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FirstpostEbook BJPandthefallacyof'LoveJihad' FINAL 20140830062525
FirstpostEbook BJPandthefallacyof'LoveJihad' FINAL 20140830062525
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Love, jihad aur dhoka: The Hindu womans body as rightwing battleground
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Why BJPs Uttar Pradesh unit is regretting raking up Love jihad issue
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BJP MP Hema Malini had no objection to love jihad in her films: Akhilesh
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BJP drops mention of love jihad, talks about crimes against Hindu women
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he BJP and the Sangh Parivar are kicking 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 intercommunal love and conversions to Islam resulting from these liaisons, the fact is if 'Love Jihad'
is actually an organised system to obtain converts, it is a sign of desperation in those seeking
to use this route to change demography. I propose to explain why through some hypotheses.
First, 'Love Jihad' is a very inefficient and costly
Its a ghastly story and Hasan, who is absconding, has been charged with IPC section 295A.
But now its become not just Tara Shahdeos
trauma. Its Exhibit A in the larger Love Jihad
firestorm.
The VHP called for a bandh in Ranchi saying
Hasan could be part of a jihadi outfit 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 Musalmanon Ki Harkaten reports Rohan Venkataraman in Scroll.
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 nonMuslim woman marrying a Muslim man can be
real, as a cold-blooded global Islamization strategy 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 women can prove to be a far more potent polarizing
and organizing tool than even a Ram Temple.
Only the truly devout ultimately care about going on a pilgrimage to a Ram Temple in Ayodhya but the izzat of ma-behen-beti becomes
ghar ghar ki kahani. There is already a great
buzzing paranoia about Muslim minority becoming 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 irrespective of religion. There is tremendous anxiety about what modernity does to the Indian
woman. When filmmaker Paromita Vohra
was filming 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 complex 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 Frankfinn Airhostess
Training institutes and literally flying the coop.
There was resentment about the new prosperity of Muslim meat exporters in western UP and
the panic of being culturally overwhelmed by
English-speaking urban elites. The conspiracy
In a press conference, he had said that Muslim fundamentalists in the state were trying
to increase their clout by encouraging conversions. 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 persuaded to marry Hindu girls.
oes something called love jihad really 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 prevailing 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 Vrindavan, 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 office-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 visible about seven-eight years ago but has caught
The combination of the two words 'love' and 'jihad' 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 executive 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 figure
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 Centre.
Vrindavan.
Yadav also released a book "1857 ki kranti"
penned by journalist Pawan Kumar Singh on
Sunday.
"You hear the song of BJP MP's film 'Dharmatma'. 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
Copyright 2012 Firstpost
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