Love Jihad: A Feminist Retelling

In February 2024 the Calcutta High Court ordered the change of the name of a lioness in the Siliguri Safari Park named ‘Sita’. Some organizations had objected to Sita being housed with a lion named ‘Akbar’. In India today even lions are subject to the same pressures that Hindu-Muslims couples are and cannot escape the political discourse around love desire sexuality and marriage. The fear and disgust about alliances between Hindu women and Muslim men is expressed in one short term—‘love jihad’ and there have been several arrests of Muslim men for offences related to ‘love jihad’. The propaganda legislations and police actions are based on the premise that Muslim men are luring Hindu women into marriage and that ‘love’ is a tool for ‘jihad’ and a way to expand the Muslim population. This book unpacks ‘love jihad’ from a feminist lens and asks: What is love? What is jihad? What does being a Muslim man in India entail? Irreverent in its tone and blunt in its arguments it is a book like no othe