Opinion Listening to Hadiya

Hadiya’s voice was heard in the Supreme Court on Monday — and, unsurprisingly, the 24-year-old demanded her freedom.

Hadiya’s voice was heard in the Supreme Court on Monday — and, unsurprisingly, the 24-year-old demanded her freedom. That she spoke and the court listened is a leap forward in a case with many troubling precedents. Since May, when the Kerala High Court annulled her marriage and confined her to her parents’ house against her wishes, judicial decisions and deliberations had taken place without the most important testimony: What does Hadiya, formerly Akhila Asokan, want?

The Supreme Court agreed to listen to her despite arguments by the additional solicitor general, appearing for the National Investigation Agency, who said that as Hadiya had allegedly been indoctrinated and “programmed”, an interaction with her would not be meaningful. The court, however, passed an interim order asking that “Hadiya be taken to Salem so as to enable her to pursue her internship/housemanship” in the homeopathy college she was studying in when she married Shafin Jehan. The order is a relief for the woman who has been incarcerated against her wishes — even when she is not accused of flouting any law — but it is only the first step on the road to justice. It is important to remember that the Supreme Court is yet to pronounce on the plea by Jehan, questioning the Kerala High Court’s authority to annul his marriage to Hadiya. In its last order, the SC had gone on to institute an NIA investigation into an alleged conspiracy to convert people to radical Islam — without addressing this issue. The SC interim order frees Hadiya from confinement, but she will have to wait till the third week of January to know the fate of her marriage.

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The judiciary is the Indian citizen’s bulwark against the overwhelming might of the state, family, clan and religion, which can stifle an individual’s choices in the name of a larger cause. But true liberty rests in the defence of the lone man/woman, in protecting the minority of one — and that is a principle the courts have upheld time and again. In this case, the Supreme Court appears to be weighing an alleged and unproven agenda of radicalisation against the inalienable rights of the individual. That is a calculus unworthy of the best practices of law and justice. To conflate Hadiya’s conversion to Islam with radicalisation is, first, deeply problematic. Second, the courts cannot be seen to encroach on a woman’s liberty when she has broken no law. A 24-year-old woman, by choosing to live by a faith she was not born into, and marrying a man of her own choice cannot be made to forsake her freedom. It isn’t Hadiya who is on trial — the test is for the Constitution that guarantees her liberty and the courts that uphold it.