Valentine's Day: Open letter to Hindu Mahasabha asks if they will hold gay and inter caste weddings?

New Delhi, Feb 13: After Hindu Mahasabha threatened the love birds to marry off the couples if they are spotted in open on Valentine's Day, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union on Friday wrote an open letter to the Mahasabha, and asked them if they will hold the inter-caste and gay weddings also.

The letter published in IndiaToday has been authored by council members of the JNUSU and other "concerned lovers".

This call of Hindu Mahasabha has sparked off reactions across the country and many students have also planned an agitation on February 14 at the offices of the Hindu Mahasabha.

Here is what the letter says:

To the National President, Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha

Dear Chandra Prakash Ji,

It has come to our notice that you and your self-appointed brigade of protectors of 'Bharatiya Sanskriti' have openly vowed to undertake a massive programme on the 14th of February where you promise to marry off anyone who openly expresses their love, whether on the streets or on Facebook. Since you have taken on this gigantic task of marrying so many people on a single day, we would like you to answer some questions that have 'unnaturally' crept into our heads as a result of 'westernization'.

Will you marry a boy to a boy he likes, or a girl to a girl? Will you acknowledge their love for each other, repeal section 377? Or will you send them to jail or Baba Ramdev?

Will you allow a Dalit boy to express his love for a Brahmin girl or will you perform 'shuddhikaran' before marrying them off? What will you do with the upper caste brothers in Tamil Nadu who poured acid on their sister's face and hanged her for falling in love with a Dalit boy? Would you go against the diktats of the Khap Panchayats and let lovers from same gotra marry each other?

And what if a Muslim boy and a Hindu girl fall in love? Would that not be blasphemous and a case of 'love jihad', how would you marry them off? Or a Christian man and a Hindu girl? Will you first perform 'Ghar Wapsi' and then marry them, or will the 'honour' of the community stop you? Also, please let us know, have you made arrangements for nikah too?

What will you do when hands are held by force, bodies are touched with coercion and persons are sexually assaulted and violently penetrated in the name of love?

These are just some of the questions that we have for you. For further clarifications, we will be reaching your Delhi office on the 14th of February. With us will be a boy who is gay and holds his boyfriend's hand with love and affection. There will be a Dalit boy too, with his upper caste lover. And of course, some Hindu-Muslim lovers. Finally, there would also be those who have been shamed and ostracized in the name of Indian traditions of love and honour, but are still alive and fighting.

And in the words of Bhagat Singh, whose honour you mock by taking his name, love for us 'is nothing BUT PASSION, not an animal passion but a human one, and very sweet too'.

Thank you,

Pratim Ghosal, Fayaz Ahmed, Riya Raj, Sarika Chaudhary (Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Council members of the JNUSU and concerned lovers.)

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