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New Delhi, 22 June 2022
Hate Speeches
HALT MINORITY
VILIFICATION
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
Recent developments in the country have
generated a lot of controversy abroad and dented India’s secular credentials. A
prominent section within the BJP is raking up the controversy of temples
destroyed during the Mughal regime and both sides have gone to court in this
matter, specially relating to two mosques in Mathura and Kashi.
The vilification of Muslims at home under
Modi regime may have been glossed over in Islamic capitals, seen as being
driven by domestic compulsions. But the crass invective by BJP spokespersons
against Islam’s most revered figure, Prophet Muhammad, has sparked Muslim
outrage. Not just the Muslim world, but even the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation (OIC) has strongly condemned and denounced the recent denigration
of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) by an official of India’s ruling
party.“These cases of defamation are part of a growing spate of hatred and
defamation of Islam in India and systematic practices against Indian Muslims,”
the OIC General Secretariat stated in a statement.
In view of this, there is need to go a little
further than the trite line trotted out by India’s diplomatic missions that it
accords the highest respect to all religions. Far more imperative is the need
for the Prime Minister to realise that the risks not just jeopardising the
carefully crafted relationship he has built with leaders across West Asia but
also putting India’s vast diaspora in peril, both politically and economically.
One is reminded here that West Asia is home to about nine million Indian
expatriates, who account for 55 per cent of India’s remittances from abroad.
The controversy is likely to impact India’s strategic goals, including its oil
supplies and the free trade agreement.
Delving into the issue a little further, it
may be stated that hate speeches by elected representatives, political and
religious leaders, based on religion and caste bulldoze the constitutional
ethos and violate constitutional provisions and, therefore, warrant peremptory
action on the part of central and state governments, the Delhi High Court
stated a few days back. Justice Chandra Dhari Singh made these observations
while dismissing a petition challenging the trial court’s refusal to direct the
registration of an FIR against Union Minister, Anurag Thakur and his BJP
colleague and MP Pravesh Varma for their alleged hate speeches concerning the
anti-CAA protest at Shaheen Bagh at Delhi.
The High Court clearly pointed out that there
had been instances of hate speeches which led to demographic shifts in the
country in their aftermath and observed that mass leaders and those occupying
high offices must conduct themselves with utmost integrity and responsibility.
It further stated that it does not befit or behove the leaders to indulge in
acts or speeches that cause rifts among communities, create tensions and
disrupt the social fabric. The judge said elected leaders in a democracy owe
their responsibility not only to their electorate but also towards society
& nation as a whole.
It may be mentioned here that the most
oft-used sections of the IPC frame ‘hate speech’ as a solitary act of
deliberate outrage, or provocation, which might result in hurt sentiments, or
cause feelings of distrust amongst communities, or disrupt public order and
cause immediate violence. They do not regard ‘hate speech’ as systemic; a
concerted effort at blocking an entire people from social, economic and
political spaces that were earlier available to them so that it’s possible for
a people to find that not only are calls for their physical extermination being
made, but also that such calls are being intellectually justified as a ‘discourse’
with political and institutional acceptance, whether active or by silent
acquiescence.
Several international treaties, namely the
1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (ICERD) and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
prohibit the advocacy of hate, discrimination, hostility or violence. This is
also reflected in the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). Advocacy,
or promotion, implies the speaker intends to encourage these ideas.
Crucially, this means that a speaker who uses offensive language with other
intentions, for example, for satire, would not be recognised as advocating
hate. A speaker that is merely offensive without seeking to encourage hate in
others is also not generally recognised as a human rights violation without
other aggravating factors.
In a country as vast and populous as India,
whose population is 1.3 billion, the targeting of minorities has reached alarming
proportions. The actual numbers may seem small, as they are confined to double
digits per year. However, they still have a chilling effect. Each incident
forces the minority to further cower in fear while the perpetrators are
emboldened ever more. Taken together, these violent acts bolster an agenda
of majoritarianism that the ruling BJP and its ideological fountainhead, the
RSS, are pushing to impose on a country founded on the principle of unity in
diversity.
In recent years, the fundamentalist Hindutva
forces that believe in the primacy of Hindus in a nation with no less than 14
percent Muslim population are enjoying free reign and resorting to unsocial
behaviour. At the receiving end are not just Muslims, but anyone whose language
they deem does not have a place in the majority. Essentially, what is
under attack is anything Islamic. The targeting of racial minorities has
reached an undesirable level that no civil society can imagine and is now
taking more ominous tones, both physical and psychological.
One may refer to a recent book titled, Born
A Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India by Ghazala Wahab, a journalist,
who pointed out that India has been generally suspicious of the minority
community for many years. That suspicion has pushed members of this community
deeper into ghettos where they can fall under the influence of conservative
clerics who prey on their vulnerabilities. Without much hope for education,
prosperity and assimilation, the community drifts farther away from the mainstream
with the cultural divide widening and this has exactly that has happened in the
country.
The backwardness of Muslims resulted in their
conservatism growing while the Hindutva forces, aided by the party in power,
has been denigrating and vilifying the minority community only for electoral
gains. And with elections due again in several States next year, there is a
madness of vilifying Muslims. The so-called Hindu nationalism is just a ploy to
attract half educated Hindus, who believe more in superstition and religion
than getting economic benefits. In the present situation, the government is
banking on playing with religious sentiments to win majority votes as it has
failed miserably in the economic front as also provided poor governance to the
suffering masses.----INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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