"If there is one place in India that just doesn't get the idea of 'Love jihad', it is Khera Sadhan in Agra. And that's because of its peculiar history. During the rule of Aurangzeb (1658-1707), villagers there were asked to either convert to Islam or leave their homes. Faced with such a threat, almost all of them had changed their religion at that time. After Independence, a group of local leaders exhorted the townsfolk to go back to Hinduism. Some did, others didn't. But religion since then hasn't mattered to the people here.
"An influential committee of vaishyas in Uttar Pradesh has asked school girls from the community to stop using cell phones to save themselves from falling prey to "love jihad". In what is perhaps a first for an urban association with such reach and influence, the Akhil Bharitiya Vaishya Ekta Parishad (ABVEP), a committee of vaishyas (mostly traders by caste), has decided to ban the use of mobile phones by school-going girls and teenagers, staring with Agra..."
"A day after the "re-conversion" of 72 Valmikis in an Asroi (Aligarh) church, the pastor at the headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Mumbai, Habil Gyan, said members of the denomination will soon lock up the church. A Shiva poster had been put up inside the church soon after the re-conversion. But it was taken away as news of the incident spread and threatened to turn into a communal fracas... In Aligarh, meanwhile, Christians said they feared more such takeovers of their churches.
"While Rajnath Singh faces a battle to remain a central figure in the Bharatiya Janata Party, party president Amit Shah has already begun to look into who could become their new Thakur face in Uttar Pradesh. Although Thakurs constitute only about 8% of the population of Uttar Pradesh, they are one of the more influential caste groupings in the state. Two names already being discussed with a view to effecting this generational shift in the BJP’s Thakur leadership are Sangeet Som, the BJP MLA from Sardhana in western UP, and Yogi Adityanath, the Lok Sabha representative from Gorakhpur.
"Last year’s riots still fresh in their minds, a growing number of Muslims in the Muzaffarnagar-Shamli area of Uttar Pradesh are selling their properties in the villages they have now abandoned to Jat neighbours at rates which locals admit are far below the market rates. The authorities, however, say no distress sale has come to their notice and refuse to interfere, saying property sales remain a private affair.
"Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday refused to comment on a video that showed him asking his supporters to marry girls of another community. This undated video elicited strong criticism within the BJP fold as well. “I don't want to make any clarification on the issue. It is the responsibility of media to examine a video before showing it,” he said.
"For last two weeks, the ruling Hindu right Bharatiya Janata Party had been endangering the already volatile atmosphere of communal harmony in Uttar Pradesh - specifically the western part of India’s most populated state – by alleging and reiterating it at every platform that Muslims in the region are raping Hindu women with a sinister design. A painstaking investigation of NDTV news channel on Tuesday found BJP’s claim was a sheer false propaganda.
"Let us state at the outset that the main reason cited to explain the outburst of violence in western Uttar Pradesh in recent weeks is ludicrous. Anyone who has travelled extensively in UP, particularly around its Hindu or Muslim pilgrim towns and cities and in its highway dhabas, has lost by now a few percent of hearing capacity due to the blast of loudspeakers – the said loudspeakers usually blasting to the general indifference of the local population.
"Ahead of the Assembly elections in four States, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday announced the party’s national office-bearers, dropping general secretary Varun Gandhi from his team and including former Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa as vice-president. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh presence in the team is strong with the inclusion of former spokesman Ram Madhav as general secretary and Vinay Sahasrbuddhe as vice-president. Three of the eight general secretaries and two of the 11 vice-presidents have RSS backgrounds.
"Dharma Jagran Manch, a wing of Rashtriya Swayamasevak Sangh (RSS), launched a weeklong campaign from Sunday during which they will tie Rakhis to Hindus and administer them the oath to fight against ‘love jihad’, in which Hindu girls are allegedly converted to Islam or other communities for marriage. While appealing for support to stop ‘love jihad’, the manch workers will also tie Rakhis to Hindu girls, requesting them not to fell prey to such youths who lure them to convert their religion.
