In a recent chat with Filmfare, female actor Priyamani opened up about the hate and ‘love jihad’ campaign she and her husband Mustafa Raj faced for seven years after their interfaith marriage.
“When I announced my engagement, I just wanted to share this happy moment with people whom I honestly believed genuinely cared for me. However, I don’t know for what rhyme or reason, unnecessary hate started pouring in, and the Love Jihad accusations followed,” she revealed.
She recalled the accusations were extreme: “They even went to the extent of saying that, when we have kids tomorrow, they would join ISIS.”
Priyamani has been married for more than seven years to her long-time boyfriend, Mustafa Raj, an event manager-turned-movie director, with whom she tied the knot in a quiet and intimate ceremony in 2017.
The couple’s different religious backgrounds have been a topic of discussion since then, drawing hate and controversy, especially on social media, where they have faced hate campaign from Hindutva groups.
Sharing how hateful comments affected her mental and emotional well-being, Priyamani said, “I understand that since I belong to the media and the film industry, you can say what you want. But why do you want to attack somebody who is not at all? You don’t even know who that person is. It took a toll on me for 2-3 days because I kept getting a lot of messages. Even now, if I post something with him, nine out of ten comments will be about our religion or caste.”
“I figured out that there is no point in adding fuel to the fire. I don’t want to give importance to that person or let them have their one-minute fame. This is somebody who is sitting behind a computer or a phone, and all they do is post something in the hope that we would reply,” she added.
Her statement comes at a time when love jihad, an unproven conspiracy theory propagated by Hindu nationalists and far-right groups to accuse Muslim men of coercing Hindu women into conversion through marriage, has been increasingly used to fuel communal tensions and incite violence against Muslims in India.
