This article focuses on ‘Love Jihad,’ the neologism that Hindutva, or Hindu Extremism, has invented to incite suspicion and violence against Indian Muslims. I begin with a brief discussion of several characteristics of the Hindutva organisational and ideological apparatus. Then I discuss anti-Love Jihad campaigns as a strategy to assert Hindu extremism in interpersonal relations. I go on to highlight specific episodes of ‘Love Jihad’ attacks by the Hindu Right that have targeted and made a political spectacle of love and marriage across community boundaries. I suggest that Love Jihad campaigns become a mode of producing docile, submissive subjects who will not question regimes of power, be it neoliberalism, religious majoritarianism or social hierarchies and injustice.
AgarwalP., 1995. Surat, Savarkar and Draupadi: legitimising rape as a political weapon. In SarkarT., and ButaliaU., eds. Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essays.New Delhi: Kali for Women, pp. 29–57.
2.
AlamJ., 2014. Love story of Javeed-Jayanti. Women's Match, October-December, pp. 15–18.
AndersonW., and DamleS.D., 1987. The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism.Boulder: Westview Press.
5.
BacchettaP., 1996. Hindu women as ideologues: the Sangh, the Samiti, and their differential concepts of the Hindu Nation. In JayawardenaK., and de AlvisM., eds. Embodied Violence: Communalizing Women's Sexuality in South Asia.London: Zed Books.
6.
BacchettaP., 2004. Gender in the Hindu Nation: RSS Women as Ideologues.Delhi: Women Unlimited.
7.
BakayaA., 2009. India: RSS Schools and the Hindu Nationalist Education Project. South Asia Citizens Web, 21 April. Available at: http://www.sacw.net/article852.html [last accessed 5 March 2018].
8.
BasuT., DattaP., SarkarS., and SenS., 1993. Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right.New Delhi: Orient Longman.
GolwalkarM.S., 1939. We or Our Nationhood Defined.Nagpur: Bharat Publications.
19.
GolwalkarM.S., 1980. Bunch of Thoughts.Bangalore: Vikrama Prakashan.
20.
GuptaC., 2014. Myths of Love Jihad: moral panic, past and present. Women's Match, July-September, pp. 20–23.
21.
HansenT.B., 1999. The Saffron Ware: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India.Princeton: Princeton University Press.
22.
HansenT.B., and JaffrelotC., eds., 1998. The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in India.Delhi: Oxford University Press.
23.
International Initiative for Justice, 2003. Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat.Mumbai: International Initiative for Justice (IIJ). Available at: http://www.onlinevolunteers.org/gujarat/reports/iijg/2003/ [last accessed 5 March 2018].
24.
JaffrelotC., 1999. The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics.Delhi: Penguin.
25.
JhaD., 2017. Shadow Armies: Fringe Organisations and Foot Soldiers of Hindutva.Delhi: Juggernaut.
26.
KatjuM., 2003. Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics.Hyderabad: Orient Longman.
SarkarT., 1995. Heroic women, mother goddesses: family and organization in Hindutva politics. In SarkarT., and ButaliaU., eds. Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essays.New Delhi: Kali for Women, pp. 181–215.
31.
SarkarT., 1999. The gender predicament of the Hindu Right. In PanikkarK.N., ed. The Concerned Indian's Guide to Communalism.New Delhi: Penguin, pp. 131–159.
32.
SarkarT., 2001. Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
33.
SarkarT., 2002. Semiotics of terror: Muslim children and women in Hindu Rashtra. Economic and Political Meekly, 37(28), pp. 2872–2876.
34.
SarkarT., 2005. Educating the children of Hindu Rashtra: a note on RSS schools. In JaffrelotC., ed. The Sangh Parivar: A Reader.New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 197–206.
35.
SarkarT., 2009. Holy ‘fire eaters’: why widow immolation became. In S. Sarkar Rebels, Wives, Saints: Designing Selves and Nations in Colonial Times.Raniket: Permanent Black, pp. 13–68.
36.
SarkarR., and SarkarA., 2016. Sacred slaughter: an analysis of historical, communal, and constitutional aspects of beef bans in India. Politics, Religion 8. Ideology, 17(4), pp. 329–351.
37.
SavarkarV.D., 1989 [1923]. Hindutva: Who Is A Hindu?Delhi: Bharatiya Sahitya Sadan.
