The Economist - USA (2020-11-21)

The EconomistNovember 21st 2020 Asia 35

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T

he worstthing about it was the shame.

“I worried about how other people

would judge me for doing something ille-

gal, what my parents and my friends would

say if they found out,” says Kim Min-

kyoung, a 24-year-old student from Seoul

who decided to terminate a pregnancy last

year. The second-worst thing was paying:

how to find $1,000 without prompting

awkward questions.

Both these problems should soon be

slightly less severe for women in South Ko-

rea. If a bill under consideration by the Na-

tional Assembly becomes law, a woman

will be able to obtain an abortion up to 14

weeks into a pregnancy with ease. From 15

to 24 weeks in, she will still be able to do so

provided she attends a counselling session

and waits 24 hours before making a final

decision. Her reason for ending the preg-

nancy must also fall into one of a series of

approved categories. This regime would

greatly expand access to abortion and thus

put an end to expensive illicit procedures.

It has prompted an unsurprising backlash

from anti-abortion activists, but feminists

are not entirely happy either.

A new law became necessary last year

after the constitutional court struck down

the existing one, which allows abortion

only in exceptional circumstances, such as

for pregnancies resulting from rape or in-

cest. Otherwise it stipulates prison terms

or hefty fines for women seeking abortions

and for doctors providing them. That is out

of step with public opinion. Ten years ago

more than half of South Koreans wanted to

keep the old law. Nowadays nearly 60% of

the population and more than three-quar-

ters of women under the age of 45 want to

scrap it. The authorities have hardly en-

forced it for years.

The court set a deadline of the end of

this year for new legislation. But the bill is

under attack from two sides. Feminists

think it does not go far enough in its affir-

mation of women’s rights. Opponents of

abortion, meanwhile, claim it “promotes”

the termination of pregnancies.

Kwon In-sook, a prominent feminist

and lawmaker for the ruling Minjoo party,

thinks the law falls short because it would

continue to treat abortion as a criminal

matter, retaining too much of the spirit of

its predecessor. “The old law was centred

around the idea that abortion is a shame-

ful, sinful thing,” she says. “The point of

the new law is to put women’s reproductive

SEOUL

A proposed liberalisation riles both

sides of the debate

Abortion in South Korea

Pleasing no one

T

he organiser, anEnglish-language

weekly that is a mouthpiece for the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the

century-old flagship of India’s swelling

armada of Hindu nationalist groups, is in

no doubt about the dangers of “love

jihad”. The luring of good Hindu girls

into marriage and conversion is only the

first phase of a broader Muslim plot,

asserts a recent article. The second stage

is rape jihad, “a more unequivocal oper-

ation in which non-Muslim girls or

women are raped and subsequently

killed in many cases”. The third and final

stage? Mass rape and ethnic cleansing.

Such ravings are not confined to the

fringes of politics. Yogi Adityanath, a

Hindu priest whose day job is running

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous

state, proclaimed in October that those

who practise “love jihad” should mend

their ways or plan their funerals. So far

five Indian states, all ruled by the Bhara-

tiya Janata Party (bjp), have enacted or

are considering laws against love jihad.

On November 17th, for instance, the

government of Madhya Pradesh an-

nounced a “Freedom of Religion” bill.

This would punish any form of matrimo-

nial trickery for the purpose of con-

version to Islam with five years in prison.

The spectre of “our” innocent wom-

anhood being preyed upon by “their”

boys is not new. Hindu nationalists

depict the long period of Muslim rule as a

prolonged violation of “Mother India”.

During national elections in 2014, the

head of the bjpin Uttar Pradesh repeat-

edly asserted, entirely falsely, that Mus-

lims, who make up 19% of the state’s

225m people, were responsible for 99%

of rapes. The Election Commission chas-

tised another bjpleader, Amit Shah, for

describing the vote as a chance for Hin-

dus to avenge violations of their women.

HeisnowIndia’shomeminister.

Replyingtoa parliamentaryquestion

inFebruary,oneofMrShah’sdeputies

admittedthattherewerenoknown cases

of “love jihad” in the state of Kerala, at

least. Journalists with ndtv, a news

channel, found that even in Uttar Pra-

desh, a police team created in August to

crack down on “love jihad” had already

dropped seven of the 14 cases it had

opened, for lack of evidence. Yet Tanishq,

a fancy jewellery brand owned by the

Tata group, one of India’s biggest firms,

recently felt obliged to withdraw a televi-

sion commercial portraying a happy

interfaith marriage.

Indians rarely marry outside their

caste, let alone their religion. The law

that allows interfaith marriages is

hedged with clauses that permit parents,

bureaucrats and other outsiders to inter-

fere. Courts have often seemed keener to

uphold patriarchal ideas than to apply

secular laws or give women freedom to

choose. For India’s 200m Muslims, it is

another affront. As one lamented on

Twitter: “You can’t criticise, you’re anti-

national...You can’t protest, you’re terro-

rists. You can’t fall in love, it’s ‘Jihad’.”

Canyoufoilthelovetonight?

Islamophobia in India

DELHI

Hindu nationalists stir up groundless fears about Muslims

As long as he’s not Muslim

army’s intervention caused a public outcry.

The army blamed “overzealous” officers.

But the pdm’s leading lights make un-

likely champions of democracy. Both the

pml-nand the ppphave happily cosied up

to the top brass to secure power in the past.

Moreover, the army is unlikely to wilt in

the face of a few rallies. “Ultimately if there

is a change, the momentum is not going to

come so much from opposition pressure,

as from a reassessment of the situation

from within the military-security estab-

lishment,” predicts Farzana Shaikh of

Chatham House, a British think-tank.

As results rolled in from Gilgit-Balti-

stan’s valleys, the ptiappeared to have won

the most seats. The other parties allege

vote-rigging. The pdmhas promised more

rallies, culminating in a march across the

country in January to call for the ousting of

Mr Khan. It has yet to say whether there will

be any stops in Gilgit-Baltistan. 7