I don’t recall ever watching it but I do remember the brouhaha that erupted within the Jewish community when the short-lived TV sitcom “Bridget Loves Bernie” debuted in 1972.
Despite the show’s audience popularity it was cancelled after just one season because of the high-profile flak it drew from establishment American Jewish community leaders who objected to the show’s premise — an interfaith romance between Bridget, a Catholic, and Bernie, a Jew. (Neither of its stars, Meredith Baxter and David Birney, were Jews.)
Given the entertainment media’s level of religious, racial, and gender mixing and matching today, “Bridget and Bernie” probably strikes you as pretty tame. However, the show’s timing couldn’t have been worse; the American Jewish community was just starting to publicly debate, with alarm, its growing intermarriage rate.
Leading Orthodox, Conservative and even theologically liberal Reform rabbis lambasted the show as an insult to one of Judaism’s most sacrosanct values, marrying within the tribe, which was particularly strong in the decades after the Holocaust. Boycotts were organized and meetings were held with the TV execs who backed the show. The radical, and sometimes violent, Jewish Defense League issued threats.
Yet in the end, “Bridget Loves Bernie” turned out to be a Jewish-American harbinger. Today, an estimated 50 percent-plus of American Jews marry non-Jews, though it’s still relatively rare within traditionalist Orthodox circles..
But as scandalous as “Bridget Loves Bernie” was in its day, it pales in comparison to the controversy now engulfing the contemporary Indian TV drama “A Suitable Boy.”
That’s because the show — which became available to American audiences via the streaming service AcornTV today (Monday, Dec. 7) — features a love story between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman. For India’s fervent Hindu nationalist politicians, that constitutes “love jihad” — a calculated attack by Muslims on the nation’s Hindu heritage.
In India, “A Suitable Boy,” a BBC production, was broadcast by Netflix. And even though the platform has a relatively small subscription base there it was enough to create quite a stir.
Here’s the top of the New York Times piece that alerted me to this story just before Thanksgiving.
NEW DELHI — On television, Lata and Kabir are clandestine lovers thwarted by faith and history. She is Hindu and he a Muslim in India in the early 1950s, in the wake of bloody sectarian clashes that echo through the country to this day. At one point, in a secluded spot with a Hindu temple as the backdrop, the two young college students share a furtive but passionate kiss.
In the real world, that onscreen kiss has embroiled Netflix, the American streaming service, in the increasingly bitter and religiously charged world of Indian politics.
Members of the Hindu nationalist party that controls India’s central government have asked the authorities to investigate Netflix, calling the scene in the television series “A Suitable Boy” offensive to their beliefs. They have also called on Indians to boycott the streaming service.
“A Suitable Boy” is, however, just a small part of this story’s larger import, which is the growing antagonism between India’s Hindu majority and its Muslim minority.
Moreover, the degree to which “love jihad” actually exists, not to mention whether it’s in any way organized, is highly debatable. Critics of the Hindu nationalist party that currently governs India say it’s a ginned up threat that qualifies as fake news.
India, constitutionally a secular state, is home to about 1.4 billion people. Eighty percent are Hindus and about 15 percent are Muslims, giving India the world’s largest minority Muslim community of about 200 million. The rest are mostly Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis (Zoroastrians) and Jains.
India’s Hindu-Muslim conflict is a serious and growing problem. It’s not difficult, in my opinion, to see the government’s political hand as largely responsible.
News this past week of the first “love jihad” arrest is likely to further intensify the situation.
Ditto for reports that additional individual Indian states are planning to adopt anti “love jihad” laws, which so far require the accused to prove their innocence rather than legal authorities proving guilt. There have also been some calls that the laws be wielded retroactively. Just imagine the communal upheaval that could cause.
This Associated Press piece explains the political component. Here are some key paragraphs.
The decree for the state of Uttar Pradesh was passed Tuesday (Nov. 24) and follows a campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party against interfaith marriages. The party describes such marriages as “love jihad,” an unproven conspiracy theory used by its leaders and Hindu hard-line groups to accuse Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
Under the decree — which will become a law after its approval by the state’s governor, a formality — a couple belonging to two different religions will have to give two months’ notice to a district magistrate before getting married. The couple will be allowed to marry only if the official finds no objections …
Uttar Pradesh is the third Indian state ruled by Modi’s party after Haryana and Madhya Pradesh to approve such legislation to check what Hindu nationalist leaders call forced and unlawful religious conversions.
Earlier, the state’s top elected leader, Yogi Aditynatah, a Hindu monk, said at a public meeting that those waging “love jihad” should either refrain from it or be prepared to die.
The AP story noted that despite an absence of evidence that “love jihad” actually exists to any substantial degree, the issue “has gripped headlines and pitted Modi’s party leaders against secular activists.” It also said “many” Modi critics regard the unsubstantiated claims, which have been rejected by various Indian courts and investigative bodies, as part of an anti-Muslim agenda by Modi’s party.
The Washington Post has run at least two “love jihad” pieces in recent days. One was a news piece. The other was an opinion column.
Both agreed (the opinion essay flat out said it) that Hindu nationalist politicians were spinning the controversy to strengthen their base among conservative Hindu voters already fearful of Muslims demanding political equality. This CNN story and this CBS piece contain similar implications.
(An aside: While patriarchal Islamic religious custom traditionally allows men to marry non-Muslim woman with the expectation that any children will become Muslims, Muslim women generally are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men because of the expectation that the man’s religion will dominate.)
The more secular — and liberal — Indian media, as you might expect, has been most suspicious of the “love jihad” controversy.
The English-language Times of India, for example, published an opinion piece that said Indian celebrities and the nation’s financial and political elite have long embraced interfaith marriages.
The piece mentioned no less an Indian icon than Mahatma Gandhi as favoring interfaith marriages — whether between Muslims and Hindus or Hindus and members of other faith groups — as a way to unify India’s highly diverse population and to advance democracy.
When former Prime Minister Indira Nehru, a Hindu, married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi, Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said, “Such unions are bound to benefit society.” (The two Gandhis were unrelated.)
So what will it it be? Will Hindu nationalists eventually accept interfaith marriages, in particular those involving Muslim men and Hindu women? (Hindu women marrying Christians also ticks off the activists)
My bet is not anytime soon, if ever. India’s massive rural population (about two-thirds of the entire population) is poor, patriarchal and highly traditional in its religious and social outlook. This is way beyond “Bridget Loves Bernie” territory.
Which means look out for a good deal more “love jihad” coverage. Also, American religion journalists looking for a way into the story might check out the state of interfaith coupling among Indian Americans. Contacting Hindu temples is one way to start.