free choice and liberty to live the way she wishes to live. It is also a pointer to the incompatibility of these absolutist injunctions of the scriptures in the modern context where civil laws have been tested to have been far superior to so-called God's laws passed by men posing to be intermediaries between God and man.
All laws ever passed or imposed on societies have been made by men and passed off as God's laws merely to derive authority over men. It is time these laws are put to the test of reason and the democratic circumstance of the modern world. Where they are found compatible with democracy, they may be retained, but where they are found wanting in ethical content and the universal principles of human rights, they ought to be rejected after due consideration of their relative merits, for these scriptural texts are not open to amendment, derived as they are from archaic superstition mistaking itself to be divine utterance, inviolable and sacrosanct.
To label a Jain-Hindu marriage as invalid for a Muslim participant of it may be true from the Islamic scriptural perspective but it shows itself poorly in today's context when we ought to be living lives of greater enlightenment whose precursor for the Muslim community is Nusrat Jahan. Her marriage to Nikhil Jain, notwithstanding the Quranic rejection of it, nonetheless, stands the test of the universal principles of human rights whose early declaration we hear in the Shvetashvatar Upanishad in the pronouncement of the essential divinity of living beings, and, therefore, is perfectly valid on all counts except the intolerant theological count. That she was nonchalant in going ahead with the Jain-Hindu rituals of marriage despite her obvious knowledge of the consequent backlash from Islamic clerics across India that she would have to face, redeems her as a truly modern, enlightened and highly liberal individual who can, with persistence in such philosophy of living and its actual practice, bridge differences among conflicting communities and, through her revolutionary acceptance of the universal religion of humanity, usher inter-community understanding that the Indian polity is in such dire need of today.
Nusrat Jahan Ruhi Jain, thus, remains the face of emergent India, a rebel against archaic religious practice, the prototype of future womanhood in India and in the world at large who shall be the synthesis of all that is best of womanhood of all times and climes. Let us pay her our due respects and never even in imagination cast such calumny of declaring her nuptial rites invalid and her sacred life of loving companionship with her beloved husband as a live-in-relationship with obvious carnal connotations. God bless Nusrat ! May man bless her, too ! I, for one, bring in my best wishes for this brave girl who has the courage of conviction to do what she feels is right, come what may come in the process by way of reward or retribution.
Nusrat Jahan Ruhi Jain is the toast of the hour as she embraces the various cultural facets of our country into her person and then goes on to represent the people of her Constituency of Bashirhat in the Indian Parliament.
Vande Mataram !
Written by Sugata Bose
No comments:
Post a Comment