Indian Press On Love Jihad, Encounter At Nagrota And Daughters Of Nuh: New Age Islam's Selection, 1 December 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
1 December
2020
• The
History Of 'Love Jihad': How Sangh Parivar Spread A Dangerous, Imaginary Idea
By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
•
Haryana Must Ponder Why A Woman Killed Her Four Girls
The Tribune India Editorial
• Recent Encounter At Nagrota: A Wake-Up Call
By Anil Gupta
• A
Society That Fears Love
By Avijit Pathak
-----
The History of 'Love Jihad': How Sangh Parivar
Spread a Dangerous, Imaginary Idea
By Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
20/NOV/2020
Members of the Vishwa Hindu
Mahasangh take an oath against 'love jihad'. Photo: PTI
------
The spectre
of “love jihad” is haunting India again. The last time the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) took this up as a political plank wholeheartedly, it resulted in
the killing of 62 people, and displacement of more than 50,000 Muslims in the
days following the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh.
In the
months preceding the riots that left all of western UP polarised along
religious lines, the BJP unit of the state experimented with the ‘love jihad’
campaign and successfully shattered the region’s social harmony. Jats and
Muslims, who had come together as one agricultural community under the
leadership of former Prime Minister Charan Singh since the 1970s, became sworn
enemies. The resultant social fragmentation is still bearing fruit for the
saffron party.
That was a
time when Amit Shah, a little-known face outside Gujarat, was appointed as the
UP election in charge by his party. Energised by his stewardship, BJP workers
went from village to village in western UP to campaign against what they called
‘love jihad’ – an idea that the Sangh parivar had already been employing to
polarise Hindus and Muslims in coastal Karnataka, a region which has
historically been Hindutva’s laboratory.
BJP workers
and others affiliated with the Sangh parivar triggered distrust among Jats
against Muslims. They visited villages and held meetings with elders in the Jat
community, with the intention to exploit orthodoxy among older people and their
traditional opposition to romantic liaisons of any type.
Armed with
a newly-built well-oiled rumour machinery on social media, these workers
claimed that certain madrassas were funded by terrorist organisations and
Islamic countries to convert Hindu women. To achieve this goal, they continued,
these madrassas identified “good-looking Muslim young men” and trained them to
stalk Hindu women. According to Hindutva activists, the madrassas taught young Muslim men to
dress in “a modern way”, and then funded them to open mobile phone shops and
buy motorbikes, which they could use to woo Hindu women.
This wild
theory was then amplified by circulating multiple fake videos over WhatsApp.
The campaign had such an impact that in late 2012, a khap panchayat in western
UP banned women from carrying mobile phones altogether. After all, according to
the rumour fuelled by the Sangh parivar, mobile phone shops managed by Muslim
youth were the first stops for Hindu women and Muslim men to interact. This
decision was subsequently endorsed by many other khap panchayats of the
contiguous Jat-dominated region in western UP and Haryana.
The seeds
of distrust had thus been sown before the Muzaffarnagar communal riots in 2013.
It merely took a small skirmish between some Hindu and Muslim men over a
motorbike, in which one Muslim man was killed, to snowball into a full-fledged communal
riot that ravaged the region for days.
How “love
jihad” became an effective riot instrument
Within
hours of this tussle in Kawal village, a Muslim mob lynched the two Jat men it
thought were responsible for the murder.
However, as
the day passed, the Sangh parivar started circulating an old video in which
Taliban members were seen lynching a person and claiming this was the lynching
in Kawal village. The fake video was circulated along with the rumour that the
two Jat men were lynched when they tried to prevent Muslims from stalking their
sister.
To stoke
communal tension, the Sangh parivar then organised a massive rally for the
cremation of the two Jat men who were killed. On their way back from the
cremation, the mob entered Muslim colonies in Kawal on tractors and motorbikes.
They vandalised and looted Muslim houses and shops, and burnt down mosques of
the area while shouting slogans like ‘Jao Pakistan, warna kabristan (Go to
Pakistan or a graveyard)’, ‘Hindu ekta zindabad (Long live Hindu unity)’ and
‘Ek ke badle ek 100 (For one life, we will claim 100 lives)’.
The
communal project was still incomplete. As the fake video was widely circulated,
a few Jat leaders who were by now heavily influenced by the BJP’s ‘love jihad’
campaign called for a mahapanchayat, or a general body meeting of the Jat
community, with the stated agenda “to defend Jat honour against aggressive
Muslims”. Such mahapanchayats had some representation from the Muslim community
historically, but no more. The mahapanchayat called in the aftermath of the
Kawal violence was attended by prominent BJP leaders such as Hukum Singh,
Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, along with leaders of the influential Bharatiya
Kisan Union (BKU) Naresh and Rakesh Tikait. Together, they gave a call to
defend the honour of “their women”. The mahapanchayat came to be known as
‘Bahu, Beti Bachao Mahasammelan (Save your daughter-in-law and daughter)’.
As with the
funeral procession, those who attended the Mahasammelan resorted to violence
against Muslims on their way back. The Muslim leadership organised its own
panchayats to try and counter the violence. Over the next few days, communal
violence gradually spread to across Muzaffarnagar and adjoining districts – the
then Samajwadi Party-led state government miserably failing to contain it.
Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ashok Singhal had then famously justified the
violence, “When society could no longer bear the ‘love jihadists’ outraging the
modesty and dignity of Hindu women and girls in rural and urban areas of UP,
the corrective movement in the form of the Bahu, Beti Bachao mahapanchayat came
into being.”
The ‘love
jihad’ campaign resulted in one of the biggest demographic transformations in
India. When this correspondent, then with Frontline, visited many of these
riot-affected villages in western UP, changes in the socio-economic framework
was conspicuous. In Hindu-dominated villages, Muslims had left their homes and
properties to settle elsewhere. Likewise, in most Muslim-majority villages,
although fewer in number, a large section of Hindus had fled. In Kawal and many
other such villages, the Jats and Sainis had illegally occupied all Muslim land
and households, even as thousands of Muslims were thrust into relief camps.
Such was
the polarisation that in the 2014 parliamentary elections, the BJP, which had
successfully divided the electorate on religious lines, swept all seats of
western UP, where it had negligible presence earlier. The dominant Rashtriya
Lok Dal, led by Charan Singh’s son Ajit Singh, was wiped out of the electoral
map.
An
RSS-backed campaign
Around the
same time when the Muzaffarnagar riots were unfolding, the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in September 2013 circulated an email to many
journalists with a seemingly innocuous title “Some Facts: Muslim Man/Hindu
Woman”. The email listed 73 male celebrities who were Muslim and had married
Hindu women, but did not mention ‘love jihad’ at all.
Among those
who figured in the list were stalwart film directors K. Asif, Muzaffar Ali,
superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan, Hindustani classical artists Ustad
Ali Akbar Khan and Ustad Vilayat Khan – all of whom married Hindu women.
In a clear
suggestion that Muslims could marry more than once, it said, “Classical
vocalist Ali Akbar Khan married numerous times in his life. One of his wives
was Rajdulari Devi, a singer herself. Their daughter Aneesa is married to TV
producer Rajeev Chaudhary. Surprisingly, Ali Akbar and his Muslim wife Zubeida
gave Hindu names to their sons, namely Ashish, Dhyanesh, Amresh and Pranesh.
Out of these, Ashish declared himself to be a Hindu and separated from his
Muslim wife, Firoza Dehalvi. Ashish’s children are Faraz (son) and Nusrat
(daughter). Dhyanesh’s daughter Sahana is married to a Hindu (Mr Gupta).
Dhyanesh’s son is Shiraz Khan.”
“Singer
Sunidhi Chauhan, at the age of 18, eloped and married Bobby Khan, brother of
choreographer Ahmed Khan. Her family never acknowledged the marriage and
threatened to disown her. The couple fell apart in a year and she returned to
her parents. She is now married to a Hindu,” the list went on to point out.
Where did
the idea germinate?
The Sangh
parivar has since then used the ‘love jihad’ campaign tactically to its
advantage from time to time. However, as a political idea, it first gained
currency in 2007 in the campaigns of the fringe Hindu Right organisation Hindu
Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) in the Dakshina Kannada district of coastal Karnataka
and parts of northern Kerala. HJS, until recently, openly associated itself
with the Sanathan Sanstha, which has been named in several terror cases like
the 2009 Goa bomb blasts and was linked to the murders of communist leader
Govind Pansare, social activist and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, epigraphist
and Lingayat scholar M.M. Kalburgi, and journalist Gauri Lankesh.
The HJS has
been active in different moral policing campaigns in the urban areas of coastal
Karnataka. It shot to the limelight when its activists in multiple incidents
attacked couples in parks, pubs, and colleges as part of its campaign against
the westernisation of Indian culture. By 2007, it gave the same campaign a
communal twist when its leaders in multiple meetings started using the term
‘love jihad’ to suggest that Muslim men strategically entrap Hindu women, marry
them and convert them to Islam as part of an Islamist project – the larger
objective, according to the organisation, being to reduce Hindus to a minority
group in India.
On its
website, the HJS equated Muslim youth to “sexual wolves” on the prowl. It also
claimed without any evidence that as many as 30,000 women had already been
converted to Islam in Karnataka alone, while in Dakshina Kannada, around three
Hindu women became victims of ‘love jihad everyday.
However,
with no proof to back its claims, the HJS campaign could not take off as the
Sangh parivar had wantee it to.
The term
was, however, legitimised by a 2009 Karnataka high court order which asked for
a joint investigation by the Karnataka and Kerala police into the “love jihad
movement”. The order was in response to a habeas corpus petition filed by
parents of an adult woman who, by her own admission in court, had married a
Muslim man and willingly converted to Islam.
Despite her
statement, the woman, who was a resident of Chamarajanagar in southern
Karnataka, was directed by the court to live with her parents until an
investigation report was produced. What was even more surprising was that the
court linked the habeas corpus petition with other cases of missing women
across the state, who according to the court, could have been victims of ‘love
jihad’.
A
right-wing tabloid first used the term ‘love jihad’ in its report on the court
order, only to be picked up by many other Kannada dailies, thereby giving
popular traction to the idea.
Around the
same period, the HJS intensified its communal campaign by claiming that an
organisation called Muslim Youth Forum and multiple other Islamic websites had
been training young men for ‘love jihad’. The allegations were probed by the
Kerala police, which found no merit in them. Later the Kerala high court held
that inter-faith marriages were common and could not be seen as a criminal act.
The court also closed the investigation.
The HJS and
other Sangh affiliates curiously moderated the ‘love jihad’ pitch from thereon,
until the BJP unit of UP activated it again as a political strategy in 2012 –
this time in rural areas of western UP where the notions of patriarchal honour
and caste solidarities are deeply entrenched. The ‘love jihad’ campaign in
western UP was much more elaborate than what it was in coastal Karnataka. Here,
the Sangh parivar activists used the idea to amplify the old Hindutva rhetoric
that stereotypes Muslims as cow slaughterers, lustful reproductive machines,
criminals and black-marketeers.
In
Muzaffarnagar, this correspondent spoke to many Sangh activists who kept
advancing the idea that Muslims believe that consummating their relationship
with kafirs (non-believers) will lead them to jannat (heaven), and that if not
controlled, Muslims will soon outnumber Hindus in India.
Unfounded
rumours of this kind were also propagated during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
‘Love
jihad’ in its current shape is a greater divisive campaign than its former
informal avatar. The idea has now transformed itself into one of the most
effective Hindutva strategies to consolidate Hindu men who have struggled with
their own multi-layered deep-rooted anxieties all their lives. In ‘love jihad’,
most of them see a possibility to deny this reality and channel their insecurities
against both Muslims and Hindu women.
Now, BJP’s
concerted attempt to deflect attention
The BJP
governments in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Karnataka have
further institutionalised such hypermasculine, communal politics by raking up
the ‘love jihad’ bogey. By announcing its intention to make a law against it,
or by referring to the disgraceful idea in political speeches to take a dig at
Muslims, or by twisting a horrible murder case communally – all of which have
made ‘love jihad’ a constant a talking point – the saffron party has gone back
to its tried-and-tested formula to tighten its grip and retain control over
what is now a thoroughly majoritarian society.
The
promptness of the BJP-led state governments in simultaneously raising the issue
has been visibly premeditated. Because of this, at least for the time being,
the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, currently facing its most difficult
period, has been fairly successful in deflecting attention from the public
scrutiny of its many-sided failures to contain a raging epidemic, widespread
economic distress and steeply-rising unemployment.
https://thewire.in/communalism/love-jihad-anti-muslim-history-sangh-parivar
-----
Haryana Must Ponder Why A Woman Killed Her Four
Girls
The Tribune India
Editorial
The police at the village in Nuh. - File photo
-----
Nothing
signifies more the patriarchal set-up and backwardness of the Mewat area of
Haryana than this tragic and ghastly incident. Frustrated by not having given
birth to a son, a poor mother slit the throats of her four daughters — aged
between four months and six years — and critically injure herself as she
attempted to end her own life in a village of Nuh district. The heartrending
act bears the unmistakable stamp of a life burdened by cultural conditioning
and stigmas surrounding the girl child. Irrespective of what the police
investigation into this case reveals, the terrible episode should make our
heads hang in shame as a society.
That a
mother preferred to cut short the lives of her four little girls is emblematic
of a terrible tale that has its roots in deeply embedded social mores and norms
that condemn a woman to a lowly and wretched space. Perhaps, she wanted to free
them from an existence of torture and abuse emanating from lack of facilities
and opportunities that are the bane in the lives of a majority of women in the
area. She must have suffered firsthand the gender prejudices prevalent in
educational, financial, health and social fields. The huge disparities between men
and women are among the significant indicators that have made Mewat the most
backward area of the country.
With
education being the key to the uplift of women, Haryana has rightly sought to
improve the grimly skewed situation with its Beti Padhao Beti Bachao campaign.
But, apparently, a lot remains to be done. Redoubled efforts are needed to
cover the ground and strive to transform the male-dominated set-up into an
equitable one by changing the mindset of the people, including the influential
khaps. Progressive reforms can only emanate from the bowels of society that has
the backbone of strong governance. Empower the girls with good education and
health so that they blossom into confident, independent young women. They are
as able as boys, not a liability. The distinction between boys and girls will
evaporate if the daughters are welcomed.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/daughters-of-nuh-177717
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Recent Encounter At Nagrota: A Wake-Up Call
By Anil Gupta
30 November
2020
Let not the
recent incident at Nagrota meet the fate of similar encounters in the past. It
should ring warning bells and lessons should be learnt from it
The recent
encounter at Nagrota, near Jammu on National Highway (NH) 44, in which four
heavily-armed Pakistani terrorists were gunned down by the Indian security
forces, has once again exposed the fact that the “Deep State” in Pakistan
continues to rule the roost with the singular agenda of bleeding India through
a thousand cuts. Similar encounters had taken place on the same highway in the
past, too. Pakistan continues to use the International Border (IB) sector as a
preferred route of infiltration not only for terrorists but also for
narco-terrorism, as it provides the twin advantage of movement into Jammu and
Kashmir (J&K) and Punjab. Also, the modus operandi adopted in most cases is
near identical. After revocation of Article 370 in J&K, Pakistan’s
desperation to create trouble has increased manifold. With the Indian Army
adopting a very strong counter-infiltration grid on the Line of Control (LoC)
and an equally impregnable counter-terrorism grid inside the Valley, the
Pakistan Army has shifted its focus to the IB sector with a comparatively
higher success rate.
Pakistan is
going through the worst phase of its history. Ever since its formation, the
country has suffered the dilemma of identity. Regional loyalties have surpassed
national ones, leaving the Pakistan Army alone as a symbol of national
identity. This has been exploited by the Army to its advantage by becoming the
virtual ruler. To ensure its continued hold over the nation’s defence and
foreign policy, the Army has created a myth of India being an existential
threat. At the same time it has promoted Kashmir as an unfinished agenda of the
Partition and as our jugular vein. Despite Islamabad’s obsession with Kashmir
costing it dearly, both economically and strategically, it refuses to relent.
Terrorism continues to remain an instrument of its State policy. Kashmir
continues to be the raison d’etre for the continued supremacy of its Army.
Politically
and economically, Pakistan is on the verge of collapse. Prime Minister Imran
Khan is the target of a domestic rebellion against his Government by the
conglomeration of 11 Opposition parties under the banner of the Pakistan
Democratic Movement (PDM). Even Imran Khan’s mentor, Chief of the Army Staff
General Bajwa, and his ISI chief are not being spared by the public. This has
unnerved the Army as it is quite conscious of its image among the people. But
that aura is gradually eroding due to the involvement of senior Army officers
in corruption. While the common man is
finding it difficult to survive, the Army is eating up a large slice of the
national budget. The economy is in the doldrums. Saudi Arabia, a liberal donor
till now, is unhappy with Imran Khan due to his growing proximity with Turkey.
Pakistan is neck deep in debt and is resorting to borrowings to service it.
Unemployment and inflation are common and Imran Khan is doing nothing to
resolve these issues. His total surrender to China is also being resented by
Pakistanis.
Pakistan is
close to an implosion at this stage due to the growing turmoil in Balochistan,
increased unrest in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, revolt in Pakistan-Occupied J&K and
Gilgit Baltistan and the growing dissent in Sindh due to the ongoing protests
by the PDM. Attempts to integrate Gilgit Baltistan as its fifth province and
holding of elections there have been met with stiff opposition from the locals.
The results of the elections are being contested as fudged. The Balawaristan
Movement for an independent Gilgit-Baltistan is gaining momentum.
With the
Pakistan Army under tremendous pressure from China to tie down the Indian Army,
the time-tested Pakistani formula of creating an India bogey at home has been
put into practice to generate an anti-India public opinion. Repeated unprovoked
ceasefire violations and attempts to push in terrorists have become a norm.
Apart from attempts to distract public attention at home, these are also being
used to keep Kashmir in the focus of the international community as a potential
flashpoint.
Pakistan’s
nuclear blackmail has been exposed and is no longer being used as a threat by
its leadership. So it has increased its dependence on terrorist activities in India
and the “Deep State” is involved in spreading its tentacles in other parts of
the country apart from Kashmir. However, Kashmir for the time-being continues
to remain its main focus because of the realisation that with the passing of
each day peacefully, Pakistan is losing its relevance there. That was the main
reason behind infiltrating a heavily-armed group with about 750 kg of RDX to
create mayhem in Kashmir on the eve of the District Development Council
elections in J&K.
Plus, China
is egging Pakistan on to keep the pot boiling in Kashmir. It needs a hold in
Gilgit-Baltistan and does not want to part with Shaksgam and Aksai Chin. Hence,
irrespective of the success achieved by us at Nagrota, Pakistan is not going to
relent. We have to be proactive and make the cost of such attempts as
prohibitive for the “Deep State” as possible.
Unfortunately,
the IB sector remains our weakness, which is being exploited by the enemy. Many
questions need to be answered by the Border Security Force (BSF) which is responsible
for guarding the IB. Why is it that the tunnels are detected only after
infiltration has taken place? Why is no action taken to pin responsibility for
the lapses? Why are no proactive measures taken to prevent similar failures in
the future? Is it lack of resources, professionalism or sincerity?
The
Government has spent crores of rupees to equip the BSF so that it can stop
infiltration, including the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System
(CIBMS) to overcome the difficulties of the terrain. Not very long ago BSF
officers had displayed to the media a tractor modified for tunnel detection.
There were also claims of importing tunnel detection equipment. What happened
to all that and why is that equipment not being used?
The BSF has
been provided with seismic sensors and any underground disturbance is meant to
be picked up by them. Definitely, the digging of a 150 metre-long tunnel should
have been picked up by these sensors but it wasn’t. Are these sensors
non-functional or have they not been sited and deployed tactically?
Incidentally these tunnels serve a dual purpose and the BSF knows that apart
from sneaking in terrorists, these are also used for smuggling narcotics. Plus,
what was the need to make the detection of the tunnel public? Rather it should
have been booby-trapped and kept under surveillance. We have to accept that
there are major chinks in our armour as far as guarding the IB sector is
concerned and the enemy is exploiting these to its advantage.
Knowing the
enemy’s compulsion to keep Kashmir on the boil, strict measures need to be
taken to prevent Islamabad from treating the IB sector as a preferred route for
infiltration. First and foremost, the BSF needs to reconsider its pattern of
deployment of ambushes at night. Apart from avoiding predictability, it needs
to give up the pattern of deploying in a single line without depth. For day
patrolling, it needs to be provided with detection equipment.
A “no gap
pattern” deployment of CIBMS has to be ensured, including liaisoning with neighbouring
units to cover gaps. The fact that the terrorists trekked on foot for nine km
undetected and thereafter boarded a truck on the NH and travelled up to Nagrota
unchallenged is a matter of concern and exposes the gaps in the surveillance
and vigilance of depth areas and the NH. Hence, armed highway patrols have to
be activated. Mobile checkposts have to be established to avoid predictability.
Cameras need to be installed 24x7. There is an urgent and inescapable need for
full body scanners at select places on the NH.
There is a
valuable asset of ex-servicemen in these areas. A Border Defence Volunteer
Force to strengthen the depth area surveillance and patrolling should be raised
for utilising the services of these ex-servicemen. They should be deployed on
either side of the NH, up to a depth of five-10 km, depending on the distance
of the IB from the NH. It will strengthen the hands of the local police.
A serious
review of command and control of all border guarding forces on the Line of
Actual Control (LAC) and the IB is an urgent requirement. To have greater
coordination and effective command and control, these need to be placed under
the Ministry of Defence and the local Army formation. The present system has
been found wanting time and again. Let not this aspect of national security
become a victim of turf wars. Let not the recent incident at Nagrota meet the
fate of similar encounters in the past. It should ring warning bells and
lessons should be learnt from it. Pakistan is not going to change, we will have
to change ourselves if we want to have a zero tolerance policy against terror.
-----
Anil Guptais a Jammu-based veteran, political
commentator, columnist, security and strategic analyst
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/columnists/a-wake-up-call-a-wake-up-call.html
-----
A
Society That Fears Love
By Avijit Pathak
Dec 01,
2020
From Madhya
Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh—a series of legal provisions to stop and punish what
is being projected as ‘love jihad’ indicates the level of decadence we, as a
society, have passed through. In a way, when patriarchy and religious bigotry
begin to shape our consciousness, we fear what love is all about: its
unrestricted flow, its healing power to overcome all borders and boundaries, or
its music of the fusion of horizons. As we suspect the magical power of love,
we allow the state to intervene in the realm of our sacred and intimate
space—one’s love relations, or one’s choice of religion. Possibly, a society that
fears the ecstasy of love is potentially authoritarian. It becomes culturally
regressive. Is it the emerging politico-cultural landscape that characterises
Indian society? There seems to be no escape from this question.
Despite the
glitz of modernity or neoliberal consumerism, religious orthodoxy and
patriarchal thinking continue to characterise our collective consciousness.
Before we
reflect on ‘love jihad’, let us acknowledge what happens in the name of
arranged marriages. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a complex
calculation and measurement of a set of ‘qualities’—family/caste background,
economic status of the bridegroom, or the physical beauty of the bride—is a
distinctive feature of this sort of marital negotiation. It is by no means about
love; it is pure mathematics. We see the logic of commodification and
caste/religion fixation in matrimonial columns; and diverse forms of dowry
(often regarded as ‘gift’) reveal that while we understand the strategy of
instrumental reasoning, we are uncomfortable with the ecstasy of unconditional
love. Moreover, these normal or socially sanctified marriages often rob women
of their agency; it is assumed that they are like ‘dolls’; and ‘successful’
men—MBA graduates, doctors, engineers, NRIs and IAS officers with appropriate
caste and religion—would rescue and preserve them.
Is it,
therefore, surprising that we live amid dowry death, ‘honour killing’ and
caste/patriarchal violence? However, seldom does one see the political class or
the ruling regime critiquing this sort of regressive and obnoxious practice.
What a journey we have undertaken! In his Discovery of India, Nehru felt the
need for overcoming the ‘dead weight of the past’. And with the passage of
time, Gandhi pleaded passionately for inter-caste marriages. It seems we have
forgotten this quest for a new India—open, democratic and liberal. Instead, we
are becoming increasingly patriarchal and culturally regressive. The irony is
that despite the outer glitz of modernity or neoliberal consumerism, religious
orthodoxy and casteist/patriarchal thinking continue to characterise our
collective consciousness.
In this
process, there are two things that have happened. First, the ghettoisation of
the mind has become sharper. We are growing up with all sorts of conditioning:
a ‘nationalist’ Hindu vs a ‘suspicious’ Muslim; a ‘pure’ Brahmin vs a
‘polluted’ Dalit; or men as ‘protectors’ vs women as silent ‘followers’. The
prevalent cultural politics, media industry and even educational practice
stimulate this conditioned mind. It is closed; it erects all sorts of walls of
separation; and it fears the possibility of the breakdown of barriers. Second,
with the ghettoisation of the mind, surveillance is normalised and even
sanctified. What we eat and drink, or people we mix with: everything has to be
closely monitored by the self-proclaimed protectors of ‘culture’. We keep
constructing our ‘enemies’.
The result
is the arrival of totalitarianism, which as a mode of thinking and living, is
inherently patriarchal and repressive. It creates an identity based on a fixed
essence of nation or religion; it abhors the unpredictability of free
existence; it wants a standardised/controlled mind. It is anti-women; it
assumes that men must have absolute control over women’s sexuality and life
choices. As a result, it is against love. A totalitarian mind cannot love
freely and unconditionally. It fears what the ecstasy of love can do to humans.
Love tends to defy all constructed boundaries. This power of love with its
unpredictability and free flow is something that a conservative culture cannot
tolerate.
And it is
in this context that we can understand the politics of a vocabulary like ‘love
jihad’. A cross-religious marriage is suspected because it reveals a
possibility that we are more than our ascriptive religious identities; and this
is what totalitarianism cannot bear. Hence, the very idea is condemned and
scandalised. It is seen as a conspiracy—a strategic attempt by a Muslim to
marry a Hindu, and eventually convert her into Islam. It cannot imagine that a
woman can be a free subject with her autonomy and choice. Hence, a
cross-religious marriage, for the fanatic, is nothing but a sort of ‘jihad’.
See how everything is turned into its opposite in the age of totalitarianism.
All those who raise critical voices against some policies of the government are
bound to be ‘anti-national’; young idealist students who question the politics
beneath the NRC/CAA are nothing but ‘urban Naxals’. In other words, our true
patriotism has to be always demonstrated through certain practices—say, dancing
with the cacophony of ‘Jai Shri Ram’, seeing all Muslims in the Kashmir valley
as potential terrorists, and spreading Islamophobia all around. The politics of
‘love jihad’ that we are seeing in recent times is an inevitable by-product of
a patriarchal ideology of religious nationalism.
No
fundamentalist ideology (Hindu or Islam) is comfortable with unconditional
love. Fundamentalism is against our true religiosity which is not what the
clergy and the priestcraft regard as religion. Love—yes, love as a creative
life energy, or love as an eternal fountain—is our true religiosity. Love is
revolutionary. Love is the defiance of fascism. It is sad that we are not yet
ready for it.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/a-society-that-fears-love-178193
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URL: https://newageislam.com/indian-press/indian-press-love-jihad,-encounter/d/123623
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