Let’s Talk About Love Jihad

Love Jihad. One of the most controversial terms coined and legally adapted by our legislation.  Do I like it? No!! But just because it is uncomfortable does it mean it is not true? I started with hating this term. Yes, hating. Because it associated the most dreadful practice with the most beautiful expression. But as I researched the cases related to love jihad, the term felt too feeble. Because the cases included beheading of women, or shooting them in the broad daylight, or burying them inside their own house. Some of these women girls were teenagers.

As soon as certain Indian states decided to officially bring in the laws regulating and punishing the accused of love jihad cases and crimes, many opposed it saying that the Government is anti-minority. Two separate issues of marrying out of choice and forceful conversion were merged to make it look like no crime was committed at all. But is that the case? If it’s not then why is this narrative being peddled?

On one side I was reading about these cases, and on the other side I was seeing the intellectual class citing examples of successful interfaith marriages and calling love jihad rubbish. People like Barkha Dutt too hosted a prime-time show rubbishing the whole love jihad narrative. Almost everyone who is sensible but anti-establishment (read BJP) opposed this and linked it, rather smartly, with interfaith marriage. And somehow you are questioned and judged the moment you speak about crimes committed with the intention to forcefully convert someone in the name of love. Women were not only being forcefully converted, they were being lied to, raped, killed and even trafficked. 

There were also reports of Kerala Christian women being trapped for IS related terrorism activities (source). And that’s the problem people have with love jihad – because here, the victims are usually from the supposedly ‘privileged’ class. There are dalit victims too, but since the accused is a Muslim in almost all the cases, the activism to save dalit takes a backseat. Because we all know, in the Social justice ecosystem Muslims > Christians > Dalits Hindus > Savarna Hindus. Thus, to protect an accused from a minority religion, the entire crime of Love Jihad is getting whitewashed behind the pretence of interfaith marriages. Love Jihad is very much real. And I am going to establish it with evidence and not rhetoric.

The History of Love Jihad

Let me take you back in the year 2005. That’s when this entire issue of love jihad started getting noticed in India. Kerala saw a sharp increase in cases of forceful conversions. In 2009, when parents of 2 missing girls approached Kerala High court, other similar cases started coming out too in police stations and subsequently in local and national media. Most of these cases highlighted one thing – forceful conversion in the name of love.

The two girls, one Hindu and one Christian,  alleged that their Muslim lovers,  activists of Campus Front, the students’ wing of Islamist outfit National Democratic Front or NDF (presently Popular Front of India), had taken them to a shabby residence in Chelari near Kozhikode and forced them to convert into Islam and sign nikaahnama.

The Kerala High Court took this matter seriously and denied bail to two accused in this case. The court also asked the Kerala Government to consider enacting a law to prohibit love jihad (read the judgment here). And they had a very good reason to suggest so. The findings of the High Court were shocking. The court said that in the last four years, 3000 to 4000 cases of religious conversion came into the light (source). Now, how many of them were forceful, coerced or wilful is a difficult question. But it is still an alarming statistic coming just from one state. 

But it went farther than this. Love Jihad did not crop up in 2005. The court observed from the police complaints and reports by a special branch that it was a well concerted effort to convert upper caste Hindu and Christian girls from upper middle class and above background. They also stated that fundamentalist outfits like NDF and Campus Front have roots in college campuses in various cities whereby they deliberately target such women and forcefully convert them in the name of love. This program of systematically converting women to Islam started way back in 1996 with the blessing of muslim organisations. Though there was no clear evidence of them having their operations all over India, but court still observed that certain Muslim outfits were legally and financially supporting and encouraging this programme. (Source)

In October 2009, a Catholic church  talked about the same threat on Catholic women. They published an article titled ‘Love Religious Terrorism; Parents Beware’ in the October issue of Jagratha, a community newsletter. The article stated that catholic girls and women are being wooed by young Muslim men whose real intention is to convert them to Islam. School girls, college students, young working women and even housewives are listed as targets. ‘Forums known as Love Jihad and Romeo Jihad use love as a terrorist weapon,’ said the article. It further said, ‘Love jihadis have drawn a very smart plan to entrap young women by using love as bait.’  

Young men were supplied with weapons necessary for their cause: motorbikes, cell phones, fancy clothes and pocket money to take their temporary girlfriends to hotels and restaurants. ‘After they convert, these girls are forced into purdah, their freedoms are taken away and their lives become hell, even undergoing sexual abuse,’ it alleged. (Source)

Love Jihad, a term coined by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), was adapted by the church and that surprised many. But that also meant that the issue was very  real and serious enough for Church and VHP to come on the same page.. After the court gave its stamp of approval for its investigation, there was some hope. After a few months, this hope got one more push from the Government itself. 

Love Jihad issue got ignited again the next year after Kerala High Court’s observations, i.e., in 2010 when Kerala CM V S Achuthanandan raised it. He stated that the Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) has plans to Islamise Kerala in 20 years using money and marriages. After the High Court had ordered a probe into the love jihad angle, police and Hindu outfits started assessing the cases. However, the probe got trailed with time. Later, another bench of the High Court stayed this investigation.

Not only Kerala, but even Pune had similar cases around that time. In 2011, Pune rural police had received a complaint alleging that a Muslim organisation based in Khed on the Pune-Nasik highway was offering Rs 3 lakh to Muslim youth who marry non-Muslim girls with the latter’s consent. While the police investigation didn’t throw up anything substantial, the complaint had alleged that non-Muslim girls were being trapped with false promises of love and marriage by Muslim youth and then abandoned to their own fate. (Source)

Udupi was another region that was a victim of love jihad. As many as 64 girls were missing from there in the year 2011 itself. There were many reasons for the same, but forceful conversion was something that was prominent in most cases. Some girls were sold after being converted, some were forced to sell drugs, and some could not be traced at all. There were reports of police threatening those alleging conversion, but that could not be established. (Source)

In the year 2017, Kerala reported 90 cases of Love Jihad to NIA. Now, how do they establish love Jihad? When some of the victims admit it on the record. That’s when a pattern crops up. That’s when you can really establish that the conversions have been forceful, or obtained by deceit. (source)

In June 2017, Kerala High Court again ordered the DGP of the state to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the cases of Love Jihad and forcible conversions. This was yet again done because two cases came into the light after the families of victims filed Habeas Corpus in the court. The court, after observing one of the cases, handed over the custody of the girl back to her parents. (source) 

The number of cases has kept increasing over the years. Many were reported. Most were neglected. Somehow, even those advocating for women’s rights never believed in Love Jihad despite all the evidence glaring at them. Over the years I have observed and realised one thing – certain minorities always get a soft treatment from  what is generally referred to as left cabal. And this is country specific.  

So many Hindu, Christians and Sikh women have been a victim of forceful conversion, deceit and cheating in the name of love. 

Today there is a misconception that Hindu supremacists are out there maligning a community because they hate minorities. But if you see the trend, even though it started in Kerala for forceful conversion against both Hindu and Christian girls/women, the media is trying to feed you the narrative that Hindus have created this conspiracy theory of love jihad to create a rift between the two communities. By doing this, they are completely ignoring the plight of poor Dalit families who lost their daughters. There aren’t two, four or eight cases, there are hundreds of cases. And for that, you need to open local newspapers and not elite media houses situated in metro cities. Just like rape cases, official number of cases registered is much lower than actual cases.

Time and again, this topic goes back to Kerala – one state where it all started and the same state also wanted the NIA to not investigate cases from love jihad angle while simultaneously giving a list of 90 cases of forceful conversion between 2015-17. (source) Some of these cases involved minors too. Usually, these cases get reported as missing person cases as the victim is missing from home. Unless it is confirmed that there is indeed no foul play or sinister plot involved, the case is registered as a missing person case. Now, the funny thing is, Section 57 of the Kerala Police Act does not distinguish between minor or adult as far as registering and enquiring into a “missing persons” complaint is concerned. Which means, a minor’s missing case is treated like a normal case. However, it is strange when the state, despite having all the evidence of love jihad, fails to take it seriously anymore, reasons best known to them.

There are quite a few arguments opposing this issue. One of them being that people may file a false case. That family or relatives, out of vengeance, file wrong cases because it’s an inter-caste/interfaith marriage. There are false cases filed for every crime. Does that mean we would stop recognising the crime altogether? There are false dowry cases, false rape cases, false domestic violence cases – should we stop fighting for the evil in the society because of that? If the above numbers do not open your eyes, let me share a few articles and examples of love jihad cases. As a media house, you lack the courage and as viewers, we are cowards to overlook such a grave matter where the women are losing their lives and it’s not getting any space on your channel because of political propaganda. Call it a gender issue if calling it a religious issue does not suit your sensibilities. Because let us face it, all the crimes are committed against women! I will not let that happen.

Quite a huge set of people feel that the Government is interfering in one’s personal life by introducing anti love jihad laws. To an extent that people run a campaign of showing happy interfaith marriages. Some independent journalists running youtube channels also showed numerous examples of happy interfaith marriages. What they conveniently ignored and chose not to show is the core issue of luring other faith women into marriage by muslim men by lying and hiding their identity. It was a well-planned nexus, as stated by Kerala High Court when quite a few cases revealed that the accused were somehow linked to NDF, SDPI or campus front type of organisations. That’s how the entire theory of love jihad unfolded. Post 2009-2010, many cases emerged from many states of India. In mid 2016, Gujarat police found a whatsapp message allegedly being circulated in Gujarat by the Students of Muslim Youth Forum. This message read as: 

“If a Muslim youth marries a Hindu Brahmin girl, he would be awarded with Rs 5 lakhs, similarly if someone gets hitched with a Sikh Punjabi girl, he would be given Rs 7 lakhs,” the notorious WhatsApp message says. “If the girl is from Kshatriya Hindu community, the cash reward would be Rs 4.5 lakhs, Gujarat Brahmin girl Rs 6 lakhs, Punjabi Hindu Rs 6 lakhs, Christian Roman Catholic Rs 4 lakhs, Christian Protestant Rs 3 lakhs, Jain Rs 3 lakhs, Gujarati Kutch girl Rs 3 lakhs.” (Source) 

This reaffirmed Kerala High Court observation about certain institutes and outfits financially backing love jihad.

There have been many cases, many instances and many evidences that prove that love jihad exists. I am going to leave you with a few cases of love jihad that took place recently. Just to think that something that started as early as 1996 is still going strong after 25 years, and yet there is hesitance in accepting this. Yet the major media houses have not started covering it.

Some of the examples of Love Jihad cases from the year, 2020

1. In November, 2020, a man called Shabir was arrested when he was fleeing with a girl from Odisha to West Bengal. Turns out that Shabir would trap hindu girls by posing as a hindu boy returned from Saudi due to Covid. He would lure them, get them to Bengal and then trade them. He was a known trafficker, had two wives and children. Though RPF managed to rescue the girl he was fleeing with, there were reports that he had abducted two more girls from Odisha before this, and their whereabouts are yet unknown. (Source)
2. In December, 2020, a woman registered a case in Sarita Vihar police staion, Delhi against Sahib Ali for forcing her to convert to islam. Sahib Ali had moved to the woman’s house as a tenant where he said that his name was Rahul. He slowly developed friendship with the woman, took her into confidence and then took her to meet his family. A few days later, he developed a physical relationship with her against her wishes. Not only that, his father too, tried to physically molest her. She also alleged that he married her and then he and his family started forcing her to convert. (source)
3. In another case, a man called Shibu trapped another Hindu girl from Kanpur saying that his name is Sachin Sharma. He then convinced her to move to Noida in a Muslim majority area. The girl found it suspicious but followed him. She got to know that he was Muslim, and she confronted him. Shibu beat her up for this and threatened her that he would make her obscene videos viral. Once he got a maulavi home and asked her to have sex with him. When she refused, he beat her up again. All this while, he kept forcing her to convert to Islam. Somehow the girl managed to get away and started staying with her family. But Shibu got back in touch after a couple of years and convinced her that he was changed. But things again got back to where they were about forceful conversion and violence. The girl again left him. He got in touch with her the third time and requested her to meet him. She came to meet him where he stabbed her with a knife. The girl survived but is scarred for life because of this. (Source)
4. Two muslim men lured two hindu sisters by hiding their real identity. Mohsin became Shubh to lure the older sister, befriended her, introduced his friend Amir to the younger one, again as a Hindu man, made them fall in love with them. Later on when the sisters visited their home, they learnt that they were both Muslims. Both forced the sisters to convert to Islam. When they refused, they beat them up. One sister managed to escape and filed the complaint. (source)
5. A man called Mohammad Saqib, 19, was arrested in Bijnor because he lied about his identity lure a minor Dalit girl into marriage. He introduced himself as Sonu. They were in a relationship for one year. The day they eloped, he revealed his real identity. That’s when the girl returned home. Her father filed a complaint with Dhampur Police Station. The girl is 14. Yes. (Source)
6. Mohammad Saeed, 32, was arrested on December 18 from Shahjahanpur for allegedly coercing a 42-year-old married mother of two into changing her religion for marriage. The woman filed the FIR saying that they first met around four years back when Saeed came to her house for some work, introducing himself as Sunil Kumar. She claimed they had become friends and he had later sexually assaulted her and clicked her explicit pictures. (Source)
7. A woman from Gorakhpur filed a complaint against Mainuddin under the new love jihad law in Gorakhpur, UP. She alleged that Mainuddin, who runs a shop at Bhelapur village introduced himself as Mannu Yadav. The two got married in a temple. A few weeks into the marriage, she got to know about his real identity and confronted him. He then started harassing her and forcing her to convert. When she refused, he started beating her up. She moved out of the house and started living with her family. When she got to know that Mainuddin was marrying again with a woman from his community, she filed a complaint with the police. (Source)
8. Priya, a 34 year old woman, along with her daughter, were found buried under Mohammad Shamshad’s house. Priya was a divorcee, who was living an independent life and taking care of her daughter when she came in contact with Amit Gujjar through facebook. They became friends and soon started dating. After a few years of dating, Priya started living with Amit. And that’s when she realised that he had lied to her all along. His real name was Mohammad Shamshad. They started having regular fights as he started forcing her to convert. Later on Priya also got to know that Shamshad was already married. She confided this in a friend and soon after she went missing.

Her friend filed a complaint, but the police did not do much. Fed up with the regular harassment by the cops, her friend decided to withdraw the complaint when a VHP member got to know about the case and they put pressure on the police. Police searched Shamshad’s house and found Priya and her daughter’s remains buried under the flooring. (Source)

There are many such cases. They keep increasing, because we fail to acknowledge this evil. Many girls have lost their lives, and their identities. And they continue to do so, because we do not want to believe that such a thing can be true. Recently, a sting operation done by India Today revealed that the Popular Front of India (PFI) has been involved in a systematic brainwashing of women and converting them into Islam. Their top functionaries admitted this on camera. You can read about their entire sting here.

India Today’s Sting Operation revealed that Love Jihad is a well planned trap.

India Today’s undercover reporter spoke with Zainaba and her husband, Ali, at their home in Kerala. There they admitted that they have converted many women into Islam and were actively involved in proselytising several non-Muslim women into Islam. It’s an entire system whereby the women are “educated”. Zainaba stated that they have to call the conversion centres “Education establishments or charitable institutes to prevent any backlash.

Creating conversion centres isn’t an easy job, Zainaba admitted. She said that to establish a disguised institute, they first need to register a trust. Then they need to identify a place for campus that can accommodate a mosque for namaz, accommodation and a well-furnished institute. She said that Sathya Sarani was one such institute. They register such institutes under the societies registration act.

Zainaba also revealed how the entire name changing process worked. She said that they outsourced the certification either from another institute or by way of an affidavit. 

Another PFI member India Today  spoke to, admitted that they want to make India an Islamic state. And they do not want to limit their reach to India, but all over the world. He also admitted that both PFI and Sathya Sarani received funds via hawala channels for carrying out the conversion operations in India.

This sting operation confirmed the theory that has been doing rounds since decades. Like I said before, the first link of PFI involvement came out in the year 1996. Since then, they have been smartly carrying out their deceitful conversion operations in India. There are funding links too. 

Forget everything else, to me, the most worrying matter is that women are the victims of it at the end of the day. Whom are they converting? Women. Whom are they murdering? Women. Whom are they supplying for trafficking and drug dealings? Women. Yet, women rights activists are silent. Love Jihad issue isn’t limited to India only. Women from Pakistan, Afghanistan and even the UK have been victims of it. The world is waking up now. They are taking strict steps against forceful conversions. And I so wish that it stops. No woman deserves this.

Now, do not get me wrong. I am all for interfaith marriages. I am all for consensual marriages. But do not try to wash away a serious crime of commiting love jihad. Lying to someone with ill intention is wrong. On one hand, one fights for consent. One believes that the consent has to be clear and direct and should not be clouded by false promises. And in the same breath one refuses to believe that same consent is manipulated in interfaith marriages carried out under  deceit. Don’t be such a hypocrite. People are dying. Wake up! 

PS: If you are still not convinced, then you can read more about it here and here. And I have also linked quite a few reports in this article.

Image courtesy: Mashable.