52 12 februAry 2018whence he keeps track of an army
of moral conquistadors lurking at
every street corner, college, mall and
bar, living out their lives in head-
lines. His company, Eshwari Man-
power Services, is in the business
of ‘placing’ men as security person-
nel in the city’s public spaces. “The
autowallahs, students and youth of
Mangaluru are our eyes and ears.
They report suspicious incidents
to us and we immediately mobilise
and take action,” Pumpwell says.
His energies, he says, are increas-
ingly spent on ‘love jihad’ cases,
which seem to set off an unrivalled
surge of emotion among cadres—at
least 3,000 in Mangaluru city alone.
Here, as in parts of Kerala, a
Hindu woman marrying, eloping
with or dating a Muslim can spark
the savage indignation of Hindu
outfits, especially the Bajrang
Dal, resulting in murder, suicide,
forced separation, reconversion
or remarriage. Such cases not only
stoke the Dal’s Hindu pride, but
also help to shore up its machismo
and to exert a proprietary hold
over women, who are painted as
damsels in distress or as wayward brats in need of chastising.
On December 29th, 2017, Pumpwell shot off a letter to India’s
Defence Minister asking for an NIA inquiry into two recent cases
of so-called ‘love jihad’ from Mangaluru. The petition solicitously
mentions 26-year-old Priyanka Bhandary, a bride-to-be who eloped
with her Muslim lover days before her marriage to another in De-
cember, and 23-year-old Reshma VK, the daughter of a business-
man in Mangaluru whose whereabouts were traced to Mankhurd
in Mumbai where she had been living with her Muslim husband
for some months. Both women have since been retrieved by the Ba-
jrang Dal’s efficient network of footsoldiers and kept in makeshift
internment camps charged with the stale odour of propaganda.
P
RIyANKA, A RESIDENT of Daregudde near Belvai,
about 50 km northeast of Mangaluru, allegedly fled with
her boyfriend Hyder on the night of December 8th, the day of
her mehendi, with gold and valuables after plying her family with
sedative-laced drinks. The resolute workers of the Bajrang Dal
and Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of the VHP, swooped down
and convinced the family to file a case against Priyanka so that
the police would have reason to detain her. Arrested, abandoned
by Hyder, and worn down by the indignity of prison, Priyanka
couldn’t have been lonelier. Even as her family shirked contact
with her, a trained counsellor with tenuous Hindutva links took
over, moving her to a facility that allowed no one but her and an-
other guardian to talk to the crestfallen victim. The hindutva
brigade, denied direct access to her for the time being, has its ear
to the door to ensure she emerges a changed woman. “We cannot
afford to let even one of our women go to the Muslim fold,” says
Shenava, adding that the Dal’s handling of Priyanka and Reshma
could become model cases for Hindutva activists. “We invited
proposals from Hindu men for both the girls and we have received
an overwhelming number of offers. We are considering a few,” he
says. In many cases, when an ignominious daughter returns, the
family, having lost face in society, prefers not to associate with her,
leaving her no choice but to turn to the Hindutva warriors who
orchestrated her ‘rescue’. In Reshma’s case, she was kidnapped
from her husband’s house in Mumbai by Dal workers, who then
‘counselled’ her overnight about the error of her ways. She then
told the Mumbai High Court that she had come home of her own
accord and wanted to live with her parents.
In December, Hindutva activists had pressured another young
woman from Mangaluru to leave her Muslim boyfriend after
accusing him of being a drug peddler. The teenager, a rebel by all
accounts, spent a few days along with her mother at the Govani-
tashraya Ashram in Phajeer, run by a trust that is not affiliated
to the Bajrang Dal or VHP. “She had tattoos and a piercing on herdispatch
“I’ve been following 20 cases of love jihad based on leads
from facebook alone. We work closely with families, because
that is the most honourable way to end this social evil”
rajaSeKharananda Swami
head of Vajradehi Math in Phajeer near Mangaluru