Hindu Extremists Declare War on Interfaith Love – By Oliver Gruber

In a rural classroom in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, Annurag Dwivedi Annu is teaching teenage girls a lesson they’ll never forget. It’s not sexual predators he’s warning them about. It’s Muslim men. “There are a lot of cases where they’ll blackmail girls like you. They take compromising photos of you. In the end, you’ll become suicidal. And those guys? When you’re gone, they chase someone else,” Annu said in the classroom. “You must have heard of all kinds of Jihad by now,” continues the school’s principal Harshvardhan Singh. “But maybe you’re learning about ‘Love Jihad’ for the first time.”…

This fear of India becoming an Islamic country is unfounded. Hindus make up nearly 80 percent of the population, while only around 14 percent are Muslim. Still, Singh and other Hindu fundamentalists are adamant that the threat is real….

Critics have accused Modi’s government of undermining India’s secular roots and tacitly supporting Hindu fundamentalists like Singh and the VHP as they pursue anti-Muslim conspiracies like “Love Jihad.” There is no evidence to suggest that Muslims are tricking and forcibly converting Hindu women, but this hasn’t stopped this conspiracy theory from spreading across the country. Some states have even passed laws that target so-called “Love Jihadis.”…

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4awggn/hindu-extremists-love-jihad-india