Last week, the love jihad bogey got an impetus in Kerala from a group of Christians, led by a fundamentalist group called Christian Association and Alliance for Social action (CASA). They claimed that a 26-year-old woman, Joisna Mary Joseph, was abducted by a 'Jihadi'. Joisna had eloped with a Muslim man, Shejin MS, who is a ground level leader of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, which is the youth wing of CPI(M). However, their whereabouts were unknown for three days, and her family in the meantime had raised an alarm, triggering several reactions that were grounded in Islamophobia. And this includes members of the CPI(M), which has publicly always claimed to be against the conspiracy theory that Muslims are out to trap Hindu women and women from other religions for the sake of ‘jihad’. So does CPI(M) stand against the communal agenda of love jihad, or is there some inherent hypocrisy in their public posturing?
After the couple went missing, on one side Christian groups under the leadership of CASA intensified their campaign over the love jihad theory. They held marches, protests, and social media campaigns asking for Joisna to be ‘rescued’. Meanwhile, on April 12, George M Thomas, a CPI(M) leader and a former MLA of Kodenchery, told the media that the party might take action against Shejin as he did not inform the party on his step. He also said that this action by Shejin had caused communal tension and claimed love jihad exists in Kerala. “If they were in love, Shejin should have informed the party, but he did not do so and eloped with her, which might disturb communal harmony,” he had said.
When the question of love jihad was raised to him, he claimed that it “existed in party documents” and that “love jihad happens”. “There is no argument that the term was coined by RSS. But we cannot say that such incidents never happened in Kerala,” he said and added that “educated women in professional colleges and institutions are attacked by these things - love jihad or whatever.”
Following this, many Christian fundamentalist groups on social media started quoting him saying even CPI(M) agrees that love jihad exists. After a huge backlash from within the party, the former MLA withdrew his statement and said love jihad does not exist. He also extended support to the couple.
Shejin and Joisna appeared in a court on April 12 and declared that they had exchanged garlands and filed their papers to register their wedding legally. Shejin, in his reactions to the media, has been cautious and apologetic following the controversy. “I had no contact with anybody for three days, so the party was clueless and they were confused about what exactly happened,” he justified on behalf of the people who had called him a ‘love jihadi’.
On April 13, the DYFI was the first to react against the claim of George M Thomas. They released a public note saying they will promote secular marriages and love jihad is a made up lie. “Marriage between two grownups is their private matter. Those who fall in love and decide to live together irrespective of religion, caste, differences in economic status and gender, will have all the support from the DYFI. To harm the secular culture of Kerala, some forces intentionally build a lie love jihad,” says the note that the organisation released.
Responding to the controversy, CPI(M) Kozhikode district secretary Mohanan said, “We don’t see anything unusual in the interfaith wedding that happened in Kodenchery. Their marriage is their personal matter, neither the party nor any other social group has a stake in it. The woman has informed that she married him willingly and with full consent, the chapter is closed there. But some groups in Kodenchery are trying to create communal tension.”
Speaking about George M Thomas’s initial statement, Mohanan said, “There is no love jihad in this. RSS and other Sangh Parivar groups have used the term love jihad to hunt down minorities. But while speaking to the media, he (George Thomas) made a mistake. He has now realised that. That was a slip of the tongue, and those statements are against party ideology.”
Observers however believe this was no slip of the tongue, but a sign of the party’s hypocrisy when it comes to appeasing vote banks. Mohiyuddin Nadukkandiyil Karassery, a popular writer and social activist said, “First of all, there is no data to prove love jihad — it does not exist. What CPI(M) did was to take a diplomatic stand so that their vote banks are not affected.”
Kodechery has a majority of Christians who migrated from the Travancore region (southern Kerala). It comes under the Thiruvambady assembly constituency, and was a United Democratic Front (UDF) bastion until 2006. That year, CPI(M)’s prominent leader Mathai Chacko had a historical win from there. In the 2021 Assembly election, LDF’s candidate Linto Joseph emerged the winner from the constituency with a margin of 4,643 votes.
Known for his secular ideologies, Mathai Chacko was a non-believer. But after his death in October 2006, the Thamarassery Bishop Paul Chitilapally had claimed that Mathai Chacko had been given the last sacrament as per his wish. This had irked the then CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who called the bishop a ‘Nikrishtta Jeevi’ (wretched creature). The issue was very sensational then.
The same Pinarayi Vijayan is now being criticised for not taking a strong enough stance against communalism and fundamentalism.
In September 2021, targeting Muslims, the Bishop of Pala diocese Joseph Kallarangat raised allegations of ‘narcotic jihad’ where he claimed ‘jihadis’ were using various types of drugs to spoil non-Muslims. On interfaith marriage, he said women compromise their faith and then turn to terrorism. Many groups including the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council came in support of what the bishop said.
The Minister for Cooperation and Registration VN Vasavan visited the bishop while the controversy was going on. After a 40-minute meeting, instead of condemning the bishop’s statements, the minister from CPI(M) said that Kallarangat was a scholarly person and all issues were created by terrorists.
It was a few days later that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan decided to counter the Bishop’s claims. “An entirely different picture popped up when I checked the facts regarding the propaganda of luring women including Christians in the name of love, converting them and recruiting them to terrorist organisations like the Islamic State. Of the 100 Malayalis who joined the Islamic State till 2019, 72 were those who went abroad for jobs or related matters and then got attracted to the terror outfit. All these people, except one man from Kozhikode, were born into the Muslim community. The other 28 joined the Islamic State from Kerala. Of these 28, only five joined the terror outfit after getting converted to Islam from some other religion. None of this evidence substantiates the propaganda that women are being trapped in the name of love to recruit to terrorist organisations,” Pinarayi said.
However, MN Karassery believes that in this issue, too, the CPI(M) played tactically. “The CM responded 15 days after the Pala Bishop’s statements, to please the Christian vote bank. At the same time, CPI(M) locally maintains secret ties with PDP, SDPI and the Jamaat-e-Islami in local elections. Other than the Indian Union Muslim League, all other Muslim organisations are catered to by the CPI(M),” he said.
The CPI(M) on many occasions has played vote bank politics with communalism, observers said. “CPI(M) equally pleases Christian, Muslim and Hindu religious extremism to maintain their vote bank. In the Sabarimala women entry issue, though CPI(M) was strong in the beginning, but at the end they took a U-turn. During the Assembly election, Kadakampally Surendran, the then Devaswom Minister, even apologised for women’s entry, and later lied that he did not express regret,” MN Karassery said.
J Devika, an academic and a social critic, too alleged that in the Sabarimala issue, CPI(M) played good cop-bad cop. “Pinarayi Vijayan would speak progressive words on women’s entry into Sabarimala, and later Kadakampally would come up with conservative statements. We are not surprised that CPI(M) displays this opportunistic behaviour,” she added.
The CPI(M) is perhaps the only large political party in Kerala which has been vocal about and even promoted secular marriages. But there are many instances where they failed to hold their secular ideology.
In July 2010, the then Kerala Chief Minister and CPI(M) veteran VS Achuthanandan said that outfits like the Popular Front of India use, “money and marriages to make Kerala a Muslim majority state.” The CPI(M) leader also said that PFI is using money to attract youth and also persuade Muslim youth “to marry Hindu girls.”
In 2017, during the sensational Hadiya case, where a young woman converted from Hindusism to Islam and later married a Muslim man, CPI(M) was very cautious in making public statements in support of Hadiya. J Devika said that when the Hadiya issue was raging, CPI(M) had alleged that PFI had taken forceful actions against Muslim women who chose interfaith marriages.
“Brinda Karat had written an article in support of Hadiya. But at the end of it she said PFI also had forcefully blocked women from interfaith marriages. I wrote to her office three times asking for an empirical basis for that allegation. I did not get a proper reply to that. They have not been able to prove that yet,” J Devika said.
Justifying the party’s jitters in the issue, a CPI(M) leader who closely followed the issue said, “CPI(M) was suspicious of Hadiya’s supporters because most of them were PFI workers. Shafin Jahan, her husband, was also a PFI sympathiser.” Seeking anonymity, the leader said, “It was not love jihad, because she got married after getting converted and did not get converted for love. There is no such phenomenon in Kerala. But the intentions of PFI are not pure.”
In September 2021, an internal document of CPI(M), also hinted at certain groups targeting women. The document said that Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) advocates communalism and radicalism. “There are intentional attempts to attract youngsters to communalism and terrorism. There are attempts to lure educated women to these paths, by concentrating on professional campuses,” the document said.
Many critics have found this as a hint at love jihad by the CPI(M). However, CPI(M) leaders rejected this, saying it was just a warning against communalism. “The document did not mean non-Muslim women. It is said that terror outfits are trying to lure educated women, who are Muslims or non-Muslims. There is no love jihad in this,” the CPI(M) leader who sought anonymity said.