By Sharanya Gopinathan

So, what do you think 2,000 Hindu seers, heads of mutts and VHP leaders talk about when they get together for a meeting? Deep matters of spirituality and philosophy? The unknowable mysteries of karma and rebirth? Nope. Apparently, they fine-tune their plans to vengefully seduce women.

On Sunday, at a conclave of seers and VHP bigwigs in Udupi, Karnataka, a leader of the organization, simply identified as Gopal, told the assembled crowd that if Muslims don’t stop committing “love jihad”, the VHP would have to send Bajrang Dal groups to seduce Muslim women. Of course, it’s kind of amazing that this is a task the VHP has seen fit to delegate. It’s not every day that you have one group of people volunteering the romantic services of another. But then again, since the Bajrang Dal is the military youth wing of the VHP, perhaps these dear gents thought the task was more suited to young blood.

Gopal explained the seriousness of the crisis by explaining the depth of confusion that Hindu women are apparently experiencing right now. He said, “We are not opposed to love but our girls think Shah Rukh and Shirish are the same or Salman and Sunil are the same, but they don’t know that Hindu boys marry only once and the others will marry several times.” Gosh, what tumultuous times. Us poor girls seem to have none of the wisdom of these VHP men.

Given the Bajrang Dal’s yearly Valentine’s Day celebration of beating up or harassing young couples, we’re actually quite okay with the idea that seduction (which involves consent) is playing on their mind. As for their actual seduction success rates, given that it’s the Bajrang Dal we’re not at all optimistic, but we’ll just have to wait and see.