Disclaimer: ''The current law of India does not define the word 'love jihad'. No case of 'Love Jihad' has been reported by any central agency.''

There is a special reference to such disclaimers at the beginning of the report. Many political leaders are using the term, but the above sentence is part of the reply to a starred question in the Lok Sabha on 4 February 2020 from the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Kishan Reddy.

The Yogi Adityanath government of Uttar Pradesh has approved an ordinance against inter-religious marriage. Four other state governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party have spoken of bringing similar ordinances.

There is a strong debate on this issue in India.

The international media has also placed on its pages the opposition to the ordinance of this alleged forced inter-religious marriage (which the BJP calls Love Jihad).

The Strat Times newspaper in Singapore has underlined in one of its reports that the five states that talk of bringing "love jihad" are those where the BJP has governments. According to the newspaper, the ordinance brought in Uttar Pradesh and the proposal on it in other four states will give rise to the issue of "Love Jihad".

The newspaper has given a lot of space to the statements of Yogi Adityanath in his report. An ordinance on this has been approved in Uttar Pradesh on 24 November 2020.

The newspaper prominently featured a statement dated 31 October 2020 of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. The newspaper wrote, "Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu priest who is the Chief Minister of India's largest populous state Uttar Pradesh, says in an election meeting on 31 October 2020 that the government should take a decision to stop 'Love Jihad'". Has been We give warning to those who hide their identity and insult our sisters. If you do not hawk, your funeral will be done soon. ''

A US media outlet named 'US News' wrote in its report on the latest ordinance from the Lucknow Dateline, "The Indian state blamed forced conversions for marriage".

Citing critics, the report reads, "Critics say that the unlawful proselytizing ordinance approved by the Yogi's cabinet is aimed at separating India's 17 crore Muslims from the mainstream."

The newspaper has also included a statement by Trinamool Congress MP Nusrat Jahan in this report in which he has said that there is no such thing as "Love Jihad" and this is only a political ploy of BJP.

Al-Jazeera has given it a place on its website and many newspapers of western countries have also published this news.

Most media outlets are also sharing issues related to this in India. Al-Jazeera cited an incident in October 2020 in which the Tanishq jewelry store had to remove an advertisement showing a Hindu daughter-in-law with her Muslim husband.

The firstpost website reported on the growing intolerance in India by linking the controversy over a kiss scene inside a temple with the ordinance of "Love Jihad" in Mira Nair's film A Suitable Boy, which was shown on Netflix.

In this kissing scene, a Muslim youth is seen kissing his Hindu girlfriend inside a temple against which some Hindu organizations have filed a police complaint. An FIR has been registered against some Netflix officials in Madhya Pradesh.

what is love jihad?

Hindu right-wing organizations call 'Love Jihad' a love marriage in which a Muslim man marries a Hindu woman and forces her to convert to Islam. If the opposite is true, if a Muslim woman marries a Hindu man, then some Hindu institutions are silent on this, some organizations strongly support such marriages.

The Indian government and private social institutions do not have figures for these marriages, but according to one estimate, such marriages are less than three percent.

In several reports of government agencies, the allegations of 'jihad' in marriage between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man have been found to be wrong, but in spite of this the five state governments of BJP are resorting to the law to stop it.

Where and when was the word first used? It is difficult to say, but around 2009, Karnataka and Kerala find an example of the use of the term, where some Hindu and Christian institutions refer to the conspiracy by Muslim men to cheat and marry Hindu or Christian women to convert to Islam. has been done.

In India, inter-religious marriages are held under the Special Marriage Act, which requires the court to register a marriage and before that the court issues a month's notice so that anyone can object to this marriage and tell the court.

For years before the term "love jihad" was practiced, right-wing Hindu institutions had been protesting such marriages in courts in which couples were given dhamikas, but this was not done so publicly.

Hindu-Muslim marriages began to be openly opposed to the campaign against "Love Jihad", especially in Uttar Pradesh, which human rights institutions and the media have described as an attack on the fundamental rights of a citizen.

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