Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which Hindutva’s Islamophobia in India is gendered, with a main focus on paternalistic ‘speaking for’ imagined Muslim women. It traces gendered Islamophobia in India whereby the demonisation of all Muslims is justified by Islamophobic Hindutva adherents in the name of ‘saving Muslim women from Muslim men’. We present three key spectres of Othering used by the Hindutva movement: Love jihad, the figure of the ‘overpopulating Muslim’ and the gendered sexualisation of Muslims. It elaborates on these and links them to governmental policies in India to demonstrate the impact of such discourse on the systematic oppression of Muslims. This is followed by a discussion on interrogating the theoretical rationales that are employed by the Hindutva movement and especially their concept of ‘modernity’. The concluding section highlights how Muslim women challenge, subvert and resist Islamophobia in India.