Copyright 2012 Firstpost

Table of contents
Decoding Love Jihad: What is it?
The improbability of Love Jihad and the challenge of conversions 04
Love, jihad aur dhoka: The Hindu womans body as rightwing battleground 06
Love Jihad enters Uttar Pradesh
Imported from Kerala: How the love jihad ploy failed in its state of origin 09
In land of honour killings, BJPs love jihad campaign is a death warrant 11
Love jihad in Uttar Pradesh: BJPs latest strategy against Akhilesh 13
Why BJPs Uttar Pradesh unit is regretting raking up Love jihad issue 15
How BJP made Love Jihad a political weapon
Watch: BJPs Yogi Adityanath tells Hindus to marry a 100 Muslim women 18
Who is afraid of BJPs love jihad? The Congress party 20
BJP MP Hema Malini had no objection to love jihad in her flms: Akhilesh 23
BJP drops mention of love jihad, talks about crimes against Hindu women 24
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Decoding Love Jihad: What is it?
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
The improbability of Love Jihad
and the challenge of conversions
R. Jagannathan, August 27, 2014
T
he BJP and the Sangh Parivar are kick-
ing up a big fuss over Love Jihad. They
should pipe down. Not only will they be
heating up an already communal atmosphere,
they are also on the wrong track.
Leaving aside some anecdotal incidents of inter-
communal love and conversions to Islam result-
ing from these liaisons, the fact is if 'Love Jihad'
is actually an organised system to obtain con-
verts, it is a sign of desperation in those seeking
to use this route to change demography. I pro-
pose to explain why through some hypotheses.
First, 'Love Jihad' is a very ineffcient and costly
way to seek conversions. To make it viable
you need a suffcient number of youth willing
to sacrifce their time and energies to wooing
members from another community - not just for
a sexual fing, something men are always willing
to expend energies on, but a long-term invest-
ment like marriage. Even if one assumes that
the wooer is going to desert or contract another
marriage of his choice post-conversion, such
things cannot remain covert. They will excite
community reaction - which then slows down
the process of further conversions.
'Love Jihad' will thus ultimately be self-defeat-
ing. Worse, it is an indirect acknowledgement
by the community seeking converts that normal
methods of conversion - marketing propaganda,
popularisation of good practices, and promises
of spiritual and economic inducements - cannot
work anymore.
It is interesting to note that the phrase Love
Jihad originated in Kerala, where communal
demography is moving towards a balance where
conversions are both more diffcult and costlier
for all communities. The Kerala religious de-
mography is roughly 55:45, with Hindus at 55
percent and Muslims and Christians together
accounting for the balance (roughly 25:20 be-
tween Muslims and Christians).
At 55:45, Hindus would have lost suffcient
numbers over the centuries and will now be
close to acquiring "herd immunity" to further
conversions.
"Herd immunity" is a term the medical com-
munity uses in the context of epidemics. New
diseases (ebola, swine fu) have a tendency to
spread faster in the initial stages than later,
when signifcant numbers have already con-
tracted the disease. When the bug or virus
initially infects individuals, the number of
potential additional people to infect is larger,
and so the chances of transmitting the disease
are greater. Once many people contract it, the
number of potential targets falls, as the weaker
members die, the stronger ones survive, and the
balance population becomes resistant to it or is
less likely to come in contact with an infected
person.
Herd immunity is lowest for small and homog-
enous communities, and higher for very large,
but diverse, populations with genetic variations.
Herd immunity is also lower for very large, but
monocultural, communities (as in China and
Japan). In India, despite diversity, herd immu-
nity among Hindus has reduced of late due to
the homogenising effects of urbanisation, glo-
balisation, and the reduction of casteism.
The absence of herd immunity explains (par-
tially) why Islam conquered small, homogenous
tribal communities in the Middle East in its
earlier centuries, sometimes even overwhelming
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
entire nations with not-so-large populations. It
also explains why small tribal communities in
the north-east have completely turned Christian
over the last two centuries even while the bulk
of caste-based Hindudom has not.
However, herd immunity has not been achieved
is large swathes of the diverse Hindu population
in various parts of the country, and this is why
Islamic and Christian evangelical groups are
more successful in gaining faster conversions
outside Kerala - in Tamil Nadu and parts of
Andhra Pradesh, for example.
The potential market for conversions is so
huge that normal techniques for conversions
work quite well. There is absolutely no need for
deploying Love Jihad, which is a costly weapon
and unwieldy to use. In Kerala, where herd im-
munity is being achieved, the desperate meas-
ure of Love Jihad may have some takers but not
elsewhere.
In is interesting to note that both Hindu groups
and the church have raised concerns about
Love Jihad in Kerala. So one cannot dismiss the
idea altogether. But Love jihad as a purely male
appropriation of women from other communi-
ties into theirs cannot work over the long term
unless there is a reverse process also at work:
Muslim women enticing men (the so-called
honey trap) from other communities into
marriage and conversion. If too many Muslim
men marry outside their existing patriarchal
hunting grounds within the community, the re-
sult will be a shortage of Muslim grooms - even
assuming some amount of bigamy is permitted
in Islam.
In fact, the reverse Love jihad, where females
entrap males from other communities, is actual-
ly more feasible for the simple reason that men
are less choosy - and actually make patriarchal
gains if they marry Muslim women (as this blog
in Reality Check India argues). This is because
we know that women are more careful in pick-
ing male partners than men for biological and
evolutionary reasons. Acecdotally, too, I have
heard of more Hindu men willing to convert to
marry Muslim women or even to marry twice.
I know of one senior editor who converted to
Islam to marry a second time when the earlier
spouse would not offer an easy exit. But honey
traps too suffer from the same limitations of
men entrapping women: it demands too high a
personal price from the women concerned, and
moreover will ultimately be opposed by con-
servative Muslim society if carried out on a scale
where demographics are altered signifcantly.
Net-net, I believe that Love Jihad - apart from
being a contradiction in terms, is improbable
except at the margin. It is a possibility -but not
a probability - in states like Kerala and Assam,
where demographic realities have reduced the
Hindu proportions, enabling them to be more
resistant to conversions. They may be close to
achieving herd immunity.
The reasons why conversions are a big issue
with Hindu groups are two-fold. One, since
Hinduism does not believe in conversion and
has, therefore, not developed a well-organised,
institutionalised system for expansion of the
faith like Islam and Christianity, some Hindus
want conversions banned. But this is anti-free-
dom and not acceptable in our pluralistic soci-
ety. Two, there is a sense of greater vulnerability
since herd immunity has not been achieved in
large parts of India.
Banning conversions is actually an acceptance
of defeat. Those who care about conversions
away from Hinduism thus need a different
strategy - which I don't propose to discuss in
detail here. The key elements of this strategy are
obvious, though: one is to solidify Hinduism in-
ternally by making Hindutva a social movement
about eliminating caste rigidities rather than
being anti-other religions. The other is to create
a long-term plan for expansion and conversion
in virgin markets like the Americas, Europe,
south-east Asia and Africa.
Remember, just as Hindus don't have herd
immunity in India, Christians don't have herd
immunity in the areas they dominate. They are
as vulnerable as Hindus in India to conversion.
The communities most vulnerable to Hinduism
and Buddhism are the Islamic world - which
has no herd immunity whatsoever even though
there are more than 50 countries professing
Islam as a religion. Banning conversions and
apostasy is a sign of extreme herd vulnerability.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Love, jihad aur dhoka: The Hindu
womans body as rightwing battleground
Sandip Roy, August 25, 2014
N
ational-level shooter Tara Shadeo says
she thought she was marrying Ranjit
Kumar Kohli from Ranchi but it turned
out he was really Raqibul Hasan Khan. After
their wedding which happened with Hindu rites
she says she was tortured, abused, even bitten
by dogs as he tried to force her to convert to
Islam.
Its a ghastly story and Hasan, who is abscond-
ing, has been charged with IPC section 295A.
But now its become not just Tara Shahdeos
trauma. Its Exhibit A in the larger Love Jihad
frestorm.
The VHP called for a bandh in Ranchi saying
Hasan could be part of a jihadi outft carrying
out forcible conversions by luring Hindu girls
into marriage.
Apparently bombs are pass. Make love, not
war is the new jihadi strategy.
Actually its not that new. The Love Jihad bee
has been rattling in the Hindutva bonnet for
a while now. Way back in the 1920s, the Arya
Samaj launched campaigns against abduction
and conversion using poems like Chand Musal-
manon Ki Harkaten reports Rohan Venkatara-
man in Scroll.
In 2013 we heard of an eve-teasing incident in
Muzaffarnagar which led to the murder of one
Shah Nawaz which led to murders of two other
youths, Sachin and Gaurav and eventually fared
into full-scale communal violence and indefnite
curfew. In 1927 in that same Muzaffarpur an-
gry crowds gathered as a rumour spread that a
Hindu girl had been forced to convert to Islam
and marry a Muslim man, writes Charu Gupta
in Economic and Political Weekly. The Hindu
Sabha had volunteer corps active especially at
railway stations, keeping an eye out for Hindu
women eloping with Muslim men.
Now that same anxiety can be recycled but
far more effciently thanks to WhatsApp and
SMSes.
In 2009 groups like Sree Ram Sene accused
Muslim extremist youths of feigning love to
seduce Hindu women in Karnataka and then
using them for terror activities. The state High
Court asked the police to investigate after the
parents of two Hindu girls said their daughters
had been cheated into converting to Islam by
two Muslim college mates. The Karnataka police
told the high court they could not fnd any great
love jihad conspiracy. The campaign fzzled out
and Shree Ram Sene contented itself with other
ways to protect our moral fabric namely drag-
ging women out of pubs by their hair.
But Love Jihad otherwise known as Romeo
Jihad was too sexy an idea to just go away. In
Kerala a Christian woman who had converted to
Islam was arrested in Kochi for providing 2 SIM
cards to her Muslim boyfriend in an Ernakulam
jail on drug peddling charges. He then allegedly
passed the cards onto a Lashkar-e-Taiba opera-
tive also in that jail. Love Jihad is part of global
Islamisation project, pronounced the Global
Council of Indian Christians. The chief minis-
ter Oommen Chandy said in 2012 that 2,667
women had converted to Islam in Kerala since
2006 but he denied there was any organised
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Love Jihad.
That ironically stings even more. It meant good
Hindu girls were willingly marrying Muslim
men as if their own men were not good enough.
It hits Hindu masculinity right in the gonads.
Were they being out-shairi-ed in the race to the
altar? The only thing that made sense to the
wounded pride was a great love-sex-dhokha
conspiracy.
While the pressure to convert on a young non-
Muslim woman marrying a Muslim man can be
real, as a cold-blooded global Islamization strat-
egy it makes absolutely no sense. It takes too
long. It expends too much energy. It requires
too much investment. And in a country where
inter-caste marriages can still face enormous
obstacles its outcome is too iffy.
But like all great urban myths the Love Jihad
persists. It persists because the bodies of wom-
en can prove to be a far more potent polarizing
and organizing tool than even a Ram Temple.
Only the truly devout ultimately care about go-
ing on a pilgrimage to a Ram Temple in Ayo-
dhya but the izzat of ma-behen-beti becomes
ghar ghar ki kahani. There is already a great
buzzing paranoia about Muslim minority be-
coming a majority through sheer child-bearing
prowess and four permitted wives. The Love
Jihad adds Hindu wombs to the numbers game.
We live in a society where the control over
women is bred into our national psyche irre-
spective of religion. There is tremendous anxi-
ety about what modernity does to the Indian
woman. When flmmaker Paromita Vohra
was flming Morality TV aur Loving Jehad: Ek
Manohar Kahani about Operation Majnu which
targeted indecency and eve-teasing in public
places she found the story was a far more com-
plex interweave than the screaming headlines
on television let on.
There was already great social unease about
young women leaving homes to work in call
centres or enrolling in Frankfnn Airhostess
Training institutes and literally fying the coop.
There was resentment about the new prosper-
ity of Muslim meat exporters in western UP and
the panic of being culturally overwhelmed by
English-speaking urban elites. The conspiracy
theory of a love jihad against Hindu girls gave
that free-foating social anxiety about losing
control a face and a form and a clearly identif-
able "other". It made it a story not about moral
policing but about saving communal honour, an
idea that can provoke an almost medieval re-
sponse (and electoral dividends).
The abducted and converted Hindu woman
was metamorphosed into a symbol of both
sacredness and humiliation, and hence of the
victimization of the whole Hindu community,
writes Charu Gupta in EPW.
It is far more comforting to see a jihadi conspir-
acy instead of the far more damning personal
choice. In the award-winning flm Khamosh
Pani, Kirron Kher, now a BJP MP, plays Veero,
a Sikh woman in Pakistan who runs away in-
stead of jumping into a well in 1947 to escape
rampaging Muslim mobs. She is raped and
becomes pregnant but eventually builds a life
for herself as Ayesha in Pakistan. Over 30 years
later when the truth is revealed she refuses to
return to India with her newly-found brother.
More than the communal horror of 1947 the
shock of that story is her personal choice. That
is the hardest thing for us to stomach.
That is why the love in a Love Jihad has to be
necessarily portrayed as false. It is as much
about the Muslim man as it is about the alleged-
ly helpless gullible passive Hindu woman. The
war against Love Jihad is also about controlling
and policing that woman. It is a Lakshmanrekha
masquerading as helpline.
It is entirely plausible that a person of one faith
who marries into another regrets her choice
later. Its entirely possible that Tara Shahdeo
got married under false pretences and was then
tortured by her husband and in-laws. But just
because these dots exist it does not mean we can
connect them to spell out Love Jihad.
We are people, not sheep. We make complicated
personal choices especially when it comes to
love, as Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed glee-
fully pointed out on Twitter: "Present BJP MP
Hema Malini & Dharmendra (14th LS) were
converted to Islam at the time of their marriage.
Was it 'Love Jihad'? Only BJP can say."
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Love Jihad enters Uttar Pradesh
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Imported from Kerala: How the love
jihad ploy failed in its state of origin
G Pramod Kumar, August 25, 2014
T
he love jihad controversy that has
gripped Uttar Pradesh will most certain-
ly vitiate the communal atmosphere in
the state, but what few realise is that this is the
resurrection of a failed propaganda campaign
that raised considerable anxiety in Kerala and
Karnataka since 2009.
While in Kerala its more or less an old story, in
Karnataka, its strong ripples had been visible
even in the 2013 elections.
The curious coinage, which marries two unrelat-
ed terms such as love and jihad, was frst heard
in the northern districts of Kerala. The charge,
by Hindu and even Christian groups, was that
Muslim youths were luring Hindu girls into love
and then marriage with the sole purpose of con-
verting them into Islam.
Once converted, the charge was, that they would
be conveniently dumped. While the chief minis-
ter of the state Oomen Chandy conceded in the
state assembly in 2012 that 2667 women were
converted into Islam in the state since 2006, the
government said there was no sign of an organ-
ised effort for forced conversions or love jihad.
Although the government had limited evidence
of Christian girls being converted (according to
Chandy, only 447 Christian girls had been con-
verted into Islam), the Kerala Catholic Bishops
Council (KCBC) said 2600 Christian girls also
had been converted since 2006, making it a
appear like a challenge faced by both Christians
and Hindus.
The Global Council of Indian Christians charged
that it was part of a global Islamisation
project, and wanted Christians to be cautious.
Chandy took a principled stand that his govern-
ment would neither allow forcible conversions,
nor hate campaigns against Muslims.
The Christian connection to love jihad in Kerala
appeared to have gained some credence when a
Christian girl who converted into Islam through
marriage to a Muslim boy, was arrested for sup-
plying SIM cards to a suspected Laskar-e-Taiba
operative, the most notorious terror suspect in
the state so far.
The anxiety over the alleged racket in Kerala
was acute indeed.
Following complaints by the parents of two
girls, who said that their daughters had been
cheated into Islam through marriage, the Kerala
High Court in 2009 had asked the state govern-
ment to take a look. The government, after an
investigation, told the court that although there
were complaints of love jihad, there was no
evidence to back such an allegation.
The alleged phenomenon was not restricted to
Kerala alone, but had spread to the neighbour-
ing state of Karnataka as well - more precisely
in Mangalore which also has a multi-religious
population. The Karnataka High Court also had
asked the state police in 2009 to enquire into
the allegations. The police, as in the case of Ker-
ala, told the Court that there was no evidence.
Interestingly, the suspected activity brought
the Christian and Hindu organisations together
in Kerala. ''Both Hindu and Christian girls are
falling prey to the design. So we are cooperat-
ing with the VHP on tackling this. We will work
together to whatever extent possible,'' K S Sam-
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
son, an offce-bearer of Christian Association for
Social Action (CASA), a Kochi-based Christian
NGO told Times of India in 2009.
Reportedly, there were referrals and informa-
tion-sharing between the two organisations. The
VHP had set up a hotline and claimed that it
had received about 1500 calls in three months.
The Muslim groups called the charges, a ma-
licious misinformation campaign" by Sangh
Parivar outfts."The misinformation campaign
against the non-existent organisation in the
name of 'Love Jihad' would only lead to vitiating
the prevailing communal harmony and create
suspicion among various communities and the
parties concerned should keep themselves away
from levelling unsubstantiated charges, a joint
statement by prominent Muslim leaders said in
2009.
In Kerala, the controversy seemed to have set-
tled down on its own in 2009 after the High
Court intervention and the police investigation,
but strangely it was revived by none other than
the CPM veteran and the then chief minister VS
Achuthanandan.
In a press conference, he had said that Mus-
lim fundamentalists in the state were trying
to increase their clout by encouraging conver-
sions. He alleged that a lot of money was being
pumped into the state to attract the youth and
provide them with weapons; they are also per-
suaded to marry Hindu girls.
Although the heat of the controversy died down,
at least in its intensity, in Karnataka as well,
the aftereffects are far from over. Reportedly,
Deputy Chief Minister KS Eshwarappa had
used the term during the election campaign in
2013 and was served with a notice by the Elec-
tion Commission. This Open magazine article
(http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/
nation/love-jihad) described how the organised
campaigns by Hindu groups had vitiated the
socio-cultural atmosphere of Mangalore even as
late as 2013. There were also allegations of the
involvement of Muslim boys from North Kerala.
From the evidence in Kerala and Karnataka
since 2009, its clear that love jihad was an
organised campaign by certain quarters to fuel
the suspicion of Muslims. Therefore, its not
surprising that the same communal anxiety has
resurfaced elsewhere in the country. If religious
leaders play with this fre, the price that we are
going to pay will be higher because the commu-
nal rife in UP at the moment appears far more
vicious than that existed in Kerala and Karna-
taka.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
In land of honour killings, BJPs love
jihad campaign is a death warrant
Pallavi Polanki, August 26, 2014
W
hat the Muzaffarnagar riots were
to the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar
Pradesh, the BJP is perhaps hoping
love jihad will be to the state assembly elec-
tions in 2017.
In an already deeply communalised political
atmosphere of Western Uttar Pradesh, which by
no coincidence is notorious for the brutal prac-
tice of honour killings, the BJP has decided to
resurrect the ghost of love jihad for maximum
impact.
For all their claims of wanting to save Hindu
women from love jihad, womens rights activ-
ists from Uttar Pradesh warn that the campaign
will only tighten the patriarchal grip on young
women and end up encouraging those who com-
mit violent crimes in the name honour against
those who dare tradition by marrying outside
their caste or religion.
Despite the prevalence of honour killings in
India, there is no offcial data on the heinous
crime. The National Crime Records Bureau does
not recognise honour killing as a separate crime
category.
But data based on news reports in Hindi and
English national dailies on honour killings com-
piled by the Association for Advocacy and Legal
Initiatives (AALI) paints a grim picture of Uttar
Pradesh (UP). AALI is a Lucknow-based femi-
nist advocacy group that addresses issues of vio-
lence against women and has been working on
womens right to choice in sexual relationships.
In 2013, according to data compiled by AALI,
there were 85 reported cases of honour killing
in UP, compared to 24 in all other Indian states
put together. Up to March 2014, the number of
reported cases of honour killing in UP were 27
compared to fve in all other states combined.
For the BJP to raise the bogey of love jihad in
a state with as a violent record of patriarchal
crimes as UP will have extremely grave and
long-term implications for young women and
inter-religious couples, say womens rights ac-
tivists.
This an extremely serious issue. This kind of
a campaign will have serious negative impli-
cations on couples who are in inter-religious
relationships and marriages. They will be afraid
now of being attacked or having such allega-
tions levelled against them. Such statements
(raising fears about love jihad) have strong
impact on people because it has to do with
religious sentiments, with peoples faith and
beliefs. When such insecurities are created in
the minds of parents, theyll be afraid that their
daughters will be trapped. And because of such
feelings of insecurity, the vulnerability and
violence against women will only increase, says
Avantika Srivastva, Program Co-ordinator at
AALIs Resource Center.
In a scenario, where inter-religious couples are
even denied shelter by landlords because of the
sensitivity of the issue, a campaign of this sort
will expose them to even more hostility and
insecurity, say activists. Even the police, they
say, in the case of inter-religious relationships
or marriages are keen on sending the girl back
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
to the family because of the potential for fear of
a communal fare-up. And thats the situation
even without a vicious campaign like love jihad
being unleashed against them.
Asked about the impact of this kind of propa-
ganda on practice of honour killings, Srivastva
said, Of course, this provides encouragement
to people who call for honour killings. And it
also increase regressive social practices such
as early marriages. Parents will say they dont
want their daughters falling prey to love jihad.
And the impact wont be limited to the issue of
marriage, there will be direct implications on
the day-t0-day to life of women her mobility
will be restricted, her use of mobile phones will
be controlled and so will what she wears, whom
she meets.
Slamming the love jihad campaign as a politi-
cal stunt, Rehana Abeed, an activist who has
spent the last two decades fghting for womens
rights in Western UPs Meerut, Muzaffarna-
gar and Saharanpur districts, also warns of the
threat it poses to the lives and rights of women.
This is not only a threat to communal harmony
it is also a ploy to deny women their rights. They
want to bring the Talibani system into India.
The people who are spreading the fear of love
jihad are Hindustans Taliban. Just like there
are fanatics in the Muslim community, there
are fanatics in the Hindu community too. They
want to keep women in chainsThis kind of
propaganda will only lead to more honour kill-
ings, more daughters will die. It give embolden
patriarchal forces to oppose the rights of young
women to study, to communicate freely, to wear
what they want, says Abeed, who is founder-
director of NGO Astitva.
On the question of conversion in inter-religious
marriages, AALI explains why for some couples
conversion is simply the most practical solu-
tion to getting a quick legal marriage certifcate.
The Special Marriage Act that recognises inter-
religious marriage has one very serious practical
problem, says Srivastva.
When couples apply to be married under the
Special Marriage Act, a one-month notice an-
nouncing the marriage is put up in court. This
creates fear in the minds of couples of word of
their marriage reaching their families. They are
also afraid that if someone in the family comes
to know, it could even lead to honour killing.
But if the boy or girl converts, they have the op-
tion of either going to an Arya Samaj mandir, in
which case they will get a marriage certifcate by
end of the day, or doing a nikah, in which case
they will get a nikah nama, which is also a le-
gally valid document. So this also a reason why
the boy or the girl converts, explains Srivastva.
All too familiar with the extreme pressure and
blackmail tactics used by families, they say, it is
not uncommon for girls to be forced to testify
against the boy who is then jailed and charged
with kidnapping and abduction charges.
Not surprisingly, providing support to inter-
caste and inter-religious couples has exposed
organisations like AALI and Astistva to attacks
and vilifcation campaigns. There have been
multiple attacks on me and my organisation.
I have been fghting since 1989 for womens
rights. Earlier we used to be called house-
wreckers. Now we are called kidnappers. Things
are only going to worse now, says Abeed.
In deciding to play the love jihad card in a
deeply patriarchal and communally charged
state like UP, BJP has not only endangered the
rights of women but also made them vulnerable
to the worst kinds of patriarchal violence.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Love jihad in Uttar Pradesh: BJPs
latest strategy against Akhilesh
Ratan Mani Lal, August 25, 2014
D
oes something called love jihad re-
ally exist? No one is sure and there is
no documented proof but in this years
climate of communal polarisation in Uttar
Pradesh it has come handy as a political tool.
Implicit in the idea is a very low opinion of girls
of the Hindu community they lack any sense
of judgement, thus can be easily lured into love
and made to convert to Islam - but in the pre-
vailing situation not many as prepared to argue
that. Love jihad is serving a purpose, and it has
nothing to with love.
A day before its executive meeting at Vrinda-
van, the leaders of the BJP discussed at length
how love jihad is emerging as a major threat
to girls of the Hindu community, and vowed to
create awareness about it in the region. It was
an informal discussion but it left no doubt in
the minds of people present that it was a serious
issue, at least in the BJP-Sangh Parivar scheme
of things.
On Friday, while the party offce-bearers talked
about measures to tackle love jihad, alleged
instances of conversion of Hindus to Islam were
also taken up. Other leaders alleged that the
state government was providing protection to
such elements who were trapping Hindu girls
especially in this region. The trend became vis-
ible about seven-eight years ago but has caught
momentum in the last two years, said an MLA
from western UP.
Saturdays session, which the BJPs national
president Amit Shah, failed to attend due to
other party commitments, choose not to raise
the issue. However, the president of the state
unit, Laxmikant Bajpai, in his address touched
the subject indirectly while discussing the issue
of forced conversions and subsequent deteriora-
tion in the communal environment. Such cases
have increased in recent months, he pointed
out. All leaders avoided the phrase love jihad
in their addresses. However, it is clear that it
has entrenched itself in the political-communal
discourse of the state.
According to Prof Rahul Shukla, a professor in
history in a Lucknow University college in Luc-
know, the term love jihad refers to attempts by
Muslim boys to lure Hindu girls in friendship,
followed by offers of marriage, and then the
girls are converted to Islam. Allegation of this
kind was frst pointed out by some activists in
Kerala more than a decade ago and it has sur-
faced in Uttar Pradesh in the last few years, he
said.
The propaganda has its negative consequences.
The social environment had become so commu-
nally surcharged that even normal friendship
between a Hindu girl and a Muslim man was
now branded as an attempt of love jihad de-
spite the fact that the two may not be having an
intention to get married.
Local reports suggest that the recent case of a
Hindu girl teaching in a madarsa being forced
to convert to Islam could be an example of such
confusion. It appears that the girl and the main
accused knew each other for a long time, said
Sandeep Kumar, a social activist.
Last month, reports had come in from western
UP districts of Meerut, Saharanpur and Bijnore
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
that local workers of Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) had launched a rakhi campaign to
create awareness to protect Hindu girls from
love jihad. Under the campaign launched
weeks before Rakshabandhan, rakhi had been
tied to the wrists of hundreds of girls and even
men to remind them of the pledge to protect
their kin. With no clear way to defning love
jihad it is open to interpretations.
It is also an issue that has the potential to draw
emotional reactions from people who are not
particularly well-informed. As the trend of com-
munalisation of the society shifts from urban to
rural areas in the state, it is likely to be turned
into a handy tool for communal propaganda.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Why BJPs Uttar Pradesh unit is
regretting raking up Love jihad issue
IANS, August 27, 2014
L
ucknow: The issue of 'Love Jihad' is
being seen by some within the BJP as
a self-goal. And more than one party
leader admits it was a mistake raking up the is-
sue of "Love Jihad" in politically sensitive Uttar
Pradesh.
Several leaders now say that Uttar Pradesh
party president Laxmikant Bajpai went over-
board in propagating the concept before the
leadership in New Delhi gently pulled up the
state unit. With by-elections due on 13 Septem-
ber to 11 assembly seats, the Bharatiya Janata
Party was a divided house when its state execu-
tive met in Vrindavan.
Party sources say while it is fne to consolidate
Hindu votes, one must be careful raking up
issues that can communally polarise the state,
and in the process alienate the politically un-
committed Hindu.
On the frst day of the Vrindavan meet, party
leaders upped the ante on "Love Jihad" - al-
legation by Hindu outfts that Muslims marry
Hindu women and then force them to embrace
Islam. BJP leaders like Vinay Katiyar and Bajpai
discussed and debated the topic in the party
forum and insisted it should fgure in the politi-
cal resolution.
Union minister Kalraj Mishra, who represented
BJP president Amit Shah at Vrindavan, played
along and appeared to be convinced that the
slogan was a vote-catcher. The tempo was
scaled down only after a nudge from the nation-
al leadership -- aka Prime Minister Narendra
Modi. Reliable sources say the central leaders
were so miffed at the "Love Jihad" nomencla-
ture that Home Minister Rajnath Singh few to
Assam, giving a slip to the Vrindavan conclave.
BJP leaders now blame Bajpai for being "over-
zealous" in public utterances. "Bajpai has a
penchant for melodramatic words in public
discourse which should be avoided at all costs
because they harm the party's prospects," a
party leader told IANS. Added another leader:
"This 'Love Jihad' is a non-issue. It will have no
takers outside the fringe."
Others pointed out that the BJP won 71 of the
80 Lok Sabha seats in May while harping on
issues of good governance and economic de-
velopment. "Going overboard communally can
lead to reverse polarisation," a party leader
said, adding that worried Muslim voters in Ut-
tar Pradesh would then rally behind one strong
non-BJP party in every constituency.
A state executive member from western Uttar
Pradesh pointed out that a woman party leader
had herself embraced Islam to marry an already
married man years ago, in a reference to Bolly-
wood stars Hema Malini and Dharmendra.
While the state unit of the BJP continues to
claim that there is increasing sexual assaults on
Hindu women by members of another commu-
nity, the "Love Jihad" concept has gone under-
ground. It will be left to groups like the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal to take up the
issue. On its part, the BJP will focus on develop-
ment as it trains its guns on the ruling Sama-
jwadi Party.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Saanya, a young woman from Rae Bareli who
married a Muslim seven years ago, says she
fnds the "Love Jihad" accusation disturbing.
The resident of Indira Nagar told IANS that she
coaxed her husband, Ali Hasan, to vote for the
BJP in this Lok Sabha polls and now feels let
down. "Why are they raising such issues?" she
asked. Like her, many others have raised the
same question.
Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali, a member of the
Muslim Personal Law Board, says there is no
such thing as "Love Jihad".
"There have been stray incidents where conver-
sions have been done for marital purposes but
for that the entire community cannot be held
guilty," Mahali told IANS. "The BJP only wants
communal polarisation."
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
How BJP made Love Jihad a political weapon
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Watch: BJPs Yogi Adityanath tells
Hindus to marry a 100 Muslim women
IANS, August 27, 2014
W
hen an undated Youtube video of BJP
MP Yogi Adityanath allegedly telling
Hindu supporters to marry a hun-
dred Muslim women for every Hindu woman
marrying a Muslim and forcibly made to convert
to Islam surfaced, it created an uproar across
the country, in wake of the Love Jihad contro-
versy.
But on Tuesday night, the BJP member claimed
the video was not authentic. "It is the media's
responsibility to get a video examined before
showing it," he told Headlines Today when
asked to comment on the issue.
In the clip found on Youtube, Yogi Adityanath
can be heard telling his supporters that the Ut-
tar Pradesh High Court had questioned the state
government on why so many Hindu girls were
eloping with Muslim men to which the govern-
ment had no answer. The yogi further narrates
what a youth from Gorakhpur said about the
issue, "Probably in the rest of Uttar Pradesh
Hindu women run away with Muslim but in
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Gorakhpur, Hindu men marry Muslim women
and bring them home." In the background hoots
of glee can be heard from men attending the
speech.
Yogi Adityanath goes on to say that they will ac-
cept these Muslim brides and will cleanse them
and introduce them to their new religion.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
Who is afraid of BJPs love jihad?
The Congress party
Saroj Nagi, August 27, 2014
N
ew Delhi: Hindutva is now trying to
enter drawing rooms, bedrooms and
the boudoir, playing on peoples emo-
tions. If, in the 1980s and 1990s, it invoked the
past and invaded the puja room by invoking re-
ligiosity and peoples sentiments over the Ram
Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute, more than
20 years down the line it is trying to tweak its
anti-Muslim stance with a more contemporary
and equally potent propaganda that peers into
private spaces and goes by the name of love
jihad.
And the Congress, which tried to make the
secular-communal faceoff a political issue in the
2014 Lok Sabha elections without any success,
is at a loss on how to counter the possibility
that the RSS and its various outfts may use this
love jihad as part of its ground level campaign
to further communalise and polarise the at-
mosphere in Uttar Pradesh where elections are
slated in 2017 and in other parts of the country.
Already a marginal player in UP, such a cam-
paign threatens to squeeze out whatever little
life breath is left in the 129-year-old party in the
state.
Love jihad or Romeo jihad refers to alleged
instances of love feigned by Muslim men to trap
Hindu -- or non-Muslim -- girls into marriage
before converting these young women to Islam.
The combination of the two words 'love' and 'ji-
had' carries dangerous overtones that threaten
to subsume all inter-personal relationships and
individual choices.
The BJP was reportedly planning to include this
in its political resolution during its state execu-
tive meeting in Mathura which had been called
to prepare the roadmap for the 2017 Assembly
polls. But it developed cold feet after its central
leaders frowned at the idea and the opposition
parties raised a hue and cry.
Even though BJPs state unit chief Laxmi Kant
Bajpai alleged that "a particular community"
is doing 'love jihad', the subject did not fgure
in the document perhaps also because the BJP
did not want to overtly deviate from the twin
themes of development and good governance
that hoisted the party and its prime ministerial
candidate Narendra Modi to power at the Cen-
tre.
"The term is a media creation.The party is
concerned about the deteriorating law and
order situation in UP where the administration
and the police show a bias towards a particu-
lar community, said BJPs national secretary
Srikant Sharma, adding that the party was par-
ticularly concerned about the oppression of and
violence against women in the state.
But for many of the BJPs ground level workers
the failure to refer to the so-called 'love jihad in
the document did not mean much because they
had already imbibed the message that is likely
refect in their campaigns. Examples like those
of Ranchi-based former shooter Tara Shahdeo
in which she reportedly learnt of her husbands
Islamic name accidentally and reports that she
was being forced to convert to Islam have only
emboldened BJP workers to continue with their
campaign.
And those who have watched the BJP grow over
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
the years would recall that the party took up the
Ayodhya issue only after the VHP and some oth-
er RSS affliates had done the spadework frst.
Many believe that the 'love jihad campaign will
follow the same mode. Indeed it was only after
the Dharma Jagran Manch -- an RSS outft
tasked to run campaigns to stop conversions of
Hindus -- called for a front against 'love jihad
that the BJPs UP unit began talking about it.
And if the saffron party presses ahead with it, it
would spell bad news for the Congress which is
yet to get out of the trauma of the 2014 polls.
Politically, the Congress can hope to fght off
the BJP and its Hindutva ideology by reaching
out to secular and anti-BJP forces as it did when
it set up the UPA and defeated the BJP-NDA
in the 2004 and the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and
more recently, when it joined the RJD and the
JD-U to keep the saffron party at bay in the by-
elections to 10 Assembly seats in Bihar. But it
starts fumbling and stumbling in nervousness
when it has to deal with emotive issues such
as the Ram temple agitation of the Hindutva
brigade or the Mandal agitation of the social
justice forces.
The party will attempt a tightrope walk -- not be
seen as supporting the contention that a thing
called ''love jihad exists, while at the same time
asserting that if anyone has gone in for such a
union with malafde intent then stern action
should follow. "If there are complaints of this
nature then there should be an impartial in-
quiry by a central agency or the judiciary but the
BJP should not create hatred between people,
said senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed.
"But they want to divide society and drive a
wedge between different communities for the
sake of getting some votes.They will stoop to
any level, he charged, while trying to put the
BJP in the dock by pointing out that several
Muslim leaders in that party have Hindu wives
and their children bear Muslim names. In his
tweet he wondered how the BJP would describe
marriages like that between cine stars Hema
Malini and Dharmendra who had adopted Islam
to tie the knot.
Notwithstanding this, the Congress is clearly
worried on how to counter a campaign that
threatens to stoke primal passions, specially in
a society that continues to be divided among
caste, communal and religious lines and theo-
retically swears by the honour and prestige of
the community in general and of its girls and
women in particular. Set against fears that the
Muslim minority is trying to increase its popu-
lation through the practice of taking four wives,
'love jihad gets an added sinister meaning by
projecting that the entire womenfolk of the
Hindu community is under siege.
All that the Congress can think of now is to try
and create social awareness against the at-
tempts to divide communities and use its wom-
en wing to counter campaigns that show women
to be vulnerable and gullible to emotional
overtures. It also hopes to rope in NGOs to take
the message down to the grassroots that such
insinuations are an insult to women.
Sources indicated that while the party is yet to
discuss the issue, it is worried about the Hin-
dutva brigades reported plan to make 'Love
jihad its subterranean campaign theme in UP
where the law and order situation is already
fragile because of an increase in communal riots
and rapes and crime against women.
Given the sensitivity of the subject, it is sig-
nifcant that Ahmed, a Muslim, has so far been
the only senior Congress leader to react on the
issue, with even the voluble Digvijaya Singh
strangely keeping quiet for the moment.
The Muslim groups, on their part, dismissed the
charges as a "malicious campaign by the Sangh
affliates. The Vice-Chancellor of Deobands
Darul Uloom alleged that the term 'love jihad
was coined to foment disturbances and margin-
alize the minority community.
According to him, "A fght against the evil is
called 'jihad. But some people are using this to
disturb communal harmony in the country for
political gains. Linking such negative ideas with
Islam is against the betterment of the country.
Islam doesnt identify anything called Love
Jihad," he said.
The latest attempt to whip up passions over
'love jihad in UP and elsewhere are linked to
similar moves in Kerala and Karnataka, spe-
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
cially since 2009 where Christian and Hindu
groups alleged that their girls were befriended
with the intent of converting them to Islam
and dumped after marriage. There were allega-
tions that this was part of a "global Islamisation
design and even had a terror link to it which
needed probing. Indeed, outfts such as Sree
Ram Sene alleged that Muslim extremist youths
seduced Hindu women and used them for terror
activities. Amid such charges, the Kerala and
the Karnataka High Courts were requested to
look into the matter.
In a replay of the adage that there was no
smoke without fre, the two worried govern-
ments admitted to the conversions but, intent
on preventing a communal fare-up, denied it
was done under duress. They assured that they
would neither permit forcible conversions nor
allow a hate campaign against Muslims.
The controversy lost its intensity over the
months but the embers continue to smoulder,
threatening to turn into a major confagration at
the frst spark. The fact that Keralite economy
was bolstered by remittances from West Asia
only added to the suspicions. Coupled with fears
about the increasing radicalization of Muslim
youths and reports of some joining jihadi outfts
such as the ISIS, the 'Love jihad' campaign, if
launched, would make for a lethal and volatile
mix.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
BJP MP Hema Malini had no objection
to love jihad in her flms: Akhilesh
PTI, August 25, 2014
L
ucknow: UP Chief Minister Akhilesh
Yadav on Sunday took a pot-shot at BJP
for raising the issue of 'love jihad' (af-
fairs involving Muslim boys and Hindu girls)
by suggesting that its MP Hema Malini had no
qualms about acting in movies which showed
such relationships.
"You hear the song of BJP MP's flm 'Dhar-
matma'. Will it promote love or not," Yadav told
reporters while replying to queries on issue of
"love jihad" raised by BJP in its Uttar Pradesh
executive meet.
The Chief Minister was referring to actor-turned
politician and Mathura MP Hema Malini's 1975
movie, which also starred Feroz Khan.
'Love jihad' is a term coined by some Hindu
groups for alleged efforts to get non-Muslim
girls to convert to Islam through love affairs.
"Youth should be vigilant against love jihad.
Why is the government lenient on those who
indulge in such practise? Have they (youth of
the minority community) got license to convert
the girls of majority community," UP BJP chief
Laxmikant
Bajpai said on Saturday addressing the two-day
meeting of state party executive committee in
Vrindavan.
Yadav also released a book "1857 ki kranti"
penned by journalist Pawan Kumar Singh on
Sunday.
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
BJP drops mention of love jihad, talks
about crimes against Hindu women
PTI, August 25, 2014
M
athura: After breathing fre over
'love jihad', BJP on Sunday dropped
mention of it in the party's political
resolution but continued to rake up the issue of
alleged crime by men of minority community
against Hindu women as part of efforts to con-
solidate its vote bank ahead of assembly elec-
tions in Uttar Pradesh.
The political resolution passed at the party's
two-day state executive meet made no direct
reference to 'love jihad' (marriage between a
Muslim man and a Hindu woman), but won-
dered, "Is it just a coincidence or a design be-
hind atrocities against women of a particular
community and perpetrated by those belonging
to a particular community?"
BJP accused the Samajwadi Party government
of shielding crime by men belonging to a partic-
ular caste and religion against women belonging
to a particular community without using the
word 'Hindu'.
It also sought to rake up communal issue by
saying the state government was openly protect-
ing those involved in animal slaughter. State
party chief Laxmikant Bajpai had in his inaugu-
ral address yesterday asked youths to be vigilant
on the issue of 'love jihad', questioning whether
men of the minority community have got the
licence to convert and rape women of majority
community.
However, interestingly, the political resolu-
tion passed today did not have any reference to
'love jihad'. When asked why the resolution was
silent on 'love jihad', Bajpai said, "It was not on
the agenda, so there is no question of having it
in the resolution."
After its grand performance in the Lok Sabha
elections in the state, where it bagged 71 of the
80 seats, BJP asked its workers to strengthen
the organisation from the booth level so that it
can come to power in the state with thumping
majority.
It asked partymen to launch a people's move-
ment against "complete anarchy and lawless-
ness" and oppose "communal appeasement and
crumbling law and order".
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
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