Speech as an Instrument of Hate

The coming to power of Narendra Modi was seen as an open license by the affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh to indulge in open hate speech against the religious minorities. The current agenda behind this hate speech is to polarize society along religious lines.

The well known case of MIM’s Akbaruddin Owaisis’ hate speech has been despicable and very rightly he was jailed for some time. The case against him should be pursued. At the same time what about the hate speech indulged in by the likes of Pravin Togadia, Subramanian Swamy, Giriraj Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Sadhvi Prachi, Sakshi Maharaj, Yogi Adityanath, Sanjay Raut and company?

There are many more indulging in divisive speech, looking upon the government as ‘theirs’. They are becoming more aggressive and vicious in their language. The hate speech against religious minorities has been stepped up.

Sakshi Maharaj not only said that Godse, the killer of Gandhi, was a patriot; he also went on to say that Hindu women should produce four children, as Muslims are overtaking the population. Sadhvi Prachi went to prescribe eight children for Hindu women. She also gave a call that Muslim film actors, Aamir Khan, Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan should be boycotted. Pravin Togadia is in the lead, he said that in ‘love jihad’ for every one Hindu girl converted, 100 Muslim girls should be converted to Hinduism. The propaganda around love jihad keeps simmering and various small and big leaders keep using it to divide the society. Adiyanath Yogi went on to say that Mosques should be converted into a den for pigs and that Muslims should not be allowed to come to Hindu holy places.

Two central ministers in the government, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Giriraj Singh made very insulting and humiliating remarks about non Hindus and the color of the skin of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Niranjan Jyoti stated that all those who are non Hindus are illegitimate, Haramzade. Giriraj Singh had earlier said that those not voting for Modi should go to Pakistan. Interestingly he said this before the elections and despite the controversy, he was inducted as a minister in the Modi government. Gopal Krishnan from Kerala, wrote in the RSS mouthpiece Kesari that Godse chose a wrong target in killing Gandhi, he should have killed Nehru instead.

Subramanian Swamy said that God lives in temples alone, not in mosques and Churches. These are few samples from what has been said, on a daily basis, for the last year. Fear and insecurity amongst the minorities is increasing as a result, more so as it is not being effectively countered. BJP ally Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut went to the extent of demanding that the voting rights of Muslims should be revoked.

‘Hate Speech’ in India often precedes communal violence. While BJP was on the upswing during the Ram Temple campaign, Sadhvi Ritambhara, was propped up for pravachans (religious discourses) by the RSS combine. She was attacking the minorities in harsh language, providing along with others the backdrop to the demolition of the Babri mosque.

One has been hearing similar things from many sadhus of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad,sundry members of communal gangs, Muslim communalists and the ilk of Togadia. There has been a more sophisticated presentation of similar formulations by many others. For instance Prime Minister Narendra Modi,indulged in divisive speech but kept reformulating it. For instance, when he said that post Gujarat refugee camps should be shut down as they have become factories for the production of children, he was reinforcing the propaganda about Muslims having more number of children.

In the wake of Mumbai riots Bal Thackeray had indulged in hate speech, inciting his Shiv Sainiks to undertake violence. He also got away with it due to clever way of putting his vitriol and due to the lack of adequate laws which can distinguish Hate speech from freedom of expression, between personal political opinion and painting the ‘other’ community in a negative light. Incidentally it is important to distinguish between criticism of a community and of a political outfit.While political organizations can and must be criticized, communities should not be humiliated or insulted. Also no political organization can be synonymous with a religious community, whatever its claims.

It is not only disturbing but totally against the values of our democratic society that such ‘hate other’ ideology and speeches have become a weapon in the hands of a type of politics, which thrives on exclusion, and identifies a particular religious community as synonymous with the nation state. Again this ‘hate speech’ is the language of a section of those who thrive on identity politics far away from the real issues of society. The ideology of religion based on nationalism is narrow and it excludes the ‘other’ from its notion of nationhood. These beliefs then get converted into Hate other, and later turn into ‘Hate speech’. This did form the basis of many a communal violence in the pre independence era that led to the Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan.