Sufferer Blaming, Love Jihad And Islamophobia: Is There A Room For Justice For Girls In India?

The dying of Shraddha Walkar, a 27 12 months outdated lady, within the nationwide capital has introduced intense and deep conversations within the public area. The discourse over her dying is accelerated with sufferer blaming and accusations over her interfaith relationship with Aftab Ameen Poonawala, who has been arrested and charged with the homicide. The information over her dying sparked the Indian mainstream media giving clickbait headlines questioning Shraddha’s life decisions. 

With the sensational information coming from the police that Aftab chopped his companion into 35 items and saved the physique elements in a fridge, the investigation began when Sharddha Walkar’s buddy Laxman Nidar knowledgeable her brother that she shouldn’t be accessible on telephone for months. “I used to be anxious about Shraddha since July as there wasn’t any reply from her aspect. Her telephone was switched off too. After enquiring about her amongst her different buddies,I knowledgeable her brother & we approached police,” says Laxman Nadir to ANI.

“That is clearly a case of a violent crime by an intimate companion.The Proper Wing is as standard making an attempt to capitalise on this ugly tragedy to invoke the bogey of so-called Love Jihad. It’s a determined try to divide Indians and to unfold hatred in opposition to a neighborhood reasonably than have sympathy for the lady’s security and  safety. This tendency to politicise each situation in a Hindu-Muslim binary distracts consideration from girls’s rights violations so rampant in our nation. They have to desist from this harmful politics and help the reason for justice and  equality for girls.”

Zakia Soman, Founder member of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan

Aftab and Shraddha met on bumble whereas they had been working in Mumbai. This case has additionally put serious suspicion over  the security of courting purposes.“Sure, I killed her,” the 28 12 months outdated Aftab Ameen Poonawala said to the police. 

With this incident occurring in India, the mainstream media has been reporting this ugly homicide case insensitively, garnishing headlines with heaps of sufferer blaming and catering to spiritual tensions. Whereas it is a homicide case that has despatched surprising waves throughout India and the readers are fairly anxious to know the updates, there was very much less delicate method in masking the difficulty with ethics.

Islamophobia, Love Jihad and ladies

With Shraddha’s father’s “suspect ‘Love Jihad’, need dying penalty for Aftab” statement, Love Jihad is once more making it’s solution to the headlines with appropriations from the precise wing teams, initiating a mass motion and trending hashtags in social media. The title Aftab Ameen has develop into a weapon for the precise wing propagandists to instantly protest and search justice for the sufferer. 

Additionally learn: Not Jihad, It’s Love Truly

The ladies’s rights activist from India and one of many founding members of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Zakia Soman in a dialog with Feminism in India says that the small print are ghastly and we want justice for Shraddha. “That is clearly a case of a violent crime by an intimate companion.The Proper Wing is as standard making an attempt to capitalise on this ugly tragedy to invoke the bogey of so-called Love Jihad. It’s a determined try to divide Indians and to unfold hatred in opposition to a neighborhood reasonably than have sympathy for the lady’s security and  safety. This tendency to politicise each situation in a Hindu-Muslim binary distracts consideration from girls’s rights violations so rampant in our nation. They have to desist from this harmful politics and help the reason for justice and  equality for girls,” Zakia provides.

There have been no protests, hashtags or actions within the case of Abhijit Patidar who claimed to have killed Shilpa Jharia, by slitting her throat and got here up with a video saying ‘Don’t be untrue’. Comparable is the case with Priti Sharma, a 35 12 months outdated lady from Ghaziabad, who slit the throat of her live-in companion, Mohammed Firoz (22), within the month of August 2022. Media in addition to the general public are very much less eager about these, particularly in the case of violence, home abuse and rape until and till there is no such thing as a scope for creating a spiritual stress. This has develop into common in India the place there’s a normalisation of structural violence. What makes Aftab’s case extra terrifying is his merciless and ghastly actions on a girl’s physique. His inspiration to commit this crime influenced by a TV present referred to as Dexter is equally alarming to the general public. 

Is caste accountable for this homicide?

Caste id of the sufferer can’t be unseen because it’s fairly frequent in India the place girls are disowned and minimize off from the household as soon as they select inter religion or inter caste relationships. This has some severe dimensions since girls usually really feel not noted from their very own home and discover it troublesome to manage up with the abuses and violence they must bear in a relationship. “We opposed this resolution as a result of we had been Hindu and Koli by caste  whereas the boy is a Muslim and interfaith relationships weren’t allowed in our faith,” Vikas Walkar mentioned within the FIR.

“’Marry the person your dad and mom select for you’ is the fallacious conclusion to attract from Shraddha’s murder- in spite of everything, girls are simply as prone to be crushed or killed by husbands as by live-in companions. Furthermore dowry killings occur most to girls in organized marriages. The Delhi HC noticed that in 9 out of 10 instances during which the homicide sufferer is a girl, the killer is the husband, the sufferer the spouse, the place the house.”

Kavita Krishnan, Girls’s rights activist

Caste has enabled this horrifying homicide as girls are sometimes ostracised after they select a companion from one other neighborhood. Caste has contributed it’s half on this homicide as girls usually really feel it as their downside, being ashamed to verify and convey to the household that their companion is abusive and having no help to combat the abuser. That is additionally one of many explanation why there are a bigger variety of  deaths because of home and sexual abuse. 

Additionally learn: How Steady Caste-Based mostly ‘Honour’ Killings In India Show That Mere Love Is Not Sufficient

Kavita Krishnan, the ladies’s rights activist and the previous politburo member of the Communist Occasion of India Liberation, is of the opinion that, in India, married girls usually transfer to their in-laws’ dwelling, and are remoted from their very own dwelling and buddies. “When the daughter chooses an inter caste or inter religion companion, dad and mom usually disapprove, and even disown her. This will isolate her utterly, and make her reluctant to method her dad and mom for assist even when she faces extended violence or abuse from her companion: it’s obvious that this was the case with Shraddha. If solely dad and mom help their daughters unconditionally of their decisions and of their troubles it could make girls a lot safer. “Marry the person your dad and mom select for you” is the fallacious conclusion to attract from Shraddha’s murder- in spite of everything, girls are simply as prone to be crushed or killed by husbands as by live-in companions. Furthermore dowry killings occur most to girls in organized marriages. The Delhi HC noticed that in 9 out of 10 instances during which the homicide sufferer is a girl, the killer is the husband, the sufferer the spouse, the place the house,” says Kavita Krishnan to FII.

Based on the most recent studies from ANI, the police crew has reached Aftab’s residence in Chattarpur Pahadi, and the investigations are nonetheless happening.

Sufferer blaming sees no finish in India

Though there’s a clear-cut violence executed on a girl’s physique and there’s a gender based mostly violence reported, the general public area remains to be in a hibernation analysing the sufferer’s morality, decisions and way of life. There’s a enormous backlash occurring in opposition to the assassin, with regard to his faith, and  fails to deal with the gender based mostly violence occurring in India. It additionally denies justice to the sufferer and different girls, particularly if they’re from a minority neighborhood, like Bilkis Bano who has been in a authorized fight for the previous few many years. 

Additionally learn: ‘What Was She Sporting?’: Rape Tradition And The Thriving Narrative Of Sufferer Shaming

Barsha Chakraborty, Gender Knowledgeable from Delhi, in a dialog with FII says that, ‘in the case of any type of violence in opposition to girls, we’re oscillating between dismissing girls’s company and doubting girls’s company. And even on this case, what we see is totally judging the lady’s alternative of the companion she selected due to the faith, then how her dad and mom didn’t settle for her relationship and the way she got here out of the home and began dwelling with a companion in a live-in relationship. And all these selections that she took had been questioned at this level of time as a result of against the law occurred and the crime is being justified by all these. And, right here additionally, once you take a look at the Love Jihad situation, it’s mainly dismissing girls’s company. It’s as if the lady had no alternative or lady had no stake within the relationship. And it was like she was brainwashed in another course. So, yeah, sadly, it’s so troublesome to combat sure battles to make individuals imagine that sure, the onus shouldn’t be on girls, the onus is on the one that was the perpetrator who dedicated the crime.’

At a time when the state is concentrating on its minorities, this homicide case has lit up Islamophobia within the nation. The depth of this situation and the way it’s to be analysed is of utmost relevance in the case of gender based mostly violence and abuse. For the previous few days, this has not been occurring and there nonetheless stays conversations and discussions on how being a sanskari lady in India lets you escape poisonous relationship, rape and violence.