Murder of unborn muslim children, sale of muslim women-with your approval.
Do you remember how multiple cases of Hindu sentiments being hurt made the news, almost simultaneously? Allegations of hurting Hindu sentiments were made against the entire crew of a certain drama series telecast on an OTT platform. In another instance, a Muslim comedian was put behind bars, along with his friends, for jokes he claimed he had never made in the first place.
A court in Uttar Pradesh denied anticipatory bail to the officials of the OTT platform in question. Bail to the comic was also denied for over one month and was finally granted by the Supreme Court. “You should not hurt religious sentiments” was the passionate argument made, not only by those denying bail, but also by those who appeared on debates on social media platforms, television channels and more. Those of us who said that only speech which incites violence should be grounds for invoking the wrath of the criminal justice machinery, were dismissed. Appeal to the fundamental right of speech under the Constitution were rejected vehemently.
I was reminded of all this when I witnessed two things. First, an ‘app’ on the web hosting service GitHub, which ‘auctioned’ unsuspecting Muslim women — took their pictures and shared other information also. A FIR has been registered by the Delhi Police after days upon days of outrage on social media and after Shashi Tharoor, who leads the Parliamentary Committee on IT, said that he will take this up in the committee. No arrests have been made.
Second, a video of a man, alleged to be the same guy who brandished a gun and shot at a student outside Jamia last year, has gone viral. Addressing a large crowd in Haryana, a BJP ruled state, and sharing the stage with at least one BJP spokesperson (Suraj Pal Amu), the man can be seen making speeches saying that ‘they’ will murder Muslims and chant lord Ram’s name. He also asks the crowd to kidnap Muslim women. He says that forget children, even unborn children will not be spared.
Screenshots of his Instagram profile have also gone viral, in which there are photographs of overturned cars, and wounded, bleeding men, around which this gentleman is standing and boasting that it is he who has done the damage for the cause of ‘gau-raksha’. After anguished protests on social media — largely by Muslims — the man has shared one more video claiming that he stands by his statements and repeats one of them again: He will kill Muslims and chant lord Ram’s name. He refers to himself by the moniker ‘Godse 2.0’. A report on Scroll.com claims that this man claimed in a Facebook post that he has been honored by a Union minister in the current government also.
I am refraining from sharing his name because there is some confusion about his age, some allege that he is less than 18 years old, even as he himself claims in videos that he is 19.
Now you may say that the instances that I began this piece with, and these incidents cannot be compared because in the former, it was a deity who was being maligned. To this I have two things to say. First, Muslim women, Muslim unborn children and Muslims in general are being targeted in the incidents that have happened this week. A religion is being targeted.
Leave aside for a moment that the app in question and the utterances of the gentleman inciting violence are crimes under the Indian Penal Code. Leave aside the fact that India’s Constitution does not offer these acts any protection whatsoever. I say leave aside because I want to talk about social sanction here. So, not only are ‘Islam’ and Muslims being targeted, but lord Ram is also being targeted because his name is being joined with the murder of innocents — even unborn children.
Are Hindu sentiments not hurt when the name of a Hindu god is used by a criminal and maligned in this manner? If they aren’t, why is that the case? Does Hindu society approve of these instances? The fact that we live in a country where Muslim women are offered on auction, a man accompanied by a spokesperson of the ruling party, says kill unborn Muslim children in the name of a Hindu god and all of us proceed undisturbed — what does this tell us about India, Indians, law and order and even Hinduism?
If you feel, for even a moment, that for some reason the two incidents I discuss target individuals and do not hurt religious sentiments, I request you to do a simple exercise. Imagine if the same was being done for the religion you belong to, would you have felt the same?
The man is on video after all. What is it about our society, our governance and those we have elected, that such individuals are not arrested with half the urgency that the Muslim comic was arrested with, for words he never spoke and for words which, even if spoken, did not contain any call to violence?
Are we a country and a society which is fine with calls for women to be kidnapped and sold, and unborn children be murdered as long as these children and women don’t belong to the majority religion?
What should we see when we look in the mirror?