'Love Jihad' vs 'Green Card' Nuptials

One of the new paranoias of this era has been the well-crafted worry of 'love jihad'. This term that sounds like an Elvis song - 'Viva Las Vegas' comes to mind - is, of course, the result of an inferiority complex that any experienced therapist can identify. That every Muslim man marrying a Hindu woman - as opposed to a man of any other religious dispensation marrying a Hindu woman - gets some folks agitated is, well, cute. The same folks, acting out as brand ambassadors of not so much of Hinduism but of marriage agents, get their nikah in a twist simply thinking about Indian Hindu-to-Indian Muslim conversions while not thinking twice about any other inter-religious marriages that may disrupt national integration. After all, 'green card-getters', or Indians becoming citizens of another country, can be considered a bigger 'loss' for god and country. But any inter-national 'conversion' is not seen as problematic. Just as well.

Does the worry of 'love jihad' suppose that (Hindu) women lack agency? Or, that they are, despite depictions of the fiesty Kangana Ranaut in Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, easily hypnotised by charismatic (Muslim) men? Surely, women, Hindu women to boot, are made of sterner stuff, official worries emanating from the Uttar Pradesh government and some other harried administrations notwithstanding.