Defense Update

“My heart took me there; my mind

should’ve known better.”

Boota Singh was a resident of the district of Ludhiana in East Punjab who saved a Muslim girl during the riots of the partition. The two fell in love and got married. A decade after the partition, the governments of India and Pakistan decided to return the abducted women and the girl was also deported back to her family in Pakistan. Boota Singh converted to Islam and entered Pakistan to meet her. The Girl, however, refused to recognize him in the court, perhaps under her family’s pressure. A dejected Boota Singh committed suicide. His last wish was to be buried in the village of his beloved but her family did not allow such a breach of their honor. He was buried in Miani Graveyard of Lahore instead. The history repeated itself again in 2012 when Hamid Ansari, an Indian citizen, illegally entered Pakistan to marry a girl he fell in love with through Facebook. In Pakistan, he was caught on the charges of espionage and released only in 2018 after spending six years in Jail.

These stories indicate how love can be too raw, too irrational, too powerful of a force to be channelized, restricted, guided. Perhaps there is a need to create a space for love to exist on its own terms without containing it in borders.

(This story has not been edited by defupdateindia staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)