UCLA Journal of Gender and Law

The humble aim of this Article is to provide a fresh analysis of recent legislative and jurisprudential developments relating to the so-called counterattack on love jihad through the lens of nationhood and the control and conquest of the female body. This Article argues that the instrumentalization of the Hindu woman’s marriage as the territory for Hindutva prosperity serves to cast out non-Hindu communities, notably Muslims, as non-Indian, while further entrenching the patriarchal notions of sexuality and paternalism that have enabled the enactment of anti-love jihad laws in the first place. The remainder of the Article is structured as follows. Part II provides a brief overview of the purported preoccupations behind the anti–love jihad campaign. Part III lays out notable legislative initiatives in India aiming to combat coerced conversion through marriage as a response to the love jihad conspiracy. It also highlights important ideological similarities between such laws and the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA). Part IV dissects the seminal Hadiya case, while setting out a feminist constitutionalist analysis of Justice Chandrachud’s, as he was then, judgment. Finally, Part V concludes the Article with the contention that more political and academic attention must be given to the politicization of women for supremacist goals in today’s India.