Love as a tool?

“If you go to Guruvayur, you will not see Krishna there. He is with me.... I haven’t abandoned him. He’s still with me, he’s in my house... I’ve just had to rename him Mohammed”

Thus spake Madhavi Kutty aka Kamala Das aka Kamala Surayya. Aristocratic, upper-caste, Krishna lover, descendant of rajas, the ever controversial Kamala Das managed the biggest scandal of her scandalous career when she decided to embrace Islam in 1999. Praised by the Muslims for her adoption of the Arabic way of life and condemned by Hindus for her seeming sacrilege, Kamala Surayya was not destined to enjoy her new religion for very long. She died in 2009 and was buried as a Muslim. 

Unlike her death, which did not elicit much attention, her conversion became a matter of debate among the Keralaites. Of the various conspiracy theories surrounding her conversion, i.e., Ismail Merchant promising to make a movie on her book, promise of a legislative seat in lieu of conversion, one stuck – that she was in love with a young Muslim politician. Kamala had little to say in this regard only claiming that she felt much more comfortable and secure among the Muslims. 

Unfortunately, the conspiracy theorists were right for once. Kamala had indeed converted out of love for a twice married Kerala Muslim League Leader. A man almost as young as his son, this leader swept the widowed Kamala off her feet and induced her to convert, with marriage as reward. Love makes a fool of anyone irrespective of age. Madhavi Kutty proved no different to a teenager when she followed the call of her heart and became something she never was. Alas! Her efforts were to be in vain. The promised marriage never happened and the ‘lover’ simply stopped taking her calls, passing those to his other wives. Kamala died a broken woman, unwilling to talk about those heady days, her last adventure failing miserably in its mission, leaving her sans her extended family and clan. It was probably out of pity that those caste and religious organizations, which were baying for her blood after her conversion and scandalous utterances, stopped pursuing cases lodged against her. So much so for Kamala Das.

But why to talk of Kamala Das now? We talk because it has relevance even today; for a farce is being played yet again, this time in the North East rather than the South. A Congress MLA, Rumi Nath has married a younger Jacky Zakir, after having converted and before divorcing her first husband. Rumi has a daughter from her first husband and was reportedly pregnant at the time of her second marriage. Matters would not have come to notice of Delhi media but for an assault on Rumi and her husband by a group of some 100 odd people in her constituency. Contrary to Rumi’s later claims, her visit to her flood affected constituency was widely protested with even the homeless telling her to leave their relief camps. Anyways, a physical assault, which is of course condemnable, has resulted in giving a feminist and women rights twist to the entire farce and Rumi Nath has emerged as a spokesperson for women demanding rights over their own lives. That Rumi visited a temple, lied that she had not converted and that temple was put on fire following the assault has been rendered immaterial. Her act of abandoning her family and committing an illegal act has anyways been condoned by the champions of a woman's rights over her body. Interestingly, Rumi will probably never be punished for her crime of bigamy as the Hadiths clearly lays down that the previous marriage of a non-Muslim woman stands liquidated the moment she accepts Islam!

We like to believe that conversion is a personal act and if the Indian Nation allows people to follow a religion of their choice, no one should have any issue with a person willing to convert. Even if we leave aside the facet of inducement and fraud, it has been the aim of all proselytizing religions to convert people enjoying social eminence, believing that they will prove the most potent vehicle of the new ‘word’ to the masses. Buddhism’s early converts were not the laymen, but Brahmins and Kings. Christianity spread only after the Roman emperor embraced it. In India, during the Company era, the missionaries targeted all their efforts towards the royalty and sections of Bengali Bhadralok hoping that those converts will act as seeds to a bountiful harvest. Unfortunately for Christianity in India, conversions of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Toru Dutt, Duleep Singh and the like hardly made any impression among others. Even though the experiment notably failed, it has apparently not deterred the evangelisers to pursue conversion of high profile individuals, hoping that a long term cultural change emerges out of such acts.

And can we say that the latter premise has been proven incorrect? The conversion of Sharmila Tagore caused a National outrage but the possibility of Kareena converting hardly is any issue. Almost all the Muslim film stars have had Hindu Girlfriends / wives and so, what was a taboo even half a century back, is well accepted now. 

For some years now, some sections of society have formed a hypothesis that the act of wooing, marrying and sometimes abandoning Non Muslim women by Muslim youth is a part of a larger ‘Love Jihad’. While it may seem laughable, rumours do not demand fact and seemingly disjointed occurrences become fuel enough to feed them. Rumi Nath’s marriage was facilitated by a powerful Muslim MLA from the Barak valley. We don’t know if Rumi will suffer the same fate as Kamala Das. What we do know is that a high profile conversion has occurred in a manner which is nothing less than ghastly. While Islamists may pat their back on such victories, do such acts promote secularism and societal peace in any way? While circumspect Hindus were always wary of their daughters’ friendship with youths of other religions, now the suspicious will have all the more reasons to frown on friendships their married women have with men from other religions. Can a fragile society afford further deepending of cleavages caused by such mistrust?

Quotes from/on Kamala Das taken from The Love Queen of Malabar by Merrily Weisbord.