Incidents of hate propaganda, inciting violence should be met with full force of law
A recent convention of saffron-clad Hindu religious leaders and political activists in the holy city of Haridwar has put the country and its constitutional and religious values to great embarrassment. In a so-called Dharma Sansad, or a religious parliament, prominent individuals with a track record of provocative and provocative speeches made irresponsible calls for genocide against Muslims and asked Hindus to arm themselves. There were other objectionable themes running through the speeches, some of which have surfaced in the public domain in the form of video footage, indicating an alarming enthusiasm for spreading hatred for minorities and sensitizing them to armed violence. No deep knowledge of recent national history is needed to say that the genocide of the convention is the indifference to the divisive and communal tendencies that have been displayed with great impunity by Hindutva organizations in recent decades, but since 2014 more adventurous. Cleanliness drives like Myanmar, the threat of a ‘worse than 1857’ rebellion against the state if the outcome of the conference was not adopted as official policy, and the surprising claim by one speaker that he would have turned into a ‘Godse’ and a former The Prime Minister, if given a chance, shot him in Parliament, all these are signs of an organized attack against the rule of law and the Constitution. However, there is no reason to be surprised at the sharp reaction of Uttarakhand officials registered an FIR based on a single complaint, naming a person, that too, after much outrage and criticism.
A fabricated and constructed fear about the future of Hindus and Hinduism in India has been a hallmark of right-wing politics. The convention of religious leaders is providing an outlet for such paranoid ideas, and the belief with which the messages of hate are being bound reflects an expectation of official protection. People in high positions in power and government, especially the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister, should take a clear stand against it. The political leadership must categorically condemn this incident and affirm that it upholds the constitutional values of secularism, religious tolerance and protection of the rule of law. The police in Uttarakhand should act more vigorously and enforce all applicable provisions of law, and not be content with a single FIR under section 153A of the IPC, which deals with promoting enmity between groups. In a country where charges of ‘treason’ and ‘terrorism’ are made in a heartbeat, calls for rebellion and mass cleansing have not met the same response. It may be easy to dismiss the hate speeches in the ‘Parliament of Religion’ as representing only a fringe within the majority. However, given the predominance and frequency of these expressions in the public domain, it was only a matter of time before the phenomenon spread among the more liberal classes. Hate propaganda should not win.
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