Are my religious sentiments hurt by alleged fact-checker Zubair tweeting a joke from a 1983 movie about “Hanuman” and “Honeymoon?” Or am I offended as a Hindu (and a Bengali, if that matters) by the now infamous Kaali poster and Mahua Moitra’s reaction to it? I refuse to say. Because how I feel personally does not matter.
What matters is whether there is even one individual somewhere whose religious sentiments have been hurt. Because in that case, I believe that those accused of causing offence should face the strictest possible legal action. Whether they should be in jail and for how long, or how many FIRs should be filed in how many states, is entirely up to the police and the courts. And that is happening already. You would not want me to comment on something that is sub-judice now, would you?
Oh, and do not bother me with questions about what if everyone filed FIRs for this or that. The legal precedent, the diplomatic precedent, and some would say even the street precedent has now been set in stone, and by the other side. You cheered for it. It is not my responsibility now to resolve the contradictions within your ideology.
So anyone who hurts sentiments anywhere must feel the full force of the Indian legal system. If that leads to all sorts of absurd situations, that is on you, not me.
Do I sound like I am being unhelpful? That’s perfect, because I do not intend to help you out. If you have been paying attention, you will notice that most people just want to relax and watch the whole thing play out. The only people outraged on behalf of Zubair are the usual suspects, not regular folks. These are the people who live for op-eds in foreign newspapers, reports from think tanks, and first class air travel on other people’s money. These people like protests because it makes them rich. That is the definition of andolan-jeevi, by the way.
Blocking the one-way street
What happens then to freedom of expression? I am not sure. When Indians decided to boycott British goods, and made a bonfire of their clothes made in England, were they acting against free trade?
Here is the thing about any kind of freedom. It has to go both ways, or it is no freedom at all. There is no such thing as one-sided free trade. It is called colonialism. In the same way, there can never be one-sided free speech. There is only censorship. The freedom, if it exists, has to be reciprocal, and open to everyone in equal measure. You cannot run away from this fact by using sleight of hand, or a play on words. Just like there is no such thing as fake news, because ‘news’ cannot be ‘fake.’ Better to refer to it as ‘lies.’
In independent India, most freedoms such as those of speech or expression have always been one-sided. So have been most of our rights and values that come under the big tent called secularism. For instance, the right of religious minorities to run their own institutions, even when funded by the government. On the other hand, the right of the state to make rules for Hindu institutions, and even places of worship, even those funded entirely by private individuals. In other words, one state-sponsored religion, and one state-controlled religion. That’s not secularism at all.
The same goes for artistic expression, or even casual expression, where you can take liberties only with Hindu gods and goddesses. I cannot claim to speak for all Hindus, but I see more and more folks who just want to block this one-way street where the most intolerant people make the rules. How they view the case of Zubair has little to do with their views on freedom of speech in general. For them, it is about fairness and equality, not freedom. Either open the road both ways, and let there be a free exchange of ideas. Or the road shall remain blocked, and let things go where they may.
Dismissing demands for fairness as ‘whataboutery’ won’t work
Some time after 2014, Indian liberals came up with a puzzling and rather convenient new concept. That every action must be judged in a vacuum. No comparison to anything in the past or the present is allowed. This is when newly vocal BJP supporters had begun to question the hypocrisies of the old establishment that had been eating out of the hands of the Congress for sixty years.
The best way to dismiss something without making an argument is to put a label on it and throw it away. The liberal establishment did just that. They called it “whataboutery” and refused to engage with it. They also covered it with a moral veneer. Two wrongs don’t make a right. So don’t you ever dare demand accountability.
The “whataboutery” label was invented for BJP vs Congress type of situations, but was soon extended to everything else. Do not ask basic questions such as why we cannot have a uniform civil code. Let us do the most basic things, such as make laws against child marriage, or enforce equal inheritance rights for sons and daughters. But for liberals, there is always some aspect of Hindu society that is to be targeted. Some Hindu festival that needs to be banned, some god or scripture to be critiqued, or some random guy in saffron to be mocked. They either call it environmentalism, rationalism, or intellectualism. Everything else is “whataboutery.”
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If there are not too many people around, liberals will sometimes admit that the pandering by the Indian state to religious minorities is a bit excessive. But then they pull their trump card. They say Hinduism is tolerant and diverse. So do not “Abrahamise” it. What is that supposed to mean? Because it sounds to me like you are insulting other religions. If you believe that Hindu society is objectively better, then say it out aloud to everyone’s face. You can no longer manipulate us by whispering a compliment in our ear, and then demanding publicly that we submit to the most intolerant. Most Hindus have figured you out by now.
Liberals have given some ground, but not nearly enough
Yes, they have modified some of their ways. Earlier they would refuse to acknowledge any complaints on the other side. Or they would toss away such complaints by slapping on the label of “whataboutery.” That has changed. Now every article on Zubair contains at least a few references to the plight of Ketaki Chitale. We condemn what happened to Ketaki Chitale, they say. Now you tell us about Zubair.
But we have figured you out better than that. You would not even be mentioning Ketaki Chitale if you didn’t have Zubair to worry about. The day Zubair was arrested, the media was all over it. On the other hand, the story of Ketaki Chitale seeped out slowly through social media. After she had spent nearly a month in custody, we finally began to hear about it. And only because you needed to use her as a disclaimer to establish your free speech credentials so that you could make a case for Zubair.
And let us not forget what your disclaimers are actually hiding. While jail is harsh, for many on the Hindu right, it is the least of their problems. What do I tell Trilochan Mahato? Nothing, because he is no more.
For many on the Hindu right, the terror in Bengal is still fresh in their minds. And how the media covered it up, incidentally in collaboration with “fact-checkers.” I can bet that most people would not be able to name even one victim of this terror. Because even when the media reported on them, it hid their personal identities behind labels such as “BJP worker.” I will bet many more people can name the 21-year-old college student (and dog lover!) from Bengaluru who spent something like three nights in jail last year. Liberal privilege runs deep. Till then, your two lines of sympathy for Ketaki Chitale before launching into an emotional tirade over Zubair mean nothing.
Much of this terror in Bengal is still happening, by the way. Just that the media has lost all interest. Go ask what it is like to live as a political dissident in communist-ruled Kerala. It is good to see you finally acknowledging the plight of those imprisoned for speech by “liberal” governments. But you must learn to do a lot better.
Stop calling your foreign friends, because it no longer works
We know you have friends in high places. What you may not know is that your foreign friends are not helping your cause. I am serious. Do you think the German government speaking up for Zubair makes it better for him? You must be delusional.
Each time a foreign newspaper, think tank or government speaks up for Zubair, you make people here more angry. You make people feel that this is a tussle between India and the rest of the world. And that “they” are ganging up on us. You make your own liberal ecosystem appear big and sinister. You make the Indian state look like the little guy, fighting against the world to protect our interests.
You also forget that we live in a globalised world, with fast internet access. We know how swiftly Western states move to protect their own interests and privileges. We know all about how Canada declared a national emergency and seized bank accounts to shut down the truckers’ protests. We know how the Netherlands is putting down a farmers’ protest right now, using tear gas, dogs and even bullets! Or how Sweden just agreed to give up Kurdish dissidents to Turkey’s Erdogan so that they could join NATO. We know that the European Parliament just voted to declare natural gas as “clean energy” and decided to invest in the world’s tallest dam in Tajikistan. All your activism is fake, we know.
So if you believe that we in India are still in awe of the moral authority of the West, you are very much mistaken. We know that your so-called human rights indexes and freedom indexes are just propaganda.
As on date, there are nearly 4.75 crore cases pending in our courts. This is proof that all these people have the highest level of trust in the Indian legal system. I would request you liberals to put your faith in the same exact system. Let the law take its own course.
The author is an author and columnist. He tweets @AbhishBanerj. Views expressed are personal.
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