The law’s position on ‘I love you.’

‘If that’s what the law supposes, then the law is a ass’ – Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

Here is some good news for those roadside Romeos, those mobile lounge lizards who lean casually on their two-wheelers just outside the girls’ college gates, smoking their cheap fags while waiting for the girls to come strolling out. At which point, the wolf whistles and ‘I love you, babe’ cries start ringing out. For the most part the girls just give the boys ‘the big ignore’ and simply move on. Once in a rare while, one of the feisty girls would stop and give the pretend Lotharios a mouthful. ‘Next time you try any of those cheap tricks, I’ll call the cops and have you booked for harassment.’ Not that the warning stops the boys who carry on regardless. Surprisingly, against the run of play as it were, this is where the good news for the boys comes in.

Their lordships at the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, in their infinite wisdom, have recently passed a ruling that merely saying ‘I love you’ with no intent of any sexual funny business, cannot be construed as harassment. To quote verbatim from the court order, ‘If somebody says that he is in love with another person, that in itself would not amount to an intent showing some sort of sexual intention.’ How would they know if the intent was intended or not? Court orders invariably tend to be somewhat repetitive and orotund, but let us not quibble. Jurisprudence revels in its own unique parlance. The judge was overturning a 2017 conviction under the POCSO Act. The press report goes on to inform us that this man from Nagpur, eight years after he was sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment for harassing a 17-year-old girl, was granted bail. Justice delayed may be justice denied, but I guess it is better late than never. Now he is a free man. Free to hang around outside school or college campuses mouthing ‘I love you’ to any female passer-by who catches his fancy. Should one of the girls make as if to deliver a tight slap to the miscreant, he will simply whip out the court order and wave it at the poor girl’s face who, in turn could face a harassment charge herself! There’s irony for you.

This case apparently dates back to a decade ago when a high school student was stopped on the road by the accused, who is said to have held her hand, asked her name and declared those three magic words that have been the subject of so many love songs in music recording history. Soul singer Sam Cooke’s For Sentimental Reasons has close to 25 ‘I love you’ repetitions in a 2 ½ minute song. At least, it seems that way. No one arrested the singer. The record sold millions. Putting Sam Cooke to one side, at the time our protagonist was accused of sexual harassment and stalking and later, convicted and sentenced. The report is unclear as to whether the sentence was carried out. His legal counsel put forth the argument that his actions did not meet the ‘legal threshold’ for sexual assault or stalking. A thin line but that is legalese for you. One wonders if the point where someone crosses the line is actually written down in some obscure act.

As I am sure everyone reading this knows only too well, there is a world of difference between ‘I love you’ and ‘I want to make love to you.’ If you do not and innocently use the latter expression to somebody you have met just recently, you could find yourself in very hot water. Again with the legal lingo, I am not sure that an action will not lie. Apart from being beaten up within an inch of your life, you could find yourself behind bars for a very long period. Now why do I bring this up? Quite simply, I was thinking of a line I hear all too frequently in Tamil movies and serials. Non-Tamilians, please bear with me. The hero declares to his lady love, ‘Naan unnai love pannaren.’ The transliteration of this sentence reads as ‘I am making love to you’ in the present continuous tense, which in turn can be loosely and more accurately converted to ‘I want to make love to you.’ The poor hero meant none of this. He was merely declaring, in the noblest of spirit, his love for the girl of his dreams, a sentiment he hopes will be returned in full measure. Whether his gentle advances will be accepted or rebuffed is neither here nor there. I am merely dealing with the semantics in the fond hope that the girl does not haul off the ardent lover boy to the Madras High Court. I can vouch for the fact that they are very straight-laced about these things in Madras.

I am not for a moment suggesting that the college student (if indeed, he was one) did not harbour ulterior motives in blithely declaring, ‘I love you’ to a passing girl. The moot point is we do not know for sure. Could one deduce from the tone of his voice, the manner in which he said it that signalled to the object of his desire something more sinister than a mere, heartfelt Sam Cooke moment? That said, if he went on to grab the girl’s hand (as he evidently did) while mouthing sweet nothings, then the girl might just possibly, and that is a very slim chance, convince the long arm of the law to agree to hear her plea. It will largely depend on which side of the bed the judge got up from that morning. On such small, mundane details do weighty judgements perilously hang.

In order to get a woman’s perspective on this vexed subject (I think they have a much better feel for these things than many high court justices), here is celebrated novelist and poet A.S. Byatt who puts the thing in a nutshell. ‘There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or three sides to sexual harassment and the moment you get into particular cases there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It’s a mess.’ So my friends, irrespective of your age and romantic (if not sexual predilection), next time you come over all soppy, sentimental and Byron-esque (Oh love, how perfect is thy mystic art), pause and reflect before uttering those three irresistible words, ‘I love you.’ And for heaven’s sake, never in Tamil. Those hawk-eyed judges at the Bombay and Madras High Courts are watching.