[Reader-list] Love Jihad- A New Phrase Being Added to Lexicon of Hate Politics!

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Shuddha

I wish that love-jihad would have been just a move whereby zealots would
have been proving that their own religion is superior and propagating love,
but it's simply an epitome of an impending disaster as I see it, and here's
why:

1) First of all, this love-jihad stories are coming out of Kerala and
Karnataka. One parent has already filed case of his daughter having possibly
been abducted or seduced by someone who is a Muslim and with the possibility
of her being converted to Muslim, and the girl and her sons/daughters being
used for Jihad.

Frankly, I don't see what's good in that. Even if the situation were
reversed and a Muslim girl were attending RSS shakhas or even Sri Rama Senas
and doing what allegedly Pragya Singh has done, it could simply be an
impending disaster we are looking at. And this would lead to even riots of a
more convoluted and distressing kind, for now there would be easily riots
sparked everywhere in the name of 'seducing other people's girls'.

By the way, Shuddha, you may take a look at the propaganda VHP used in
Gujarat prior to 2002 pogrom, to know what subsequently happened. One of the
VHP's propaganda was that the Muslims simply abduct Hindu girls, convert
them to Islam forcibly, and increase their population through this method.
The end result is that irrespective of whether Modi loses or not, everybody
knows there is hardly any remorse left for the butchering of Muslims in
post-Godhra violence, among the majority of Gujarati civil society.

And now the BJP rules in Karnataka. And there have been reports coming in
the last 2-3 years that the BJP has converted Karnataka into the Hindutva
laboratory of the South.

Mind you, I am not against inter-religious marriages (Would love it for my
own sake :P). But this 'love jihad' is simply going to lead to potential
disasters if it were true as I see it.

2) The love jihad focuses on only seducing women of different religions.
Where does this love jihad go when trying to seduce men of different
religions?

The fact is that in a patriarchal society like India, where the girl is
considered a symbol of 'izzat' or honor, this is what is going to happen,
whereby any kind of love-jihad is going to focus on only seducing girls.
There certainly is not going to be any seduction of boys.

What's more, the same boy may now be seducing more and more girls to
propagate jihad. Is this the love you are supporting? And tomorrow if the
women were to act as suicide bombers, whose cause will that serve?

What kind of love are we going to therefore portray with such an issue? This
will only be used as a communal propaganda and thereby create further
restrictions on women at large. And politics will be played around by the
BJP. (Already, the BJP won in Miraj and other areas where riots took place
prior to the Maharashtra assembly elections.And the Shiv Sena, which was
nowhere in these areas, also won 3 seats, thanks to the riots)

Seduction by the way, can't be true love. True love is way beyond that. I
don't have to be seduced by the girl I love, she will catch my attention
whether she be there in front of me or not. Of course, lust can be a part of
love, but lust alone is not true love.

And the libidos are not jaded. They have already been involved in rapes and
counter-rapes of the women of the 'other' community. Women can't and
shouldn't be treated just as a commodity or a symbol of winning the other
community or destroying their honor. I don't think it can be supported.

Lastly, protesting against one wrong doing doesn't mean one should support
another wrong doing. Everything has a context and we must look into it as
well.

Rakesh