The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly witnessed heated exchanges between the ruling and opposition members on Friday, March 10 with the the statement of Women and Child Development Minister and BJP leader Mangal Prabhat Lodha that there were over one lakh ‘love jihad’ cases in the state. The minister, Lodha made these remarks in the Legislative Assembly on March 8, Wednesday during the ongoing Budget Session.
Two days later, on March 10, NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad took objection to the remarks, saying that the number cited by Lodha two days ago was factually incorrect and that there were only 3,000 cases of interfaith marriages in the state. These too are contrarily, even viciously dubbed ‘love jihad’ marriages by the sitting minister. Jitendra Awhad stated that such factually incorrect statements can create rift among communities.
This formal objection raised by Awhad was aggressively countered by the BJP’s sitting MLAs. Ashish Shelar and Yogesh Sagar of the BJP and Shinde-led Shiv Sena and minister Gulab Rao Patil, who alleged that Awhad was making “partisan/biased statements” because of his constituency. Worse, they reportedly stated that the “sole” purpose of his statement was to “appease” a particular constituency. Awhad represents the Mumbra-Kalwa Assembly constituency in Thane, which has a sizable Muslim population.
Jumping into the debate, Abu Asim Azmi of the Samajwadi party demanded that Lodha show restraint and contrition for his comment. Ashish Shelar from Bandra (BJP) was not to be left out and demanded instead that there should be a law instead to prevent instances of ‘love jihad’. Even one case of ‘love jihad’ was serious, said Shelar. Finally, day to day business of the house only resumed after the Leader of the Opposition Ajit Pawar sought Assembly Speaker Rahul Narverkar’s active intervention in the matter. Narvekar therefore expunged the objectionable remarks from the arguments.
A video report from Maharashtra Times on the assembly discussion may be viewed here:
Spurious and stigmatising terms like “love jihad” have been thrown up and are repeatedly being used all over Maharashtra by extremist Hindu (tva) ideologues, including some belonging to the BJP itself and the Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh. This report, published by CJP details the string of complaints filed by this organisation since December 14, 2022 when Maharashtra was made a target of such hate offenders.
Over the past weeks stretching back to mid-December abusive terms like Jihadi have become “natural substitutes” of these venom spewing bandwagon. Rallies conducted by the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti (HJS), Sakal Hindu Samaj, Viswa Hindu Parishad, Antarashtriya Parishad and by Sudershan TV chief, Sudarshan Chavhanke, have deliberately used and thrown out terms like “Jihadi tailor”, “Jihadi plumber”, “electrician”, “mobile walla”, “mehendi wala” to slur the Muslim community. White collar professionals including IT professionals, accountants, etc are not spared, dubbed “terrorists”, those who “make bombs.”
A detailed listing of Maharashtra’s hate events, including details of criminal complaints filed may be read here.
A countrywide map, Nafrat ka Naqsha may be viewed here.
An appeal to elected officials (representatives) who have sworn an oath to the Constitution including its non-negotiable principles of equality, justice and non-discrimination, as also IPS and IAS officials, that includes a Signature Campaign may be viewed and signed here.
The Citizens for Justice and Peace (cjp.org.in) has challenged the anti-conversion laws passed in nine Indian states. Reports of this may be seen here.
SC issues notice to 5 states in CJP’s renewed challenge to anti-conversion laws
CJP’s amended petition allowed, CJP also challenges ‘love jihad’ laws of 5 more states
Related: