Crack down over hate talk, silence won’t do
The so-called “dharma sansad” or religious parliament, organised in the Hindu holy town of Haridwar earlier this month (December 17-19), by saffron-clad individuals purporting to be spiritual and religious authorities, will bring shame to this country on any forum in which the idea of democracy in any form is upheld. This is not on account of the event, whose fascist character is hard to play down, but on account of the total silence of the country's political executive to the repeated calls from the rostrum for the "genocide" of Muslims. The political executive of poll-bound Uttarakhand, where the venomous speeches were publicly made, has also been utterly silent.
This is not unexpected. In the political hierarchy of the BJP — the party which governs the country and Uttarakhand — the state leadership is the junior and will take its cue from authorities higher up at the Centre.
The “double engine ki sarkar” — meaning the rule of the saffron party in the state as well as the Centre — which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his top colleagues frequently extol and pitch for at election time, came on full display in the most perverse form imaginable. Yet, the higher echelons in the corridors of power in Delhi have remained silent. Since the top shots have taken the episode in their stride, it is not surprising that the Uttarakhand Police is moving at a snail's pace.
A FIR was lodged naming just one person although poisonous speeches were made by a string of individuals. A week on, two more names have evidently been added, probably under pressure. Retired service chiefs and senior armed forces veterans have expressed their horror and urged the civilian authorities to act, and effect arrest. Fifty Supreme Court lawyers have called on the Chief Justice of India to take matters in hand as the police have been tardy and showing little will to act. But investigation has moved very slowly, underlining the reluctance in the absence of a go-ahead from the political masters.
The section of the law on which the police is proceeding is for causing enmity and ill-will among communities, which in India has lately been a routine occurrence and can only be called anodyne in the present context. This is in sharp contrast with the routine framing of public-spirited and democraticminded citizens who dare to protest any aspect of governance by the Modi regime or a BJP-run state government.
Intellectuals, teachers, social activists, community workers, artists and even teenaged environment activists have been picked up under laws that deal with sedition and terrorism and allowed to languish in jail. In such cases, the higher judiciary — to say nothing of the lower tiers of judicial administration — have watched with disinterest. Therefore it is hard to predict how the judicial system will act in the Haridwar case.
What can safely be said is that the laxity shown by the authorities, and the absence of rebuke from the Prime Minister and his ebullient home minister have led to expectation of impunity in Hindu-supremacist circles. As a result “dharm sansads” and similar forums have been organised at other venues too, notably Delhi and Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Since the latter has a Congress government, police action has followed straightaway but we need to wait to see how the judiciary reacts.
If it’s going to be a catching disease and the highest constitutional authorities continue to remain quiet, this can only be seen as a silent dog-whistle. Calling for the genocide of an entire religious community, urging Hindu youth to turn terrorists, and even the implied threat of assassination of a former Prime Minister known for his probity and intellectual attainments, are new even for Modi's India in which many unspeakable things have happened.