Ram
Puniyani
The
country is yet to recover from the aftermath of Muzaffranagar violence (October
2013). This violence was engineered over a period of time in the areas of
Western UP, where Jats and Muslims had thick social interaction, despite
belonging to different economic strata. Communal violence has been instigated,
engineered earlier on various issues like Cow slaughter, Babri demolition,
‘sexual assault on ‘our women’ amongst others. The primary weapon used to communalize
this region was the community honor. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu
girls’ was made the central part of propaganda. While other factors like role
of Sangh Parivar components in uploading the video clip, in mobilizing the
Hindus in the name of Bahu-Beti Bachao, have been discussed, one needs also to
look at the way this ‘saving our daughters’, Love Jihad, from the Muslims had
been operated in the area.
For
couple of years the deliberate teasing of the girls was planned in the area in
and around Muzaffarnagar. Rumors abounded and the word Love Jihad was
propagated. (Evil stalks the land: Anhad Report on Muzaffanagar violence). The
falsehood of Muslim boy talking to Hindu girls to lure them to marry and so to
convert to Islam was heavily publicized. The major concoction around which the
riot was engineered also related to the Hindu girl being teased by Muslim boys.
The
word “love Jihad’ which played a major role in mobilizing the Hindu community
for violence, has a strange history. As such the two components of this word
Love Jihad, who so ever manufactured it, have a very different meaning. Since
9/11 2001 the word Jihad has been employed in the popular media and has also become
part of the ‘social common sense’. Contrary to the meaning of the word Jihad in
Koran, which means striving, it came be projected as killing of non-Muslims.
The word Love Jihad must be a creation of an evil genius and it has come to be
used to further demonize the Muslim community. The propaganda has been that
some Muslim organizations are funding Muslim youth, to lure the non Muslim
girls, to marry them and to increase the Muslim population. These youth are
given money to buy motorbike, mobile etc and lure the non Muslim girls.
While doing Google search, if you type, ‘why Hindu Girls are’, the other sentence which pops up on the search engine is ‘are attracted to Muslim boys”! Recently in Maharashtra, a group “Hindu Rakshak Samiti has been claiming to save Hindu religion by breaking up the Hindu Muslim couples, if the girl happens to be a Hindu girl. Not that there are too many such couples, just a suspicion and these self appointed guardians of Hinduism pounce on the boy. A booklet in Marathi on Love Jihad shows a Muslim boy riding the Motor bike, with Hindu girl riding pillion. The word has been so popularized that even a Christian group in Kerala allied with the Sangh progeny, VHP to stop this non existing phenomenon.
In
India the word began to be used in coastal Karnataka, Mangalore, and in parts
of Kerala. It was Sri Ram Sene founded by RSS trained Swayam Sevak, Pramod
Mutalik, which started attack on Hindu girl-Muslim boy couples. The marriages
of such combinations started being looked at with suspicion and if parents were
opposed to the marriage, Sri Ram Sene would help to take the matter to the
court also. The pretext was that the girl has been forced to marry the Muslim
boy. Funnily in the case of Sijalraj and Azghar the judge of Karnatak High
Court, went on to give the ruling, that the facts (Love Jihad) had “national
ramifications… concern security, besides the question of unlawful trafficking
of women,”! So it ordered the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police
to hold a thorough investigation into to ‘love jihad’. Pending that, the girl
was asked to stay with her parents. The case was that of a simple Hindu Muslim
marriage and the girl stood to her version and refused to bow to the social
pressures. The police investigation showed that the ‘love Jihad’ is a cooked up
one with no substance whatsoever.
In
a similar case earlier the Kerala High court while hearing the appeal from two
parents passed a similar order. Two Hindu girls had eloped and got converted to
Islam and planned to get married. Kerala court also ordered the police
authorities to investigate this phenomenon. The police investigation again showed
that there is no such phenomenon as Love Jihad. The organizational promotion of
such marriages is a hoax but has become part of social understanding.
Shri
Ram Sene propaganda stated that over 4000 Hindu girls have been lured into
conversions. This concoction was aggressively put across through various
mechanisms. This laughable, figment of imagination spread like wild fire and frightened
the parents. The trajectory of many of these girls who initially state about
their love for the boy and voluntary conversion, changes many a times after
they are forced to stay with their parents. Under a sort of emotional
blackmail, some girls give in and later say that they were brain washed, shown
a Jihadi CD and what not.
We
have witnessed such acts in the form of propaganda in Gujarat in the wake of
carnage, that ‘Muslim boys are luring Adivasi girls’. There Babu Bajarangi, who
was also a major participant in carnage and is currently in jail undergoing
life imprisonment, formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced
them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is presented
as defense of religion! At another level inter-caste, inter-religious marriages
are a normal natural part of a plural society. With rise of the communal
politics, these inter-religious marriages are being opposed very dangerously. We
have the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman married to Priyanka Todi, daughter of an
affluent and powerful business magnate of Kolkata. She was forced to turn
around under emotional blackmail from parents and relatives. The details were
not known, what is known is that later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to commit
suicide. In all such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been
totally against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting
to support the things totally against the law.
Such
campaigns against inter-religion, inter-caste marriages are not only against
the spirit of national integration they also aim to control the lives of girls
in the patriarchal mode. In addition the bogey against a minority is whipped up
to aid the divisive politics. It is a double bonus for divisive politics. Since
in patriarchal norms women are regarded as property of man and are made to live
under the control structure defined by men, such an issue rouses high emotions.
The agenda of communal politics targets minorities, Muslims at one level and promotes
patriarchal norms at another.
Over a period of time, from being just a
mechanism to control the lives of Hindu girls, a tool to ensure that girls
don’t have the right to choose their own life partners, this phrase has been
used to instigate violence as witnessed in Muzaffarnagar. Most of the pretexts
of communal violence are cooked up, gradually manufactured. This Love Jihad has
by now become a dangerous weapon. On one side it demonizes the Muslim youth in the
negative light and on the other it has the aim to curb the freedom of women.
The politics in the name of religion, the politics of Sangh Parivar here in India
or that of Taliban’s in Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists, or even Christian
fundamentalists all operate on the same wavelength as far as crushing the rights
of women is concerned. In line with this starting from Sri Ram Sene, to Babu
Bajrangi to those orchestrating violence in Muzzafarnager, they all operate on
the premise, that women are the property of men and their lives have to be
controlled.
The
truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled in to the thinking of
society. This phrase has double edged nature, which is something we need to
register and combat. This phrase has tragically become a powerful concoction in
the hands of communal forces.
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