2024! Year that birthed several 'jihads' to demonise Muslims!!

New Delhi: In 2024, extreme right-wing organisations with Hindutva ideologies and affiliated to RSS had misused ‘Jihad’, a sacred term of Muslims, to vilify the community and fuel communal polarisation in India. As the year saw the major event of general elections, which brought back the BJP-led NDA government in the Centre, the term was used mostly. When ‘jihad’ means striving or struggling for truth, extremist groups from the mentioned sections invented numerous types of ‘jihad’, which have no basis in Islamic teachings but were used only for political manipulation, Clarion India writes.

The term ‘Love Jihad’ took traction in 2016, but the former Home Minister of the NDA government, Rajnath Singh himself, rejected calls it a conspiracy that such a term existed. He said so, citing an investigation report by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

However, 2024 witnessed the cropping of a new array of jihads, which are exaggerated and fabricated with the intention to malign and demonise the Muslim community in India. These include “Spit Jihad,” “Urine Jihad,” “Land Jihad,” vote jihad and many more.

Love Jihad is a claimed conspiracy in which Muslim men make relationships with Hindu women to convert them to Islam, though Islam does not condone forced conversions. Love Jihad is claimed in every Muslim-Hindu interfaith relationship, whether it is friendships or marriages. "Dharm Jihad" is a spin-off term for Love Jihad, where Hindutva groups claim that Muslim men trick Hindu women into conversion after marriage. Here, the claim is that the relationship or marriage itself is a deliberate ploy to convert the Hindu woman, Clarion India says.

After an incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, where a man was caught in video spitting on food while preparing it, the “Spit Jihad” surfaced. Hindutva organisations used the isolated incident to falsely imply that spitting on food is a habit of Muslims. “Urine Jihad” cropped up through a fabricated incident, also in Ghaziabad, where a Muslim shop owner allegedly urinated in juice containers. The right-wing groups used the incident to malign the entire Muslim community.

Another one is “Land Jihad”, using which they accuse Muslims of illegally occupying land in the country by building fake religious shrines. Private land disputes between individuals are wrongly dubbed as “Land Jihad” to spread misconceptions and fear. “Vote Jihad” arrived during the recent Maharashtra assembly elections, when the BJP accused Muslims of voting as a bloc to oppose the BJP. They presented the term as well as accompanied accusations portraying that Muslim votes are acting under some collective, coordinated effort to undermine the Hindu majority. Those who made the allegations on this line attempted to delegitimise Muslim participation in democracy, with some calling to strip Muslims of voting rights.

Last year, there was a series of rail accidents, and a political narrative emerged that Muslims are deliberately sabotaging railway tracks and called it “Rail Jihad”, Clarion India reports. False videos were promoted online to propagate this wrong idea, but after investigations and arrests, the term lost its relevance. “UPSC Jihad” originated when some people demanded UPSC exams be conducted in the Urdu language also. The language is mostly used by the Muslim community, and the controversial Hindutva priest Kalicharan Maharaj claimed that implementation of the language in UPSC exams will allow Muslims to dominate the exam process.

During the Hindu festival of Saavan, it was alleged that Muslim traders were instructed to display their names on shop signs, and that is when the term “Business Jihad” arose. The term was used, claiming that Muslims were deliberately trying to deceive Hindus by changing their names. The intent behind the propaganda is to economically boycott Muslim traders by labelling them as part of an anti-Hindu conspiracy.

Following the case of two men who were accused of attempting to infect a government employee’s family with tuberculosis bacteria, the “Biological Jihad” was coined, implying that Muslims are deliberately spreading diseases in society.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who holds a constitutional post, coined the term “Flood Jihad” when he blamed a Muslim-owned university in the state for causing flooding in Guwahati due to improper drainage systems. The accusation that the university’s location was responsible for the flooding has no base or evidence to support it.

BJP leaders invented the “Labour Jihad”, accusing the Jharkhand government of exploiting labourers from states like Odisha and Chhattisgarh for political gains.

The term “Population Jihad” is intended to claim that Muslims are deliberately increasing their numbers to dominate the Hindu population, citing that the Muslim population is growing in India while the Hindus’ is declining.

Misusing the sacred term “jihad” has been a tool for a long in sectarian politics, and the mentioned terms, which are linked with “jihad” above, are coined in a bid to polarise society and persecute and demonise Muslims in India.