The All India Student’s Association (AISA) has planned to a counter-campaign against Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) proposed campaign targeting ‘love jihad’ and live-in relationships. Sunny Kumar, AISA Delhi State Secretary, informed that the campaign will be launched “soon”. – Editor

The All India Student’s Association (AISA) will soon be launching a counter-campaign against the ABVP’s proposed campaign targeting ‘love jihad’ and live-in relationships. “It is a shame that in the name of ‘women’s safety’, the ABVP is openly proposing to form vigilante groups, which will crackdown on consensual relations between adults. This sort of policing and criminalizing of consensual relationships is completely unacceptable”, said Sunny Kumar, AISA Delhi Secretary.

In the recently conducted by-poll elections in Uttar Pradesh, the RSS-BJP ran a vicious campaign led by Yogi Adityanath against the so-called ‘love jihad’. Moreover, in September, at a 2-day meeting held in Lucknow, the ABVP declared that it would hold a sustained national campaign against ‘live-in relationships’ and ‘love jihad’. The ABVP is in fact openly declaring ‘love jihad’ as a “conspiracy” in the name of love. “This campaign is clearly intended to terrorise and intimidate all those who enter into consensual interreligious relationships. The ABVP, by claiming that Muslim men falling in love with Hindu women are similar to terrorists, is opening the doors to a dangerous campaign of policing consensual relationships”, said Sucheta De, AISA national President.

The ABVP’s campaign against live-in relationships is also a completely uncalled intrusion into people’s personal lives, decisions and relationships. “The bogey of women’s safety has frequently been used as a justification to curb women’s freedom. ABVP’s proposed campaign is the latest in this attempt to police women and their decisions in the name of their safety. It is high time we reclaim people’s agency and freedom and collectively reject all such moves of policing”, added Sucheta.

AISA will be organizing sustained programmes in Delhi University, JNU as well as Jamia to counter ABVP’s campaign against ‘love jihad’ and live-in relationships. Women’s freedom can be ensured only through women’s freedom and equality bhi and respect for their agency, not through such dangerous campaigns that aim to criminalise consensual relationships and spread communal hatred in the name of women’s safety.