Lucknow: Love jihad, land jihad and religious conversion will be back as a high-priority agenda of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is scheduled to convene its crucial meeting of the central management committee in Ayodhya on June 27 and 28.Sources said that the organisation is also expected to step up its demand to get the temples “liberated from govt control”. The meeting is scheduled to be attended by over 400 organisational functionaries of the VHP, including its national leaders and representatives from the 44 organisational prants.This is the second time in 34 years that this central apex committee meeting is being held in Ayodhya. The previous session occurred earlier around the historic Pran Pratishtha (consecration ceremony) of Ram Lalla in 2024.Holding the meeting in Ayodhya underscores the city’s continued importance as the ideological capital of the Hindu nationalist movement.With the Ram Temple transforming Ayodhya from a movement site into a symbol of achievement, the VHP has been seeking to use the city as a platform to shape the next phase of its agenda.VHP national spokesperson Vinod Bansal said that the organisation would take up various issues concerning the Hindu community, including the “menace” of religious conversion and love jihad.Experts said that issues like ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’ have been periodically resurfacing in political discourse and often resonate with the broader Hindutva ecosystem’s narrative of protecting Hindu identity and interests.The issue of “freeing of temples from govt control” has been advanced by right-wing groups, which claim that temples were being subject to state oversight in several states while institutions of other faiths enjoyed greater autonomy.Bansal said that the organisation would review its ongoing activities besides chalking out measures and programmes to bolster its presence across various states.He said that the VHP would also hold deliberations to mark the birth centenary celebrations of Ashok Singhal, the former international working president of the VHP and a key leader of the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi movement.Singhal’s birth centenary celebrations are scheduled to be held on Sept 27.The VHP will also discuss plans to organise functions to mark the 650th birth anniversary celebrations of Sant Ravi Das, the revered mystic poet-saint, social reformer and spiritual leader of the Bhakti movement in Northern India.By focusing on Sant Ravidas, an icon from a marginalised community who fiercely opposed caste-based discrimination, the VHP explicitly aims to bridge the caste divide besides reaching out to the Dalit community.
