Under a Saffron Sky

Inside India's Crackdown on Love

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What does it take to convince millions that the enemy lives within? Two words: love jihad. With this simple idea, two ordinary human acts—love and marriage—have become national anxieties. The premise: Muslim men are seducing Hindu women to change India’s demography. People were told their love was an attack on civilization. Some believed it. Some didn’t care. Most loved anyway. Politicians found in this a remarkable economy—one term, and they had both a threat and a constituency.

Researching this book took Ismat Ara from Arya Samaj mandirs in East Delhi, police stations in Uttar Pradesh, and the small rented rooms where couples live like fugitives—and she realized she wasn’t just documenting interfaith couples. She was documenting a country at war with love. What struck her most was how women were erased from their own stories and Muslim men lived in fear of prison for falling in love.

Love Under a Saffron Sky offers no conclusions. It is a record of people who were told, by law and family and state and mob, that their love was a threat to civilization—and who loved anyway, based on the belief that love, even uncertain, was worth it.