The Tanishq ad and #LoveJihad

First things first – Stop worrying that Tanishq is getting publicity through the ad. Even the topic of love jihad is getting publicity. Also, for people who disagree, please have the respect to read it through when possible, since it is an important topic.

Many articles are being written about anecdotal experiences of how a hindu girl was happily married into a muslim houshold. While in an ideal fair world, it would be fine, in reality it is misleading. No articles written of muslim girls being married into hindu households, are there? Because there are none… Even the woke activist Shehla Rashid, who posted that muslim girls should be allowed to marry into Hindu households to retain their moral superiority over the “sanghis”, got so much venom from the muslim community that she had to deactivate her social profile. Meaning, muslim households are very clear that their daughters are NOT to be allowed to marry Hindu guys even for love, unless of course the Hindu guy converts. A classic recent example is the murder (by the muslim family) of the Hindu guy Rahul Rajput who dared to marry a muslim girl.

Also, it will be better if these articles do not commit the classic mistake of tagging all with concerns they do not understand as trolling. That is precisely the reason the public discourse is so bad these days. Some other points –

1. Anecdotal experiences vs. a statistically heavily skewed distribution in the opposite direction. When I, or any other, talks about these topics, I am talking about statistics and social phenomena on a macro scale, not individual people around who may be good people with noble intentions but are just ignorant of some facts. I feel it is important to put this disclaimer since a lot of people who were my friends seem to have stopped talking to me because they have unfairly tagged me as some “hateful, communal” sanghi.

2. There is no acknowledgment from either the muslim community or any of the people supporting the ad about the reality of love jihad. It is not only seen in India, but also in the form of Britain’s sex grooming gangs, which is comprised almost entirely of Pakistani muslim men. The latter is corroborating evidence for this phenomena (do google it and read about it). And I’m especially passionate about this topic of love jihad because I’m involved in a project to document the number of love jihad cases happening almost every day, so I feel I’m slightly qualified to vouch for its reality. In 2019 we documented 301 love jihad cases (which I feel is far from being exhaustive), mostly from remote areas where the eyes of urban people do not reach, and none of which were picked up with outrage by the mainstream media but mostly reported in regional papers in different languages. The goal of all these crimes is conversion of Hindu women to Islam, and having lots of children with them as part of their demographic war. If the Hindu woman refuses to convert, the girl is invariably murdered. Dismissing the concerns of the Hindu community (the ones who are aware of these phenomena) as trolling is highly intellectually dishonest and not good.

3. Let’s reverse the gaze. Let’s say a muslim were lynched for beef, and within a week some big company came out with an ad showing a muslim shunning beef to care for a Hindu neighbour. I am almost definite that there would be physical violence and riots, just like recently in Bangalore, or recently in Sweden. Even some Hindus would come out in protest against the ad. There has been a spate of love jihad cases recently, and in the wake of that this stupid ad comes out, why is the Hindu community not given an ear for its concerns and objections? Is it because the Hindu community does not cause riots like the Bangalore riots to keep everyone frightened?

4. It is a recurring trend in ads and bollywood movies to show Brahmins and baniyas as manipulative cheats (in contrast to muslim imams and guys being the pious fatherly figures), a proper Hindi or Sanskrit speaking guy as a clown (in contrast to the deep profundity of Urdu speaking muslim guys), narrow-minded Hindu guys refusing services from a muslim (in contrast to the open-minded muslims). This ad just continues a trend, and hence the Hindu community has decided to object to these persistently one-sided depictions.

5. If the ad were showing the muslim family doing Hindu rituals, it should have shown Ganesha murtis or a pandit performing a Vedic ritual in the background. They just make it into a shallow secular “rasam” (not even the tasty south Indian dish) of godbharai. So no, it is not even some feel-good ad of the union of faiths. Also there are almost no ads showing a muslim girl getting married into a hindu household, as the advertisers know that it will instantly cause riots, just like there were when the 1995 movie “Bombay” was made.

6. Finally, a summarizing point. I feel that it is all fine for us in our secure urban lives to virtue signal about tolerance and all, but often it ignores the very real plights of the not-so-privileged people who have to endure these situations in their villages. Reading through hundreds of cases of beheaded and raped hindu women, abduction of Hindu women (and minors) for conversion and marriage by (some) muslim men, really makes one feel for the kind of hell it can get for rural people living in such areas, without any acknowledgement of their concerns from the elite (us). One needs to observe that most of the social movement against love jihad comes not from politicans, but from people from un-privileged rural backgrounds. That is precisely why it was not acknowledged in the mainstream discourse or the corridors of power till only recently

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.