communal myths

'In what appears to be a deliberate strategy one Hindutva organisation takes a step back for another to take several steps forward. The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha that has worked closely with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on several initiatives in the past, such as the more recent ghar wapsi and love jihad programs, is now preparing to commemorate the assassin of Gandhi as a “martyr” and a “desh bhakt”.

A Cobrapost and Gulail investigation reveals how the RSS–VHP–BJP combine and their splinter groups use violence, intimidation, emotional blackmail, duplicity and drugs to split up Hindu–Muslim married couples. These organisations claim Muslim men entice and marry Hindu girls in the name of “love jihad”. The groups target not only Hindu girls and women who marry outside their religion, as it is commonly believed, but also their Muslim or Christian partners. The investigation reveals that there is a systematic effort towards using love jihad to polarise communities along communal lines.

"Mohammed Afsar and his family were fast asleep on Friday night, when at 2 a.m. three people raided their shanty in Okhla’s Joga Bai Extension and asked for identification. Two women and a man, armed with lathis, had landed at 40-year-old Afsar’s place looking for ‘illegal Bangladeshis’. “I kept telling them I hadn’t done anything while they ransacked my home,” said the rickshaw-puller. “I showed them my voter card and my Aadhar card, but they kept saying that I was an illegal migrant from Bangladesh who was here to explode a bomb,” he said.

"The din over the ‘ghar wapsi’ reconversion campaign in the north and west may have dropped many decibels after Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlined “the undeniable right” of an individual’s choice of religion. But in the east, the RSS and its affiliates are experimenting with another conversion programme — where, instead of hounding a Hindu-Muslim couple, they are actively facilitating their union. The only condition: the bride, in this case, is a Muslim who becomes a Hindu after a “suddhikaran” (purification) programme.