(ANALYSIS) Under a new anti-religious conversion law enforced in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, Hindu-Muslim couples became criminals overnight. 

The state became a bully. Police now interrupt weddings to register criminal cases against interfaith couples. About 80% of Indians are Hindu, while 14% are Muslim. Only about 6% of marriages in India are inter-caste, while 2% are interfaith.

Still, there is a narrative pushed by Hindu nationalists that Muslim men are forcefully marrying Hindu women and girls to convert them to Islam. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, passed on Nov. 29, is the first instance of legislation enacted against so-called “love jihad.” The law makes religious conversion a crime with up to 10 years imprisonment and voids marriages deemed to have been motivated by religious conversion. 

Critics argue the new law violates articles 25 and 21 of the Indian constitution, sections that guarantee freedom of religion and freedom to choose a partner for marriage. The Indian Penal Code already includes provisions to act against kidnapping, extortion and forceful marriage. A new law to regulate a very specific kind of marriage, of Hindu women to Muslim men out of deceit, is encouraging a new set of Hindu nationalist vigilantes — similar to cow vigilante groups that have lynched Muslims across India — with legal protection. 

Origins of “love jihad” 

The term “love jihad” first officially appeared in a 2009 judicial order by the high court in Kerala, South India to describe Muslim boys pretending to fall in love with Hindu and Christian girls in order to convert them. The term gained traction with the Hindu nationalist movement and resurfaced recently. 

In its September magazine, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a major Hindu nationalist organization, published a list of 147 cases of victims of love jihad without evidence. The magazine declared love jihad “a demographic war’’ that must be fought by all Indian states by introducing anti-religious conversion laws. Along with Uttar Pradesh, at least four other states ruled by the BJP are trying to pass similar laws, with harsher punishments. 

Upset relatives murdered Hindu youth accused of romantic relationships with Muslims. A top jewellery brand took down its ad featuring Hindu-Muslim love after Hindu backlash on social media. And youth leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed a complaint against Netflix executives for airing a scene in the BBC drama “A Suitable Boy” that shows a Hindu woman kissing a Muslim man inside a temple. 

The enforcement of the anti-conversion law in U.P. is momentous for the Hindutva movement given that exactly a century ago, Hindu nationalists launched their earliest propaganda campaign focused on Muslim men abducting and converting Hindu women. To prevent elopement of their community’s women, Hindu men organized themselves into volunteer groups to patrol train and bus stations and place notices in public places urging women to stay vigilant against the advances of Muslim men. 

Historian Charu Gupta, who documented the events of the 1920s, pointed out similarities of today’s Hindutva tactics of “love jihad.’’ Hindutva groups find it “impossible to conceive that Hindu women can voluntarily elope or convert,” she said. “Thus, every romance, love, elopement and marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man is rewritten by Hindu organizations as forcible conversion.’’ 

The construct of love jihad is both sectarian and patriarchal in its attempts to restrict women’s choices and target Muslims. By enacting the law, the BJP has delivered on their Hindutva promise to protect the interests of the country’s Hindu majority (even while many Hindus support the constitution’s secular nature of tolerance for all religions). The BJP campaigned in 2015 on promises to pass anti-conversion laws to prevent love jihad. 

The Hindu nationalist fear

Historically and in popular culture, Muslims have often been projected as the “others,” foreign invaders who seized power through battle in medieval India. The theory of love jihad propagates that Muslim men have insatiable sexual urges and looks back on gruesome Islamic conquests dating back to the 8th century. With Islam’s arrival in India, right-wing organizations assert, its followers began to desecrate and humiliate the three pillars of Hindu faith: cows (revered sacred), temples and women, in order to conquer Hindu society.

Vinod Bansal, national spokesperson of the VHP, said the terminology of love jihad has to be understood in conjunction with “population jihad” and “land jihad” – he believes Muslim organizations aim to turn India into an Islamic state. 

“First, they trap innocent Hindu women in love, convert them and use them to procreate, produce 5-10 children, as the population starts increasing, they try to dominate in that area and rule easily so they can impose Sharia,” he said. 

Such claims are common among Hindu nationalists but they lack evidence. Investigations by law enforcement agencies in different states have found no evidence that any Muslim organization has committed forced conversions. While India’s Muslim population is increasing, it is expected to reach only 18% by 2050, with Hindus projected to make up 77% of the population, according to Pew Research Center. 

Religious conversions have long been controversial in India, especially mass conversions among tribal communities from their indigenous faiths to lower Hindu castes, Christianity or Islam. Conversion can often feed into votes and social benefits based on identity, especially when leaving a low caste of Hinduism. 

One of India’s founding fathers, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, famously denounced Hinduism in 1956 to embrace Buddhism, inspiring millions in his wake to follow him. The conversion represented the penultimate rebellion invoked by low and marginalized castes in Hindu society to liberate themselves from discriminatory laws.

Under Nehru’s Congress Party rule, attempts to introduce anti-conversion bills in the parliament did not succeed, so instead, between 1967 and 2018, eight states approved regulations against religious conversion. The laws are criticized internationally for curbing religious freedom. Dalits and tribal people converting to Christianity for example must register their baptisms with the government and are often persecuted for rejecting Hinduism.

Hindutva organizations began anti-conversion campaigns in the ‘60s targeting Christian missionaries in rural areas. The brutal murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons in Orissa in 1999 by Bajrang Dal members for allegedly coercing tribals to convert to Christianity drew international condemnation and spotlighted the right wing’s Hinduvta movement.

The same organizations have been at the forefront of the campaign against love jihad. They have published advisories, pamphlets and magazines as propaganda and organized media campaigns like Bahu Lao, Beti Bachao (bring a daughter-in-law, save a daughter), Ghar Wapsi (return home) and Shuddhi (purification) to reconvert “lost” Hindus. They believe all Indians were originally Hindu and should be converted back. 

The judiciary has supported the right wing’s efforts by asking what the “real intention, purpose and cause” of interfaith marriages is, declaring marriages involving religious conversions are shams, directing investigations of Muslim organizations, legitimizing the love jihad conspiracies.  

Cases of “reverse love jihad” where Muslim girls and women are allegedly abducted and forcefully married to Hindus have also surfaced but are largely ignored by Hindu activists.  

Meanwhile, the increasing reality of young Hindu women gaining financial independence and breaking free from traditional family norms is seen as a threat to Hindu society. Incidents of village leaders ostracizing and brutally murdering women for inter-caste and interfaith relationships are rampant. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) estimates more than 44,500 such murders of women occurred between 2001 and 2017. 

The new laws of love jihad will tighten the noose even more around women in interfaith relationships. Cases of misuse of the new anti-conversion laws to seek revenge against Muslim men for past affairs are already coming to light.

Even so, interfaith couples in India continue to marry every day, even if quietly. Asif Iqbal, founder of Dhanak, an NGO providing legal help and support to interfaith couples, has helped 1,350 interfaith couples marry since its founding in 2004. Iqbal said while the proposed laws will create fear and every interreligious marriage will be seen through the lens of love jihad, it will not deter resolute and strong-willed lovers. 

“People will continue to fall in love and fight for love, no matter the barriers,” he said.

Shweta Desai is an independent Indian journalist and researcher based in France.