Kerala CPI(M) leader and former legislator from Thiruvambady George M Thomas has been ‘publicly censured’ by the party after his controversial comment that 'love jihad' exists in the state. He said this in an interview to Asianet News, on April 12, while speaking about an interfaith marriage in Kerala between a DYFI activist hailing from Muslim community and a Christian woman. ‘Public Censure’ is the third disciplinary action listed in the CPI(M) constitution, preceded by warning and censure.
"Love-jihad" is a conspiracy theory spread by certain Hindu and Christian groups in Kerala claiming that Muslim men deliberately marry Hindu women to convert them to Islam or join terrorist groups. Joisna Mary Joseph, a Christian woman in Kerala, married Shejin, a local leader of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and CPI(M) local committee member by exchanging garlands and filed for marriage registration on April 12. Days before that, her parents had filed a missing persons police complaint.
CPI(M) Kozhikode district secretariat member George M Thomas claimed that the party will take action against Shejin for disrupting the communal harmony between Muslims and Christians. “If they were in love, Shejin should have informed the party, but he did not do so and eloped with her, which might disturb the communal harmony,” he said. When the question of ‘love jihad’ was raised to him, he claimed that it “existed in party documents” and that “love jihad happens”. “There is no argument that the term was coined by RSS. But we cannot say that such incidents never happened in Kerala,” he said and added that ‘educated women in professional colleges and institutions are attacked by these things - love jihad or whatever’.
The Kozhikode district committee of the party which met on Wednesday, April 20, decided to go ahead with disciplinary action against him. CPI(M) Kozhikode district secretary P Mohanan said, “George M Thomas’s comment was completely contradictory to the party’s stand. He also immediately admitted his mistake and tendered an apology to the party and apologised via media also. The party took all this into consideration. But party members must be upholding the values and beliefs of the party while they make comments. In this case, the comment was made public, and despite apologising, the district committee decided to publicly censure him,” he said.
George had earlier retracted his statement and said that it was “a mistake.”
“I said the term love jihad was not ours, it was coined by RSS. There are meanings to the word jihad and it is being tied up with love jihad by BJP. How will I say that love jihad exists here after the CM had said otherwise? But the interview came out in such a way that it was misrepresented,” he claimed and added that no instance of love jihad found in Kerala.
The Kerala High Court, on April 19, said that Joisna was a woman capable of making her own decisions. The court made the observation while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by her father Joseph who wanted her to return home.