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Love jihad (or Romeo jihad)[5] is an Islamophobic[11] conspiracy theory[22] promoted by right-wing Hindutva activists.[25] The conspiracy theory purports that Muslim men target Hindu women for conversion to Islam by means such as seduction,[28] feigning love,[30] deception,[31] kidnapping,[34] and marriage,[37] as part of a broader demographic "war" by Muslims against India,[39] and an organised international conspiracy,[42] for domination through demographic growth and replacement.[46]
The conspiracy theory relies on disinformation to conduct its hate campaign,[15] and is noted for its similarities to other historic hate campaigns as well as contemporary white nationalist conspiracy theories and Euro-American Islamophobia.[43][15][6] It features Orientalist portrayals of Muslims as barbaric and hypersexual,[29] and carries the paternalistic and patriarchal notions that Hindu women are passive and victimized, while "any possibility of women exercising their legitimate right to love and their right to choice is ignored".[2] It has consequently been the cause of vigilante assaults, murders and other violent incidents,[48] including the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.[49]
Created in 2009[50] as part of a campaign to foster fear and paranoia, the conspiracy theory was disseminated by Hindutva publications, such as the Sanatan Prabhat and the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti website, calling Hindus to protect their women from Muslim men who were simultaneously depicted to be attractive seducers and lecherous rapists.[51] Organisations including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishva Hindu Parishad have since been credited for its proliferation in India and abroad, respectively.[52] The conspiracy theory was noted to have become a significant belief in the state of Uttar Pradesh by 2014 and contributed to the success of the Bharatiya Janata Party campaign in the state.[14]
The concept was institutionalised in India after the election of the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.[53] Right-wing pro-government television media, such as Times Now and Republic TV, and social media disinformation campaigns are generally held responsible for the growth of its popularity.[6] Legislation against the purported conspiracy has been initiated in a number of states ruled by the party and implemented in the state of Uttar Pradesh by the Yogi Adityanath government, where it has been used as a means of state repression on Muslims and crackdown on interfaith marriages.[56]
In Myanmar, the conspiracy theory has been adopted by the 969 Movement as an allegation of Islamisation of Buddhist women and used by the Tatmadaw as justification for military operations against Rohingya civilians.[58] It has extended among the non-Muslim Indian diaspora and led to formation of alliances between Hindutva groups and Western far-right organisations such as the English Defence League.[6] It has also been adopted in part by the clergy of the Catholic Church in Kerala to dissuade interfaith marriage among Christians.[59]
- ^ Khatun, Nadira (14 December 2018). "'Love-Jihad' and Bollywood: Constructing Muslims as 'Other'". Journal of Religion & Film. 22 (3). University of Nebraska Omaha. ISSN 1092-1311. Archived from the original on 20 November 2020. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
- ^ a b c d Gupta, Charu (2009). "Hindu Women, Muslim Men: Love Jihad and Conversions". Economic and Political Weekly. 44 (51): 13–15. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 25663907.
- ^ a b Rao, Mohan (1 October 2011). "Love Jihad and Demographic Fears". Indian Journal of Gender Studies. 18 (3): 425–430. doi:10.1177/097152151101800307. ISSN 0971-5215. S2CID 144012623.
- ^ Khalid, Saif (24 August 2017). "The Hadiya case and the myth of 'Love Jihad' in India". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on 3 October 2017. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Farokhi, Zeinab (2020). "Hindu Nationalism, News Channels, and "Post-Truth" Twitter: A Case Study of "Love Jihad"". In Boler, Megan; Davis, Elizabeth (eds.). Affective Politics of Digital Media: Propaganda by Other Means. Routledge. pp. 226–239. ISBN 978-1-00-016917-1. Archived from the original on 6 May 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ Jenkins, Laura Dudley (2019). "Persecution: The Love Jihad Rumor". Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India. University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812296006-007. ISBN 978-0-8122-9600-6. S2CID 242173559. Archived from the original on 13 May 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
The masterplot of love jihad is not just literary imaginings but also a potent brew of Islamophobia and patriarchy that harms Muslims and women. Akin to some of the post-9/11 rhetoric in the United States, contemporary Hindu nationalists propagate "a mythical history of medieval Muslim tyranny and present-day existential threat, demanding mobilization and revenge."
- ^ Sharma, Ajita (1 April 2020). "Afrazul's murder: Law and love jihad". Jindal Global Law Review. 11 (1). Springer: 77–95. doi:10.1007/s41020-020-00114-5. S2CID 220512241.
The fake claim by the Hindu right-wing that love jihad forces Hindu women to love and marry a Muslim man and convert to Islam is perpetuating an already existing anti-Muslim narrative in the country. The love jihad phenomenon has thus become a tool of hate and anger towards Muslims. Afrazul's killing by Raigher is an extreme demonstration of this form of hate and anger towards Muslims.
- ^ Upadhyay, Nishant (18 May 2020). "Hindu Nation and its Queers: Caste, Islamophobia, and De/coloniality in India". Interventions. 22 (4). Routledge: 464–480. doi:10.1080/1369801X.2020.1749709. S2CID 218822737. Archived from the original on 28 March 2022. Retrieved 30 March 2021 – via Academia.edu.
Heterosexual couples who defy caste and religious structures often face violence, some of which results in death through honor killings and lynching targeting specifically Muslim and Dalit men. For instance, the Hindutva campaign against what it calls the "love jihad" is an attempt to protect Hindu women from Muslim men, as the latter are imagined/blamed to convert Hindu women to Islam through trickery and marriage (Gupta 2018b, 85). Needless to say, these claims are unfounded and Islamophobic imaginations of the Hindu Right.
- ^ a b Frydenlund, Iselin (2018). "Buddhist Islamophobia: Actors, Tropes, Contexts". In Dyrendal, Asbjørn; Robertson, David G.; Asprem, Egil (eds.). Handbook of Conspiracy Theory and Contemporary Religion. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 17. Brill. pp. 279–302. doi:10.1163/9789004382022_014. ISBN 9789004382022. S2CID 201409140 – via Academia.edu.
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- ^ a b c Strohl, David James (11 October 2018). "Love jihad in India's moral imaginaries: religion, kinship, and citizenship in late liberalism". Contemporary South Asia. 27 (1). Routledge: 27–39. doi:10.1080/09584935.2018.1528209. ISSN 0958-4935. S2CID 149838857.
- ^ a b Nair, Rashmi; Vollhardt, Johanna Ray (6 May 2019). "Intersectional Consciousness in Collective Victim Beliefs: Perceived Intragroup Differences Among Disadvantaged Groups". Political Psychology. 40 (5). Wiley: 2. doi:10.1111/pops.12593. S2CID 164693982 – via ResearchGate.
Muslims form about 15% of India's population and have suffered severe marginalization in education and employment, since the partition of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan in 1947 (Alam, 2010). They have since faced recurrent riots (Varshney, 2003). Other hostilities include false accusations of love jihad (a conspiracy theory claiming Muslim men feign love with non-Muslim women to convert them to Islam) and attempts to convert Muslims to Hinduism by Hindu fundamentalist organizations (Gupta, 2009).
- ^ a b George, Cherian (2016). Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and Its Threat to Democracy. MIT Press. pp. 96–101. ISBN 978-0-262-33607-9. Archived from the original on 28 April 2023. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
- ^ a b c d George, Cherian (2020). "The Scourge of Disinformation-Assisted Hate Propaganda". In Zimdars, Melissa; McLeod, Kembrew (eds.). Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age. MIT Press. pp. 147–148. ISBN 978-0-262-53836-7. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021. Retrieved 22 March 2023.
- ^ a b c Anand, Dibyesh (2011). "Pornosexualizing "The Muslim"". Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 51, 63–69. ISBN 978-0-230-60385-1. Archived from the original on 13 May 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ George, Cherian (3 April 2017). "Journalism's crisis of reason". Media Asia. 44 (2). Routledge: 71–78. doi:10.1080/01296612.2017.1463620. ISSN 0129-6612. S2CID 158269410.
- ^ a b Udupa, Sahana; Venkatraman, Shriram; Khan, Aasim (11 September 2019). ""Millennial India": Global Digital Politics in Context". Television & New Media. 21 (4). SAGE: 353. doi:10.1177/1527476419870516.
Vigilante action is targeted against what right-wing attackers describe as "love jihad," finding cause in the conspiracy theory of conniving Muslim men seducing gullible Hindu women into marriage and submission. "Love jihad" is a violent expression of the broader politics of regulating female sexuality—a core element of online Hindu nationalism manifest variously as shaming and abuse (Udupa 2017).
- ^ Bhat, M. Mohsin Alam (1 September 2018). "The Case for Collecting Hate Crimes Data in India". Law & Policy Brief. 4 (9). O. P. Jindal Global University. SSRN 3367329. Archived from the original on 1 April 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2021 – via Social Science Research Network.
A Muslim migrant worker was bludgeoned to death and his dead body set on fire, with all this being recorded on video, while his attacker blamed him for "love jihad" — a phrase used by the extremist members of Hindu right-wing organizations to refer to a conspiracy theory that Muslims are forcibly or fraudulently converting Hindu women on the pretext of marriage.
- ^ a b Purewal, Navtej K. (3 September 2020). "Indian Matchmaking: a show about arranged marriages can't ignore the political reality in India". The Conversation UK. Archived from the original on 11 September 2020. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
One popular conspiracy theory shared by the Hindu right is "Love Jihad". This is the idea that Muslim men target women belonging to non-Muslim communities to convert them to Islam by feigning love. It is an invention to incite suspicion and hatred against Muslims in India.
- ^ Byatnal, Amruta (13 October 2013). "Hindutva vigilantes target Hindu-Muslim couples". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
They see themselves as warriors against what they call "Love Jihad," a conspiracy theory floated by Hindutva groups like the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti which claims that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marriage with the aim of increasing their own population.
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- ^ Sarkar, Tanika (1 July 2018). "Is Love without Borders Possible?". Feminist Review. 119 (1): 7–19. doi:10.1057/s41305-018-0120-0. ISSN 0141-7789. S2CID 149827310.
- ^ a b c d e Waikar, Prashant (2018). "Reading Islamophobia in Hindutva: An Analysis of Narendra Modi's Political Discourse". Islamophobia Studies Journal. 4 (2): 161–180. doi:10.13169/islastudj.4.2.0161. ISSN 2325-8381. JSTOR 10.13169/islastudj.4.2.0161.
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- ^ a b c Banaji, Shakuntala (2 October 2018). "Vigilante Publics: Orientalism, Modernity and Hindutva Fascism in India". Javnost – the Public. 25 (4). Taylor & Francis: 333–350. doi:10.1080/13183222.2018.1463349. ISSN 1318-3222.
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- ^ Tyagi, Aastha; Sen, Atreyee (2 January 2020). "Love-Jihad (Muslim Sexual Seduction) and ched-chad (sexual harassment): Hindu nationalist discourses and the Ideal/deviant urban citizen in India". Gender, Place & Culture. 27 (1). Taylor & Francis: 104–125. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2018.1557602. ISSN 0966-369X. S2CID 165145583.
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