Deconstructing ‘Love Jihad’ and Other Fictions

Arup Kumar Sen

Rise of the Hindu Right in the political domain in India is accompanied by attempts by the Hindutva forces to manufacture consent in the public sphere through the creation of fictional narratives against the minority communities, particularly the Muslims. A recently published seminal book– Love Jihad and Other Fictions: Simple Facts to Counter Viral Falsehoods (Aleph, New Delhi, 2024) authored by Sreenivasan Jain, Mariyam Alavi and Supriya Sharma –has deconstructed such fictional narratives. In writing the introduction of the book, the authors shared their urge to write this book “in deeply polarised times”. To put it in their own words: “In this book…we have chosen to turn our focus to a set of viral claims seemingly landing from nowhere in the WhatsApp chats and social media feeds of millions of Indians every day. Their proliferation signals a bizarre new normal, in which Shah Rukh Khan can be accused of ‘population jihad’ and Amir Khan of ‘love jihad’, only because they are Muslim.”

The first chapter of the book addressed ‘love jihad’. The authors visited Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh (UP) in August 2014 to interview a young woman, who was projected by the Hindutva forces as a victim of ‘love jihad’. A significant observation was made in the book in this context: “Just eleven months ago, riots had broken out in the neighbouring district of Muzaffar-nagar, in which more than sixty people had been killed. The trigger was widely believed to have been a ‘love jihad’ rumour, for which we had found no credible evidence in our reporting.” (p.2) The ‘victim’ of ‘love jihad’ in Meerut–the young woman interviewed in 2014–who was forced to file a rape complaint (by her father for a monetary reward offered by a local BJP leader) against her Muslim partner, married him in 2015. This is not a single instance of ‘love jihad’ explored by the authors: “The testimonies of several other Hindu women we spoke to was similar– they all said their choice of partners and the decision to convert were entirely their own.” (p.29)

Several states have either amended or passed anti-conversion laws for placing restrictions on conversions by or for marriage (p.31). In fact, the Indian state is playing a coercive role in this context: “Scores of arrests are happening under the new ‘love jihad’ laws. But a close examination of cases filed in Uttar Pradesh showed no evidence of conspiracy. The latest threat to interfaith couples is not from vigilante groups or aggrieved families, but from the all-powerful Indian state.” (p. 43)

Another propaganda being widely circulated by the Hindutva forces is focused on ‘population jihad’–“a Muslim conspiracy to reduce India’s Hindus to a minority through a population explosion”. The most prominent state where this phenomenon has taken a bizarre shape is Assam: “Nowhere are the anxieties of ‘population jihad’ more acute than in Assam, the eastern state where fears of large-scale illegal immigration and uncontrolled Muslim fertility have intersected to produce the most, dire warnings of an Islamic takeover.”(p. 61) The authors presented the actual picture of Muslim population growth in Assam in the context of India: “…between 1961-71, the Muslim population growth rate in Assam dropped below the Hindu rate… post-independence, the gap between the Muslim population growth rates of India and Assam has narrowed. In fact, during the 1991-2001 decade, Assam’s Muslim population growth rate even slipped below India’s.” (pp. 65, 67) It goes without saying that the politics of ethnicity and that of religion got merged in Assam in recent years.

The Hindutva brigade is not only targeting the Muslims. The Christians are also their targets of attack. While narrating anti-Christian violence in India, the book observed: “The Hindu Right’s hand in anti-Christian violence in recent years is hardly surprising. All major episodes of large-scale violence against Christians in the past three decades have been preceded by mobilisation by Hindutva groups that portrayed an increase in Christian population as evidence of forced and fraudulent conversions, even though independent investigations found no evidence for that.” (p. 88)

‘Muslim Appeasement’ by the opposition parties is a recurring theme in the discourse of the politics of Hindutva. The authors made a significant observation in this context: “But facts often take a backseat when it comes to communal politics…Far from being pampered by the Congress, Muslims are at the bottom of the heap. If the Congress is guilty of anything, it is of failing to uplift Muslims despite enjoying the longest stint in power.” (pp. 111, 119)

The book ended with drawing the attention of the readers to a dismal reality: “Today, dangerous, divisive theories aren’t just peddled by anonymous trolls on the internet. They are platformed at the highest tiers of political and governmental power, at a scale never seen before.” (p. 137) The authors also highlighted the fallout of such hate campaigns against the minority communities: “What’s easier to predict is the impact of the hateful lies: an India that no longer belongs equally to all its citizens.” (p. 143)

The hope lies in the fact that the curtailment of absolute power of the BJP, as witnessed in the outcomes of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, bears testimony to the resistance of the people of India to the violent politics of Hindutva.

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Vol 57, No. 15 - 18, Oct 5 - Nov 2, 2024