The matter of a young woman from Kerala – Akhila who became Hadiya – has been in the national headlines on and off for over a year now. Yesterday’s judgement appears to have brought the matter to a logical conclusion. Is this really the end of the matter though? There appear to be varied views on the matter.
Hadiya
Hadiya is a homeopathy student who had become interested in Islam and had followed the faith since 2012 according to her own statement. Later she converted to Islam officially as well. In the end of 2016, she married Shafin Jahan against the wishes of her parents, who approached the courts for annulment of said marriage. Her father also filed a Writ for Habeus Corpus and proceeded to keep his own daughter in virtual house arrest.
In November 2017, a three judge bench of the Supreme Court passed an order, appointing the dean of the Hadiya’s Salem-based homoeopathic college as her guardian. It was bizarre that the court thought fit to appoint a ‘guardian’ for an adult woman in full possession of her faculties. At the time the move was seen as an assault on fundamental rights to freedom, equality, privacy and religion.
Almost one year ago, Hadiya’s father had approached the Kerala High Court, asking for annulment of the marriage between Hadiya and Shafeen Jahan, which the HC had granted. The Kerala HC asked Hadiya to be ‘placed in parental custody’ and asked for an investigation into the alleged ‘love jihad’ angle in the matter. On 8 March 2018, the apex court passed an order overruling the order of annulment of marriage passed by the Kerala High Court and restored the marriage of Hadiya and Shafeen Jahan. The court remarked “marriage and plurality are the fundamental core of our culture” when setting aside the annulment and restoring the marriage.
Hadiya welcomed the SC’s judgement and said that it is a sign of the respect society has for women. She said that she would be applying for a few days’ leave to spend some time with her husband before returning to college to continue her internship at the Sivaraj Homeopathic Medical College and Research Institute near Salem city to complete her Bachelor in Homoepathy Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) course.
Though Hadiya’s marriage and hence her right to choose have been upheld, the matter is still not closed; that the ‘criminal’ angle of the matter is still kept alive. The suspicion that Hadiya’s husband has links with radical Islamist groups and the charge made by Hadiya’s father Asokan; that his daughter may be indoctrinated and taken to an IS camp in Syria are still under NIA investigation.
For supporters of women's rights as well as for those who reject the idea of Love Jihad as being a mere off shoot of Islamophobia, the judgement is a welcome one.
While the annulment was ultimately set aside, it is valid to ask why a grown woman was made to undergo harassment and trauma for the choices she willingly made. With the matter still ongoing, the threat of future harassment is not an unrealistic apprehension.
Some commentators also shared the view that by the same token that Hadiya’s husband is under investigation, her father’s motivations should also be examined. The behavior meted out by Asokan to his own child is adversarial and cruel by any standards.
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