‘Love jihad’ in India and one man’s quest to prevent it

'Every few days, Vijaykant Chauhan WhatsApps me a photograph of himself. The photographs are invariably scenes of crowds gathered on a north India street corner. Chauhan is right in front: a thickset, mustachioed man in his late 30s, in faux-army fatigues, a camouflage-print baseball cap and sunglasses. He stands with his fists tightly bunched, arms upraised. Occasionally the police make an appearance – their faces creased by patient smiles, their hands held close to their chests, palms facing outwards, in gestures of pacification.

These are photographs of protests, celebrations, rallies and, most often, “cultural programmes”: neighbourhood events usually organised under the patronage of the local political representative to promote good values in society. Onlookers peer out from the margins, their faces inscrutable amid all the posing and scuffling, shouting and jostling.

Last week, I received a photograph of Chauhan posed beside a scooter laden with slabs of raw meat.

“What’s up, Chauhan-ji?” I asked, when I called him up that afternoon. “Why is a crowd gathered around a hunk of meat?”

“We found that meat secreted under the scooter’s seat,” Chauhan said. “Proof that cow flesh is still freely traded in these parts.” Beef, Chauhan reminded me, was an affront to Hindus. “Our strength, Aman-ji, comes from four pillars: our cows, our temples, our ancient culture and our girls. Anyone who attacks any one of these pillars should be put to death.”

I chanced upon Chauhan while on assignment for my newspaper, the Business Standard, in Saharanpur, a trading town in western Uttar Pradesh. In the summer of 2014, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) and its controversial leader, Narendra Modi, had swept the general elections in a campaign that addressed the two presumed weaknesses of the ruling Indian National Congress – the faltering national economy, and the Congress’s alleged appeasement of minorities in the garb of secularism.

All summer long, Modi had dismissed accusations of orchestrating a communal riot that left more than a thousand dead in his home state of Gujarat in 2002. He said he was saddened by the loss of life, in the manner of a passenger involved in a traffic accident. “Someone else is driving a car and we’re sitting behind,” he said. “Even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is.” He deflected attention away from the topic with rousing speeches about the need for jobs, progress and development. In the meantime, his lieutenants reached out to men like Chauhan to stage rallies, mobilise crowds and organise cultural events to consolidate the diverse Hindu spectrum against their Muslim neighbours...' (Continue reading.)