Had the BJP acted early, the government could have avoided the issue of hate speech.
Had the BJP acted early, the government could have avoided the issue of hate speech.
Government’s decision to take a tough stand on hate speech targeting religious beliefsTo distance myself from the comments made by Two spokespersons of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and its emphasis on India’s traditional values of tolerance and respect for all religions is welcoming and reassuring to those within the country who are concerned about an increase in such speech. Rule BJP’s move to suspend spokespersons for comments made on a television channel and Twitter, respectively, is also a significant departure from the past, and would represent an inflection point in the debate on rising communalism, if it were not for two factors. first, that Government chose to respond to hate speech, targeting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, more than a week after these were first broadcast. Second, its responses, and the BJP’s actions, seem to follow statements made by foreign governments, beginning with Qatar, and then Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Jordan, Maldives as well as the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the powerful six-member Gulf Cooperation Council. However, the government continues to ignore Indian organizations and groups that have expressed concern about the statements made. It is possible that the government chose Qatar to respond more promptly as Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu was beginning a three-day visit to the country. It is also significant that the government was prompted to act with sensitivity in the matter, in contrast to the United States government’s response a week earlier to the release of a report on religious freedom in India, where it called for “vote banks”. America was slammed for playing “politics of”. Some concerns about a possible “street reaction” in West Asia, where more than eight million Indians live and work, may also have prompted the backlash, especially by social media users widely objectionable across the region. After sharing the comments.
Despite the argument, statements issued by the embassies in Doha and Kuwait, which said the government accords the highest respect to all religions “in line with the heritage of our civilization and the strong cultural traditions of unity in diversity”, reflected some introspection within the establishment. Is. And the ruling party, and the line drawn, should be followed by the whole society. There is a case for similar introspection within the media, particularly news television channels that turn prime time into a prize-fight, every evening verbally encouraging the most radical voices and explicitly extremist hate speech. encourage you to join. , While the right to freedom of expression should be upheld, and no one should be allowed to threaten violence, if the government had acted in accordance with the law, and addressed the issue immediately before it snowballed into an international incident Had it worked, the government would have avoided the whole controversy.