What is common for Churches, BJP, a former top cop and High Court in Kerala?

Love Jihad, a term that that has now led to uncommon entities finding common ground

From the hamlets of Kozhikode to finding mention during Church masses, from speeches of BJP leaders to orders of the High Court to the state police, apprehensions over 'Love Jihad' has become the common ground for entities divided by ideology, law and duty in Kerala.

While there is nothing on record, police teams in Kerala are assigned to carry out investigations on 'Love Jihad' angle every time an interfaith marriage, where one person belongs to the Muslim community, takes place. Kerala hasn't forgotten Merrin from Kochi and Nimisha from Thiruvananthapuram who left the country to join ISIS after converting to Islam with their husbands.

The Kerala High Court's March 2017 order annulling a marriage of a Muslim man with a Hindu girl who converted to Islam did very little to dispel apprehensions over whether 'Love Jihad' was real. The court not just annulled the marriage but directed the Kerala police to thoroughly investigate allegations of forced conversions in the case. This despite the woman in question being refuted allegations made by her father that she was forcefully converted.

Aspersions over a concept that is non-existent?

Now, it is no longer just the BJP or the RSS that highlights the possibility of 'Love Jihad' being a reality in many parts of Kerala. Former Kerala top cop Senkumar has been booked for portraying 'Love Jihad' as a tool used by youth from one community to lure young women from other communities. While Senkumar maintained that he only referred to the ISIS, his interview to a Malayalam media outlet was a classic example of how people of all communities in Kerala have begun to look at the concept of Love Jihad.

With the disappearance of Merrin, the concept of 'girls being targetted and systematically converted to Islam', started making its way to churches. "There is a rampant conversion of Christian girls into Islam in the Malabar region. Conversion is the only motto and it is aimed at increasing the numbers of one community. Some people have even alleged an IS link to all this, which needs to be probed," the Bishop of the Syrian Independent Orthodox Church was quoted as saying by a media house.

The perception and anger against 'Love Jihad', whose existence is in question, is only growing among the Christian and Hindu community in Kerala. "The more people speak of Love Jihad, the more aspersions will be cast on every interfaith relationship. This is not good for a secular society," said Merlin Jose, an activist. Christian priests of various churches claim that parents of young girls come to the Church with complaints of men from other communities attempting to lure their daughters.

Helpline to 'save Christian girls'

Earlier this year Renjith Abraham Thomas, a former BJP minority cell leader proposed to come up with a helpline. A Facebook page in the name 'Christian Help Line' highlights instances of Christian women converting to Islam. The idea of the page is to send across the message that 'Love Jihad is real'. The page is filled with hateful comments against a community.

Incidentally, the helpline that Thomas proposed is similar to what pro-Hindu organisations are doing in Kasargod. Convinced that 'Love Jihad' is the common enemy, a few Churches and their priests have decided to support the BJP in Kerala to put up a united fight against men from other communities 'luring their daughters in the name of love'. But is a non-existent concept becoming the common ground for uniting various entities is the question social activists in favour of interfaith marriages ask.

OneIndia News