Threats To Communal Harmony In 2019
Teesta Setalvad
Kerala, Bengal, nor for that matter no part of India are new to the politics of hate. How certain words are used, derogatory terms legitimised, and then subtly or not so subtly the ‘othering’ is collectively given an ideological hue to create a climate that can easily enable incitement to targeted violence. If Islamophobia on a world scale finds legitimisation within Indian soil, thanks to the bigoted ideology that rules us, anti-Christian bile is also special to this potent mix.
In lectures with students of law and journalism, I devote several hours and chapters in elaborating this phenomenon: a disturbing trend that has exposed the dark underbelly of India (communalism and caste hatred not to mention misogyny), that has drawn the attention of judicial commissions who have sat on brute bouts of communal violence, deeply troubled that conscientious policeman(or woman) who is wedded to the Constitution and not the government in power (a la RB Sreekumar from Gujarat or Vibhuti Narain Rai of ‘Hashimpura’ shame). It is systemic and inciteful hate speech and writing that precedes bouts of communal pogroms and violence. We have laws against it but these are rarely used and our Courts have been wary of nipping this poisonous bud.
CJP has over the years launched campaigns against Hate Speech and is on the verge of launching a Hate Hatao App.We urge readers to join our mission in deepening human rights by enrolling as a Friend of CJP (https://cjp.org.in/friend/). Our legacy informs our work today
India has too often experienced the dangers of communalism, and the resultant hate that frequently arises from it. Following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, communal riots set Bombay aflame. Twenty-five years later, last year, on December 6, 2017, CJP, along with more than 30 prominent Indians from all walks of life filed a petition in the Supreme Court to intervene in the Ayodhya dispute, with the belief that the case is not a property dispute, nor a Hindu vs. Muslim issue, but one that affects the very soul of India.
We believe it is crucial to build a band of committed citizens willing to stand up against inciteful speech. Earlier this year, CJP stood up against the communal Rath Yatra that was mounted by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates in February, even as the Supreme Court was hearing the Ayodhya dispute case. Now Bengal is the next target.
Unfortunately, given India’s current socio-political landscape, hate speech, and the callous disregard for its potential for provoking violence, seems to abound. In April 2018, the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), released a report listing the MPs and MLAs who had cases of hate speech filed against them. Notably, most of the lawmakers were from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): 10 out of the 15 MPs the report highlighted were from the BJP, while this was the case for 27 out of the 43 MLAs that were singled out.
In June 2018, CJP’s Hate Watch wrote about how a BJP youth page spread false news about Kashmiri Opposition leader Omar Abdullah ending the annual Amarnath Yatra, a symbol of syncretism and Kashmiriyat that bridges the communal gap. This propaganda was later exposed as a hoax. Following this, another page responded with Facebook Live broadcast by T. Raja Singh, a BJP Telangana MLA who serves as the party whip for Telangana.
We track the social media and tell our readers and band of supporters how the right wing works, breeding hate. Take the case of Deepak Sharma, closely associated with the right-wing. We found multiple videos of him, not removed by Facebook. So should we not together launch a movement against the inciters of hate and harmony?
Combating hate is not solely the job of activists and the media; ordinary citizens can and should take steps to fight it. Any citizen can take legal action against hate speech by filing an FIR under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The first step towards acting on hate speech is to be alert in order to monitor/ tape/video–tape the entire text of such a speech. Sections 153A and 153B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) oblige the state to prosecute those guilty of such violations. Section 295 of the CrPC is also a section that can be invoked whenever there are deliberate attempts to disrupt communal harmony. CJP urges you to take steps to fight hate speech, to ensure more peaceful dialogue. For more about registering a complaint over hate speech, and for a format for such a complaint, go here.
India, digital space and hate: India is one of the fastest growing digital markets in the world today. With a population of 300 million Internet users, India is next only to China and the United States. It’s a well-known fact that a large number of Internet users in India come from the middle class and the upper classes, however the spread of cheap and affordable smartphones in recent years had broadened the base and now the digital media space is also available to rural populations. Far from being a unilateral play-field, hate speech has had a “chequered course of protection and restriction both within the domain of state sanctioned institutions and the broader social field.”
Proponents of right-wing ideology relying upon religious supremacism, and advocating the cause of a Hindu rashtra have figured prominently is a culture increasingly moving towards abuse and hate. Acrimonious and scathing messages against Muslims and Christians, laced with hyper-masculinist gendered rhetoric has often been used to insult, hurt and give calls for major violence in order to ‘protect and save’ the majoritarian community. Such people even have condemned the cause of secularism and have often resorted to accusing intellectuals and activists with liberal ideologies as “appeasing” the minority community.
Agenda of the Far Right
A sinister agenda is afoot with the far right to swing the public mood away from concerns and anger about absence of jobs, hunger, starvation, a flailing economy. No wonder then that talks of ‘Ram temple at Ayodhya’ are being heard. As sinister or more is the plans to table and try to push through a manipulated Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC report) on the Citizenship Bill –amendments proposed to Indian law. The functioning of the JPC has been tardy.tardy, even selective manner of functioning of the Committee is a matter of concern. For three years since its constitution, this Committee on the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, never took the task seriously despite the fact that it was constituted on an all important issue. Mohammad Salim, ML Lok Sabha of the CPI-M was a vocal member, now a dissenter. Discussions with stakeholders have been reduced to a complete farce. The states of West Bengal. Tripura, Jharkand, Orissa, Andamans were never visited.
Indian Citizenship is a fundamental right and premise drawn from India’s Constitution that is republican and secular. Indian Citizenship is based on the Fundamental Premise of Equality of All regardless of Gender, Caste, Class, Community, Region or Language, principles enshrined in the Preamble, Citizenship Provisions (Articles 5 to 11) and the Fundamental Rights.
Besides the guiding principle of India has been the Principle of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Sanskrit: वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्) that has meant that all persecuted peoples, be it Jews, Yemenese, Parsees (Zorastrians), Iranians, Afganis, Tibetans, Bangladeshis have all found home here. The phrase appears in Maha Upanishad and is engraved at the entrance hall of the parliament of India.
The sinister ideology behind the proposed Bill as it Stands shows that these Fundamentals are attempted to being changed without dialogue and debate. This actually meets the Ideological Persuasion of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that regards this move as “the Unfinished Agenda of Partition.” India and the Sub-Continent has already lived through one holocaust caused by religious divisions. This will create again the potential of several mini-holocausts of the kind Nellie, Assam has seen in 1983 and other parts of India have also witnessed.
The proposed Amendments extending an open invitation to all Hindus from persecuted neighbouring countries and the underlying threat is that it is Muslims who have migrated or entered from these countries can be sent off, or reduced to pathetic conditions in Detention Camps or face inhuman Foreigners Tribunals that are not functioning professionally.
The government has argued that the bill is intended for those fleeing persecution and is not for economic migrants seeking a better deal. The Bill proposes citizenship to six persecuted minorities — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India before 2014. Dissenting Opposition members have argued for the inclusion of all refugees and persecuted persons whether from the above mentioned countries or even ‘Sri Lanka or Myanmaar.’
The implications of the committee having cleared an amendment moved by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi seeking to drop legal proceedings against six persecuted minorities, is potentially disastrous and discriminatory. The amendment, if accepted, could mean that Bangladeshi Hindus lodged in detention centres in Assam, facing deportation or declared illegal foreigners would get relief while their compatriots, simply because they are Muslims, would face hardships and persecution.
In fact the proposed Bill will ensure complete institutionalised incarceration and persecution of the Rohingyas facing acute persecution from Myanmaar and not being offered any succour even by Bangladesh. This essentially means that, while non-Muslim migrants become eligible for Indian citizenship, Muslims are denied this right.
There has been a strong resistance to the Bill in the BJP-ruled Assam as it would pave the way for giving citizenship, mostly to illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, who came to Assam after March 1971, in violation of the agreement in the Assam Accord of 1985. The BJP government in Assam is fiercely opposed to the Bill. The BJP’s ally Asom Gana Parishad too has been protesting against it and has threatened to walk out of the alliance if the Bill is passed.
Over 40 lakh people in Assam have been excluded from the final draft of the National Register of Citizens published in July 2018. Reports suggest that 33 lakh of those excluded have successfully re-applied. The underlying intent of the proposed Amendments is to ensure that those ‘Hindu Bengalis’ excluded from the NRC are proomised (whether or not this is eventually legally or Constitutionally valid) to be brought in through the Citizenship Bill Amendments. The socio-political outcome will be disastrous: People within Assamand Bengal if not elsehwere will be divided, again, between the ‘Hindu’ and the ‘Muslim.’
There is a deep-rooted contradiction in the bill as regards the terms of the Assam Accord — which calls for repatriation of all migrants irrespective of religion who arrived after March 24, 1971 — and this remains unresolved. The terms of the National Register of Citizens will exclude Hindus from Bangladesh, but they will be covered by the provisions of the bill.
For the present central leadership of the Bharaitya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), this basic alteration of Indian citizenship is in line with what they see as the unfinished business of the Partition. They believe that Indian citizenship laws should recognize a right of return for Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh to India, similar to the right of Jews to return to Israel, or of ethnic Germans to Germany.
The proposed Amendments will do nothing short of foment Political, Religion, Linguistic and Ethnic Divisions. Those of this dominating persuasion are unhappy with the Indian Constitution’s unequivocal rejection of the two-nation theory. Today, based on the fundamentals of equality and non-discrimination within the constitution, Indian law cannot distinguish between Hindu and Muslim arrivals from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The real purpose of the citizenship amendment bill seems to be to introduce this distinction into India’s citizenship laws.
The BJP’s 2014 manifesto rather crudely states that “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus, and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here.” Such a statement mimics the policy of only one other country, Israel—which sees itself as a sanctuary for Jews who are given an automatic right to enter the country and earn citizenship. In February 2014, Prime Minister Modi (then on an election campaign) infamously said, “We have a responsibility towards Hindus who are harassed and suffer in other countries. India is the only place for them.” Israel, it is well-known, has a dismal track record not just on the human rights of other peoples in general but of the Palestinians at the West Bank, in particular.
In the paragraphs preceding this ill-considered statement in its 2014 manifesto, the BJP praised its “NRIs, PIOs and professionals settled abroad” who are a “vast reservoir to articulate the national interests and affairs globally.” The hypocrisy is patent. These NRIs and PIOs are able to live in these countries because of the relatively liberal immigration policies of their countries of residence. The BJP’s concern, in its manifesto, is only for middle-class and upper-class professionals (they too, Hindu), and it provides no reassurances for the Indian workers across the world whose remittances support their families and Indian foreign exchange balances.
So today, in 2019, when India’s parliament seeks to fundamentally alter the very basis of Indian citizenship laws, and may even do this without honouring Indian federalism, the implications of the change are huge for the country and subcontinent. The Indian Constitution’s rejection of the two-nation theory is crucially important for the status of Indian Muslims as equal citizens.
The proposed amendments will impact not only the sense of security of Indian Muslims, but also the future security of Hindus in Bangladesh, and the credibility of India’s historical position on the Kashmir question. A hard national question across the political spectrum is in order. The implications of the bill are far more profound, ill-conceived and downright dangerous. They threaten the social fabric of India and the next election campaign of the shrill, far right will be modelled around the slogans ‘nation for Hindus’ and ‘ throw the infiltrators out.’ Apart from the unseen and unheard, poor and marginalised in Assam’s detention camps such a campaign has the potential of setting India aflame again. Will India’s opposition have the grit to take them on?
Teesta Setalvad is a journalist and founder of Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP).