In India’s charged political climate, few phrases have proved as potent—or as destructive—as love jihad, a term that blends fear, fantasy, and gender control into a ready-made moral panic. Often trending online and invoked in street protests, election speeches, and police complaints, love jihad has become a powerful keyword in debates about interfaith marriage, Muslim–Hindu relations, and women’s autonomy. Yet behind the dramatic language lies a conspiracy theory that courts and investigators have repeatedly said does not exist, even as its social, legal, and gender repercussions continue to spread across the country.
The idea of love jihad claims that Muslim men systematically lure Hindu women into romantic relationships in order to convert them to Islam and weaken the Hindu community demographically. The phrase began circulating in the late 2000s, especially in parts of southern India, but it gained national traction after 2014, when Hindu nationalist politics moved decisively into the mainstream. It draws on older communal anxieties, particularly the trope of the vulnerable Hindu woman and the threatening Muslim man, a pairing that has long appeared in communal propaganda. The Hindi language used around the panic is telling: women are described as bhola-bhaala (innocent, easily misled), while alleged conspirators are framed as part of a sazish (plot).
Indian courts have consistently rejected the idea that such a conspiracy exists. Police investigations ordered by state governments and the Supreme Court have found no evidence of organised campaigns targeting Hindu women for conversion through romance. Interfaith relationships examined were overwhelmingly consensual and adult. Yet in recent years, the myth has been translated into law. Several Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, have passed so-called “anti-conversion” laws that implicitly target interfaith marriages. These laws often presume that conversion following marriage is suspicious, require couples to notify authorities in advance, and allow third parties—including family members or self-appointed activists—to lodge complaints.
The legal fallout has been uneven but revealing. In Madhya Pradesh, where authorities registered hundreds of cases under the state’s anti-conversion statute, recent reporting shows that a significant share—about 58 per cent—of defendants were acquitted after prolonged legal battles, with only a handful of convictions nationwide. These statistics suggest that courts are often unable to substantiate charges of coerced conversion, even as prosecutions drag on for years, leaving accused individuals in limbo and families in conflict. The high acquittal rate also highlights how the legal process itself becomes a form of punishment: long investigations, public stigma, and invasive scrutiny that outlives the charges.
In Uttar Pradesh, the state most associated with aggressive enforcement of its anti-conversion law, the human toll has been stark. One high-profile case involved Muskan Jahan, a pregnant woman arrested alongside her partner under accusations of forced conversion. She later suffered a miscarriage while in custody, a development that drew widespread criticism from civil liberties advocates and highlighted how policing in the name of love jihad can have devastating consequences, particularly for women.
Farther east, the government of Assam has taken the legislative push even further. In late 2025, state leaders announced plans to expand anti-love jihad measures into a comprehensive package that would not only penalise accused men but also make it easier to arrest their parents and relatives. Critics argue that this approach crosses a line, punishing entire families for consensual relationships and chilling the freedom to marry across religious boundaries. Supporters, by contrast, frame the proposals as necessary to protect young women and preserve cultural values. The debate in Assam underscores a troubling trend: the legal net is widening in ways that potentially entangle not just couples but whole communities.
The gender implications of the love jihad discourse are stark. Feminist groups argue that the narrative reduces women to passive vessels of community honour, denying them agency over love, sex, marriage, and faith. The rhetoric echoes khap panchayat logic, where women crossing social boundaries are treated as threats to collective purity. In this framework, a woman’s choice is never simply her own; it belongs to her family, caste, and religion. The obsession with “saving” Hindu women masks a deeper discomfort with female autonomy, especially when it involves desire that crosses communal lines.
Muslim men, meanwhile, are criminalised by default. The stereotype of the manipulative seducer feeds Islamophobic attitudes and legitimises harassment, surveillance, and mob violence. Interfaith couples report being followed, interrogated by vigilante groups, or attacked in public spaces. Landlords refuse to rent to them, employers distance themselves, and hospitals hesitate to intervene in family disputes. What begins as a conspiracy theory ends up reshaping everyday life.
Politically, love jihad functions as a highly effective mobilising tool. It simplifies complex social realities into a binary of victim and enemy, reinforcing an “us versus them” narrative that plays well during elections. It also conveniently shifts attention away from issues like unemployment, women’s safety within communities, or declining marriage rates. By framing women’s choices as an external threat, political actors avoid addressing patriarchal norms at home.
Despite criticism from civil liberties groups and international observers, the narrative shows little sign of fading. On social media, hashtags and viral videos keep it alive, while selective policing gives it teeth. For many young Indians, falling in love across religious lines now carries legal and social risk.
In the end, love jihad is not about love, nor even about religion. It is about control: control over women’s bodies, over personal relationships, and over the boundaries of belonging. It is a myth that survives not because it is true, but because it is useful—and because its consequences are borne quietly by those with the least power to resist.
Spicy Auntie has always had a low tolerance for conspiracy theories. They are lazy stories for people who don’t want to deal with reality, a shortcut for minds that prefer fear over facts. But love jihad? This one deserves a special place in the Hall of Shame, because it is not just whispered on WhatsApp by uncles with too much time and too little curiosity. This one is repeated by ministers, weaponised by police, and written into law by people who know exactly what they are doing.
Let’s be clear, sisters and brothers. Love jihad is not about love. It is not about women’s safety. It is not even about religion. It is about power. It is about who gets to decide whom a woman can love, marry, sleep with, or pray with. And when those decisions are taken away from adult women in the name of “protection,” you are not looking at morality. You are looking at patriarchy in uniform.
What makes this conspiracy particularly despicable is that it comes from the top. When those in power repeat a lie long enough, it stops being a rumour and starts becoming policy. Police stations turn into relationship courts. Judges are asked to second-guess consent. Families are encouraged to spy on their daughters like unpaid informants. Suddenly, a wedding invitation becomes evidence, a pregnancy becomes suspicion, and a woman’s own voice becomes unreliable. “Are you sure?” they ask her. “Were you influenced?” Translation: We don’t trust you with your own life.
And then there is the cruelty. Men arrested first, questions later. Women “rescued” into confinement. Couples dragged through years of legal limbo only to be acquitted after their reputations are shredded and their futures put on hold. The acquittals are quiet. The arrests are loud. That imbalance is not an accident. The process itself is the punishment.
As for the political class, Auntie is not fooled. Screaming about love jihad is far easier than dealing with unemployment, inflation, or the very real violence women face inside their own homes and communities. It creates a convenient enemy and a comforting lie: that women are safe as long as they stay in line. Cross a boundary, fall in love with the “wrong” person, and suddenly the state remembers you exist.
The irony, of course, is delicious in the darkest possible way. The same people who shout about women being brainwashed have no problem brainwashing entire electorates. The same voices claiming to defend Hindu women seem deeply uncomfortable with Hindu women who think, choose, desire, and disobey.
So no, Auntie will not debate whether love jihad is real. It isn’t. What is real is the fear it creates, the lives it wrecks, and the freedom it quietly steals. And when a conspiracy theory becomes a governing principle, the problem is no longer ignorance. It is intent.