Love-jihad is a conspiracy theory created by the Hindu right in India which claims that Muslim men lure Hindu girls with love, marry them, and force them to convert to Islam. The goal of this paper is to examine legal, procedural, and media mediated ways in which language against Muslims is used by the Hindu right in India to cause harm. Violent action resulting in physical harm follows harm caused by language. The term love-jihad indicates premeditated action and can be seen as an example of how language causes harm. If we are made to assume that Muslim men premeditate to love Hindu girls as a way to lure them into marriage, the entire Muslim community becomes the culprit. Using work on language and propaganda as well as critical postcolonial studies as theoretical frameworks, this paper shows how the Hindu right uses language as a weapon to cause harm to Hindu women and Muslim men.
A brown-bag discussion with Ila Nagar (Associated Professor, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures)
