By Sarayu Pani
The brutal lynching of 20-year-old Suleman Pathan in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, reportedly for meeting with a Hindu girl in a café, once again brings into focus the powerful hatred unleashed by the “love jihad” discourse in the state. Reportedly, some of the accused were Pathan’s closest friends, from his village, with whom he had spent his entire life. The village itself, with over 600 Hindu households and only four Muslim households, has no major history of communal strife.
The false bogey of “Love jihad” by all measures has been an extremely effective tool of Hindu nationalist propaganda. It has sparked large scale communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, manufactured consent for the enactment of anti-conversion laws in several states in India, and has been responsible for fragmenting once powerful electoral coalitions (like the MAJGAR in Western Uttar Pradesh) along religious lines. But perhaps most painfully, as demonstrated in Suleman Pathan’s case, “love jihad” can trigger brutal violence that overrides all considerations, including lifelong friendship or the syncretic sharing of festivals.
Even friendships, like Suleman Pathan’s, which were forged in the shadow of Hindu nationalism were not strong enough to save his life. For many years, the idea of “bhaichara” or brotherhood between Hindus and Muslims, centering around celebrating a syncretic shared culture has been posited as an ideological counter to the racialised fearmongering of “love jihad”. Pathan’s case highlights that this is often not enough.
While the alarming rise in the frequency of anti- Muslim hate speech over the last three years in Maharashtra has certainly played a role, understanding why “love jihad” propaganda is so effective at creating violence that overrides all considerations of basic humanity, requires us to delve deeper.
Scholars generally agree that audiences for propaganda are not a blank canvas. What they believe, and what they can be made to believe, also depends on their pre-existing values, prejudices and modes of thinking. “Love jihad” propaganda layers violent Islamophobia and hate speech on top of a base built by three other beliefs, that are widely held in a caste-based society. First, that caste endogamy is central to the maintenance of power. Second, that it is acceptable to control women’s bodies to maintain caste endogamy. Third, that brutal violence committed by non-state actors is legitimate if committed to enforce the rules of the caste system.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.