12 februAry 2018 http://www.openthemagazine.com 53
tongue. She did not wear a bindi and did not tie her hair. She sulked
in the beginning but slowly warmed to us,” says S Sushila, the
wife of the caretaker at the ashram, which shelters rescued cows
and destitute women. The ashram feels like an interstitial space,
with a living room that is bare but for a TV, a kitchen and small
rooms on either side of a corridor. Two fierce dogs bark away in
the yard, tugging at their chains. The handful of residents pause
in their chores—washing, cooking, cleaning—and smile oblig-
ingly at whoever crosses over into their world. Lakshmi Bhat, the
63-year-old silver-haired warden, says they only had one case of
love jihad. “We don’t normally shelter such victims,” she says.
Surekha Raj, 45, a senior Durga Vahini member who was asked
to handle the case, says the victim is repentant but the family is
still in shock. Raj, a school principal, has keen, suspicious eyes.
After a brief interrogation about the purpose of our meeting—at
an old cafe in the heart of Mangaluru—she talks to Open about the
importance of involving women in Hindutva activities, which
until some years ago were a male preserve. “These days, we are
brought in to help with every single case of love jihad. We know
how sensitive the issue can be for the girl and the family—it’s a
question of their honour,” she says.
“We try to nip it in the bud,” says Ramesh Shetty, 38, a mechan-
ic who joined the Dal 15 years ago. “If a Hindu girl and a Muslim
boy are hanging out in college, we follow them for three months
or so to make sure it is not the start of a relationship. Then we issue
a stern warning.” Shetty and some of his friends meet us at the
Bajpe bus stop, 10 km north of Mangaluru, and decide to move
the conversation to the local BJP office, a tiny room with a shutter.
Here, they talk about reprimanding ‘suspicious’ Muslim men and
watching over Hindu girls lest they fall prey to cheats and terror-
ists looking to convert them. “We have no fear. We thrive on dan-
ger,” says a young man with a sharply styled beard who specialises
in catching cow thieves, even sleeping at bus stops to intercept
them in the dead of the night. The men of the Dal spend their
evenings playing kabaddi and trawling through social media.
Many of them lead hardscrabble
lives, working as mechanics, ma-
sons and daily wagers. What brings
them together is a common hostil-
ity towards Muslims. “They tempt
poor girls with money, as in Priyan-
ka’s case. (Priyanka’s family says
she received over Rs 1 lakh in her
bank account.) They also lure rich
Hindu girls like Reshma by seduc-
ing them—the boy she eloped with
was dirt poor and took her to live in
a slum,” says Shetty, venturing the
usual hypotheses of sponsored ter-
rorism and abusive domestic life in
interfaith relationships.
Earlier this year, Dhanyashree,
a 20-year-old from Chikmagalur,
committed suicide after being
hounded by the Dal for an alleged
relationship with a Muslim. Two
other young women, Madhuri
Bolar and Bharathi Prashant, both
from Dakshina Kannada, have
since complained of harrassment at
the hands of Hindutva elements on
social media for being friends with
Muslims. Nearly a year ago, Bolar
and Hamza Kinya, members of the
Students Federation of India (SFI),
boarded a Ganesh Travels sleeper
bus to Gangavathi in Koppal district to attend an SFI state confer-
ence. They took a selfie with other SFI members, posted it on Face-
book and forgot all about it until the picture resurfaced this year on
Hindutva social media groups, urging Hindu youth to take action
against Kinya, 24, a kabaddi player and state-level referee, for ‘roam-
ing with Hindu girls’. Bolar, an MCom student, filed a complaint
with the Cyber Crime Cell of the Mangaluru Police. “Both Hindu
and Muslim outfits have made life hell for youth in Mangaluru,”
says Kinya, who now works as a copy editor for a media house in
Bangalore. Kinya subsequently deleted pictures of women from
his social media accounts.“I cannot let Hindutva activists question her or
marry her off, not yet. I have worked hard to gain her
trust. I cannot let her down now”
vidya gowri
counsellor to Priyanka Bhandary, an alleged victim of love jihad