Some of the last, extremely significant works of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian Neurologist and the ‘Father of Psychoanalysis’, strangely found the light of day amid a political upheaval in Europe with the rise of fascism.

In Freud’s path-breaking contributions-, as seen in his ‘Civilization and its Discontents’ (1930) and ‘Moses and Monotheism’-, the latter one his biographers and scholars say was published the year after Hitler invaded Austria and he was forced to flee and take refuge in England-, there was in him the lurking fear that extreme irrational tendencies galloping then would smash the ‘façade of civilization’.

Freud’s seminal ideas of Man’s psycho-social development shaped by a play of two different types of forces, ‘Eros’ (Love as expressing the positive, Life wish) and ‘Thantos (aggression and violence as manifesting the Death wish)’ partly explained how the instincts of ‘Nature’ were ultimately irreconcilable with the moral demands of ‘Culture’.

Freud died in September 1939, a few weeks after the Second World War broke out. The defeat of the ‘Axis powers’ that ended the war did not end ‘fascism’ eternally, as it keeps reappearing in different political forms. Had Freud been alive now, he would have revolted against the distorted narrative built by far-right wing groups over ‘Love Jihad’.

From a Freudian perspective, ‘Love Jihad’ would be a contradiction in terms, as ‘Love’ as a life-affirming force can hardly co-exist with ‘warfare’ as ‘Jihad’ is understood.

Compounding these two irreconcilable concepts of ‘Love’ and ‘Jihad’ has ruefully been part of the right-wing discourse to target people of various religions, to stoke hate-campaigns. Recent developments in Kerala, Karnataka and in several north Indian states are a pointer to this.

While Christian religious leaders have been cautioning against Christian girls being “trapped in relationships with Muslim men”, some remarks by Bishop Mar Joseph Kallarangatt of the Pala diocese of the Syro Malabar Church that “Christian youth in Kerala” are now increasingly susceptible to both ‘Love Jihad’ and ‘Narcotic Jihad’, has given a shocking turn to the abusive narrative of ‘Love Jihad’.

This has led to huge counter-protests by Islamic Organisations in Kerala, who see it as a bid to create a rift among various religious communities in the southern state known for its communal harmony and secularism for centuries.

Though latest reports from Kerala say that following ‘massive protests by the Muslims’ the diocese of Thamarassery has apologized for the bishop’s uncalled for remarks, and explained that their intention was only to keep the Christian faith among the youth and protect Christian women, the verbal war prompted the Kerala Chief Minister, Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan to do some fire-fighting. “Kerala has a tradition of secularism and brotherhood. There are some attempts from some quarters to destroy this. There will be stringent action against them,” Pinarayi Vijayan warned in a statement.

Equally significant is the Jesuit priest-cumhuman-rights activist Fr. Cedric Prakash, in an open letter warning the bishops against the very structure of the language of ‘Love Jihad’, worse extending it to ‘Narcotics Jihad’. He argued that by adding to that narrative endorsed by Hindu right-wing groups for long, the bishops would precisely “fall into the trap” of the Sangh Parivar forces

Nonetheless, as pointed out in an article in ‘OpIndia’- a News and Current Affairs website-, the Church in Kerala in the last few months had been “warning Christian families against various ‘groups’ trying to trap young girls from their community’ and the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) having expressed its resentment against both the State and Union Governments for not “conducting a proper probe into the case of missing women and children.”

INTERFAITH MARRIAGES

Attempts by several dioceses in Kerala to raise awareness about ‘different kinds of Jihads’ are being met “with severe backlash and resistance”, the website contends. But there are significant gains too in this dicey landscape, to reimagine a coursecorrection, going by the Gujarat High Court’s interim order on August 19, 2021, which stayed certain amendments made to the ‘Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act, 2021’. The Court said, they “will not apply to Interfaith marriages which take place without force, allurement or fraudulent means.”

The Gujarat High Court’s order has huge significance for basic freedoms, with the BJP ruled States including Uttar Pradesh coming up with legislations to “restrain the conversion of Hindu girls to Islam or Christianity after marriages”, citing alleged ‘Love Jihad’. “We want the entire anticonversion law should be struck down as antiConstitutional,” Fr. Cedric Prakash was quoted as having said in response to the Court order, adding, “A State cannot dictate whom to marry or which religion to profess.” India’s secular fabric needs to be protected.

The larger conceptual-legal issue is people being able to see through the lack of any substance in dangerously contrived notions like ‘Love Jihad’. A closer reading of Sigmund Freud would show that he does not conflate the ‘Eros (Life Wish) and ‘Thantos (Death Wish), as today’s right-wingers do.

In fact, as Freudians would emphasize, no civilization is free of discontent. There are always opposing intra-religious and inter-religious customs and norms. In seeing ‘civilizations’ as a product of a series of ‘repressive burdens’ and ‘sublimated love for humankind’, Freud was offering a realistic way out to nurture humanity through ‘Love’, not chasing illusions that can offer no hope of reconciling ‘Nature’ with ‘Culture’.

In Freudian psycho-analysis, a patient is cured of his neurosis by just making him aware, through ‘free association’, of the ‘wishes’ he has tried to ‘repress’ through ‘defense mechanisms’. Being aware of the root cause of the malaise is itself the cure, giving birth to true love for humanity at large, or what Freud would call ‘sublimated love for humankind’.

A better reading of the seminal works of Sigmund Freud could in fact help people to become free of the prejudices that seek to use contrived conceptualpolitical tools like ‘Love Jihad’ to accentuate religious differences and promote hatred. Freud is often accused of being a reductionist, but the deeper wisdom and the therapeutic value of his works should help us overcome both the ‘Id (the storehouse of unconscious instincts)’ and the ‘Ego’ that seeks to rule it.