Sanjay Shukla received the call from a Hindu woman who had fled her home with her Muslim boyfriend. He set up a search operation for her and brought her home to her family in Bareilly (a city in the Indian state Uttar Pradesh). Shukla, a father, and drug store owner, passed the information he had received from one of her male relatives to the head Vishwa Hindu Parshad in Bareilly. Pawan Arora immediately called a top state police officer. We just received information that a Muslim boy ran away with a Hindu girl. Arora stated that she would like to take her number and place it under surveillance right away. The information has just arrived and no case has been filed. I thought I'd tell you. Shukla called Arora and asked him to inform the woman's family that she was missing. Shukla advised her family to not accuse him of forcing her to flee. She could also dispute the accusations if the case went to court. Shukla also advised the family to stop calling her, as if she turned off her phone, police could take her location. Shukla described Shukla's woman as a 27-year-old educated schoolteacher from an upper-caste family and said that the man was not suitable to be in a relationship. Her parents gave her all the comforts of home and a large house. He asked why she would choose to go with a Muslim who is a lawyer and a munshi. Shukla explained that he used Hindi for bookkeeper which is considered a lowly occupation. Shukla says that the woman would not choose to marry the man if he brainwashed him. Shukla was the only one who could save her. He said that we must get the woman under our control. We must save her and Hindu society. Shukla and the police found the couple in less than 12 hours and returned the woman to her home.Hindu nationalist groups have been operating in India for decades to undermine interfaith relationships. They do this by spreading an anti-Muslim conspiracy theory called love jihad. It is a theory that Muslim men seek Hindu women to convert to Islam, and eventually surpass India's Hindu majority. Uttar Pradesh implemented the Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance 2020 in November. This law ostensibly bans conversions of any kind, including fraud or force. The law doesn't explicitly prohibit marriage between Hindu women or Muslim men. However, Hindu vigilantes have used it to conduct unencumbered Love Jihad investigations with the police. They often use violence and manipulation with the ultimate goal being to make India a Hindu supremacist country. Despite the fact that it is not a crime, the vigilantes continue to pursue cases of lovejihad. We met with several leaders from the VHP's youth wing Bajrang Dal and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in January. This mothership is home to Hindu nationalist groups, including Prime Minister Narendra Modis, who leads Bharatiya Janata Party. Some men said they were only willing to interview one reporter because he was a Hindu. Given their anti-Muslim hate speech and the intensity of their interviews, we tried to keep it secret that the other reporter was Muslim. Local informants are often used to help the vigilantes learn about interfaith relationships and call the police to request surveillance of runaway couples. Hindu hardliners will often offer counseling to a woman to persuade her to divorce her Muslim husband. If she refuses to listen, the hard-liners will resort to emotional pressure from her parents or threaten her with violence. Sometimes, the hardliners will arrange for the woman's marriage to a Hindu man affiliated with right-wing groups. It has had devastating effects on its victims who are not protected by a law that allows for exogamy and supports Hindu rights state-sanctioned love jihad. A Pew Research Center report last month found that 67 percent of Hindus believe it is important to stop Hindu women marrying outside of their religion. 76 percent of Muslims oppose Muslim men being married in interfaith relationships. Couples are now more likely to seek refuge in the face of Covid-19, a second deadly wave in India. This law has caused panic and fear. Although it doesn't mention love jihad, we know that it targets one community. Asif Iqbal is co-founder of Dhanak of Humanity in New Delhi, which advocates for interfaith marriages. They did this to split communities. They succeeded. India's largest Muslim minority is the third-largest Muslim community, after Pakistan and Indonesia. Hindu Right has long propagated the dangerous myth that Muslims are taking control of India. According to S.Y., there were 300 million more Hindus in 1951 than Muslims and that gap grew to over 800 million by 2011. S.Y. Quraishi is the author of The Population Myth. In 1951, there were 300 million more Hindus than Muslims. The gap grew to over 800 million in 2011, according to S.Y. Quraishi stated that there is no evidence that Muslims are overtaking Hindus. Quraishi said that facts and figures don't matter to men who claim their goal is to make India a Hindu rashtra, a Hindu country. This will include ending marriages between Hindu women with Muslim men. One daughter from our family will go to their community. That means that there will be 10 terrorists within their community. Rajesh, a father of ten and a VHP leader in Shahjahanpur, stated that if she has ten children, then they will be terrorists. One family will be lost and 10 will be gained by them, according to Rajesh Awasthi, a 44-year-old father and VHP leader in Shahjahanpur. He said that Muslim men disguise themselves as Hindus and that Muslim women make friends with Hindu women to introduce them their jihadi brothers. That Muslim shopkeepers, particularly those who own mobile phones, monitor the Hindu women in the region. That local mosques reward young men for marrying Hindu women.On Jan. 9, 2021, a Muslim girl poses in a portrait in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh, India. Ahmer KhanHardliners claim that Muslims are driven and cooked in Hindu homes by Muslims, who often earn lower wages than their Hindu counterparts to attract women into the household.They are barbaric. Awasthi stated that they only want to spread Islam. They become close to women and then convert them through love jihad. They work less because they are so cheap. They are able to get money from other sources. They will wait three years to convert one Hindu girl. These unfiltered anti-Muslim views used to be considered fringe views in India. Since Modis' 2014 rise to power, Hindu nationalism is now mainstream. In Uttar Pradesh, the Hindu right has been established since the 1980s when a BJP-led effort to build a temple at Ayodhya resulted in the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992 by Hindu activists. This triggered one of the most violent communal riots in Indian history. Modi was present at the groundbreaking ceremony of the temple, which Hindu nationalists had been agitating for for decades. Hindu vigilantes have been encouraged by the 2017 election of Yogi Amityanath, a far right monk and long-time advocate of love jihad as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, to attack Muslims, who make up about 20% of India's largest state. They also accuse Adityanath of allegedly killing cows. Awasthi said that Yogi Ji and Modi ji, respected Hindu leaders, have visited us as gods. Hindus are proud of the achievements of Yogi ji and Modi ji, the governments in UP and India. Police cooperation We saw VHP leaders calling police officers to inform them of couples on the run, request surveillance of their phones and share updates about their whereabouts. This right-wing group has an extensive network of informers throughout the state. They can be found in schools, colleges and buses, coffee shops and gyms, as well as in hotels and cinema halls. Hindus can inform their families about women in smaller cities and the hinterlands where the VHP or Bajrang Dal are influential. Even some marriage officials from Hindu communities will inform the parents of a woman. Ashish Baliyan (a 23-year old Bajrang Dal leader from Bijnor) told us that the more network we have, then the greater chance we have to find out what the girl is talking about. We have boys in every school and every class. Pawan Rastogi is a father and businessman who worked with police officers to solve a case involving an Indian minor.Now, the police are fully supporting the work of the VHP workers and Bajrang Dal workers.Rastogi claimed he was working with Shahabad's inspector at the police station. The family had filed the complaint. Two teams of Bajrang Dal workers were dispatched by Rastogi. One was to follow the couple using surveillance information he claims he received from the police and the other was to collect information about the Muslim man. He said that the VHP and Bajrang Dal workers are now able to complete the work on their own. All information is shared. Sub-inspector Ram Sukhari Singh said that all of our work is done with the support of the public. Rastogi was standing next to her at the police station. Rastogi, a VHP leader, said that the Hindu family had to discipline her when she was discovered and forced her to confess that she had been taken into a mosque to be converted. Men who coordinate operations against hate jihad are careful about when they request that a case is registered under the anticonversion law. They are more likely to invoke the anti-conversion law if the Hindu woman is willing to defend her partner in front of a judge and claim that the relationship was consensual. If the woman is not active or her family is cooperating fully with the vigilantes they will be quick to invoke it. The law may provide protection for their activities but vigilantes prefer to handle matters themselves.Photo by Betwa SharmaSaam, Daam and Dand, Bhed Shanjay Shukla had helped to find the 27-year old Hindu woman in Bareilly that night. They were determined to give her counselling. She can speak English. He said that she is very smart and shrewd while looking through photos of the woman her family shared with him via WhatsApp. Although I know that I will have to wrestle with a snake in the end, Im determined. I know that Im going to wrestle with a snake, but Im also determined. Awasthi, a VHP leader from Shahjahanpur told us about a brutal counseling session he gave to an Indian woman who was in a relationship with a Muslim man. The girl said that she would go with him and I hit her once. She started bleeding from the mouth. He said, "I pray to Lord Hanuman. I get strength from Him." My punch is so strong that I don't need to hit anyone twice.We know she is under our control as soon as she starts crying.I told her I would throw tezaab upon you, he said, referring to the cleaning chemical that is used in acid attacks on women in South Asia. I will cut your nose, and I will have the Muslim I encounter killed by the police extrajudicially. Awasthi revealed that he had four criminal cases against him, including one for attempted murder. Vigilantes often recruit the parents of women to assist them in their efforts. They press families to file police reports, and tell them what to say. Awasthi explained that he and other vigilantes instructed parents how to lie to, threaten, or emotionally blackmail their daughters to end their relationships. He even pretended to have had heart attacks or fainted. Awasthi shared a complex scheme where he would replace poison with harmless blue or yellow liquid, then get the parents to consume it and pretend to be taken to the hospital. He said that the girl will cry as soon as she starts to cry. We know she is under our control. The girl is kept under our watch for about two to three months. We remove her mobile phone from her hands so she can only communicate with her family. We take away her mobile phone so she can only communicate with her family. It's never taken more that three months to bring a woman under control. Sumit Khanna (a middle-aged father in Shahjahanpur) told us how he and other Hindu men beat an illiterate Muslim boy using a plastic pipe. He had seen him with a thin Hindu girl in the nearby neighborhood. The plastic pipe is so strong it will not break even if it's hit by a truck. We hit him hard and threw him on the ground. His body was completely reddened. His family didn't complain to the police and he was admitted to the hospital for between 20 and 22 days. We informed her teacher at her coaching centre and her parents. They stopped her education to save her. Her parents were also informed. Local reports have reported similar arrests since then. Men could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison for cases involving minors or women from scheduled castes, which is the government's designation for the lowest rung in India's caste system. Owais Ahmed (21-year-old) was arrested in December by the law after a father of a Hindu woman claimed that he tried to convert his daughter. Judge Sunel Kumar Verma, Bareilly district judge, wrote that Ahmed was granted bail because there were no supporting facts in his initial police report. The woman was involved in an arranged marriage, and had moved out of their village months prior to the criminal complaint being filed. Ahmed was planning to make another attempt to join Indian Army at the time of the criminal complaint. He said that I was disqualified due to the fake case against my. They have destroyed my future. Some runaway couple were able to appeal to courts to get help. The Allahabad High Court, Uttar Pradesh, has granted protection to hundreds against harassment by police and their families. Some couples have been placed in safe houses in the capital by the Delhi High Court. Many couples seek refuge in cities such as Delhi and Bangalore to get married under the 1954 Special Marriage Act. Although this law allows civil marriage between people from any faith, some provisions have been misused to harass couples. Other states have made love jihad a crime, despite efforts to protect interfaith couples. Three other BJP-ruled states, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, as well as Gujarat, have reenacted anti-conversion laws. The Supreme Court of India has challenged these laws and another similar one that was passed in Uttarakhand in 2018.Owais Ahmad poses for a portrait in his Sharif Nagar village, Bareilly district, Uttar Pradesh, India, Jan. 10, 2021. Ahmer KhanA young Jain woman from Madhya Pradesh spoke out at a Zoom press conference in February. She shared her experiences with Muslim husband and the difficulties they have faced since their marriage. After the woman stated that she had married her husband in Delhi, the Delhi High Court granted protection to the couple if they were in Delhi. The couple fled to Delhi in 2019 without having a steady source of income or friends in the area. They then returned to Madhya Pradesh, where they now live in fear. According to the woman, they didn't tell their landlord that they were an interfaith couple. The Jain community had the shops of Muslims evacuated when they learned about their relationship. They were also staging rallies claiming that they wanted the girl. Two men interrupted the call as other couples shared their stories and used anti-Muslim slurs and expletives to threaten them. One of the men stated that he had taken a photograph of everyone present. Asif Iqbal said that the number of interfaith young couples fleeing home has increased since the new lovejihad laws were passed. They now fear being imprisoned for choosing who they are with. Dhanak has assisted hundreds of couples to find safe havens, and navigate the legal system. The group doesn't interfere in how a couple chooses to marry, either in a religious ceremony, or through the Special Marriage Act. It also does not encourage any conversions. Iqbal stated that it was almost impossible for the group's work to continue in the face of the second Covid-19 tsunami in India. Iqbal was also hospitalized for Covid-19. Many other staff members were also taken ill. Dhanak managed to provide some assistance for couples despite the pandemic. A lawyer was hired by the group to assist in submitting a letter to Delhi police asking for protection for an interfaith couple who fled West Bengal because her Hindu family wanted her to marry another man. Iqbal stated that they are totally uprooted. We tell them to find work first but we all know how young they are. They're in love. They are in love. Hindu nationalist groups have campaigned against Christian missionaries over the years. They claim they persuade India's most marginalized groups, Dalits, and Indigenous Adivasis to convert. Christians make up 2.4 percent in India. While some Dalits convert to Christianity to escape the caste system and get better medical care, the majority of forced conversions are not based on this. In their threats to imaginary perpetrators, BJP politicians have resorted to love jihad laws over the past year. Adityanath, Uttar Pradeshs chief Minister, warned that those hiding their identities and playing with our sisters disrespect is a serious offense. This was a month before the state law became effective. Your Ram naam Satya journey will start if you don't change your ways. The love jihad conspiracy theory has been denied by the national government, as well as the violence committed in its name. The Indian Parliament was informed by the government that no laws acknowledge the existence of lovejihad. It also ruled out the possibility of passing a national anticonversion law. This is because related offenses are a state matter. It is in the BJP's best interest to avoid government intervention in love jihad. This is partly because of its acolytes who help support the Hindu vote across casts and keep tensions between Muslims and Hindus inflamed.The national government has remained at arms length from the love-jihad conspiracy theory and violent acts that are committed in its name.
