Politicians of the ruling Hindu nationalist party in India are objecting to a Hindu-Muslim couple’s kiss in the Netflix-BBC series “A Suitable Boy.” Based on the novel by Vikram Seth and directed by Mira Nair, this coming-of-age story features politics and love in 1950s India. Hindu nationalist activists and politicians claim the series promotes “love jihad.”
According to the love jihad conspiracy theory, Muslim men are colluding to seduce or kidnap Hindu women or girls, convert them to Islam, and have Muslim babies. Nationalist politicians — not just in India but also in the United States — commonly deploy stories in which minority men threaten or seduce the majority community’s women.
My forthcoming research on anti-Muslim political communication shows that combining gender threat and demographic threat this way is an effective and explosive way to mobilize a majority. Much as some U.S. states were introducing unnecessary laws against Sharia a few years ago, several Indian states are now considering or enacting laws against love jihad, endangering interreligious couples. Police have already arrested several men under the state of Uttar Pradesh’s new “Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance,” in one case landing a husband in jail for several days and his wife in involuntary custody until a magistrate heard her testimony that she had in fact married willingly.
Here’s what you need to know.
Key things to know about love jihad
My book “Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India” explores the political dimensions of this conspiracy theory. Here are a few key points.
The phrase “love jihad” grew prominent during a 2009 Kerala High Court case that was initiated by Hindu parents after their daughter eloped, even though it was ultimately dismissed. The term spread over the following decade via Hindu nationalist politicians’ and activists’ speeches, social media, and WhatsApp.
Google searches for “love jihad” spike during Indian elections, suggesting increased curiosity and political salience. BJP politicians and activists warn about it to motivate Hindu voters. Yogi Adityanath, who made love jihad a campaign issue, is now chief minister of India’s most-populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where the first new law targeting love jihad has been passed.
The idea of love jihad has resulted in threats and acts of violence against Muslims and interfaith couples. One viral video featured the gruesome murder of a Muslim man with the warning that this would happen to anyone engaging in “love jihad.”
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Over the last decade, the idea of love jihad has sometimes waned after being debunked by police or legal investigations, only to reappear in a different time, region or community. It has even spread to the Indian diaspora and to non-Muslim minority groups in India; Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists also have complained about the threat of love jihad.
The hoax’s power as a gender threat (a threat playing on gender stereotypes like the idea that women are helpless and need protection) can be seen in the comments section responding to Washington Post contributor Rana Ayyub’s recent op-ed against the love jihad theory’s spread. One critical commenter warned of “Muslim men everywhere actively searching for impressionable young non-Muslim girls.” The power of demographic threat (a fear that a minority will soon outnumber a majority) can be seen in another comment defending the idea of love jihad by claiming that there are “clearly patterned one sided and cynical political romantic formulas by Muslims to increase their foothold.”
Is the love jihad conspiracy theory here to stay?
Checking to see whether a couple has in fact come together voluntarily remains important — but such fact-checking probably won’t end this conspiracy theory. The more far-fetched a conspiracy, the more it reinforces one’s political identity to express support for it, reducing the impact of factual rebuttals.
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Further, the new state laws being proposed to combat it will probably help keep the love jihad slander alive, lending it unearned gravitas. These laws are comparable to U.S. state legislatures’ passage of anti-Sharia laws, which purportedly prevent Muslims from introducing Islamic or foreign laws in the United States. These laws similarly responded to another debunked conspiracy theory that Sharia was creeping into the U.S. legal system, threatening Americans’ rights. Such spurious legislation harms Muslims by legitimizing bogus ideas about them: that they are seducing and converting gullible women, or pushing fundamentalist laws that threaten the U.S. Constitution.
Research on the spread of conspiracy theories often focuses on fringe social media networks. Meanwhile, these slanders are embedded in formal legislation.
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Laura Dudley Jenkins is a professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati and the author of “Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), winner of the 2020 Hubert Morken award for best book in religion and politics.