శ్రీ కౌముది ఏప్రిల్ 2022

శ్రీ కౌముది మార్చి 2022

 

For the BJP, the Muslim is Not Just the Message, It is the Only Message

 Communalism

The reason the party's cartoon has evoked horror is because we have seen this sort of singular obsession with a targeted religious minority before and know where it leads.

‘Protect yourself from Typhus, Avoid the Jews’: A Nazi propaganda poster from occupied Poland in 1941 blaming Jews for the spread of lice. ‘Go Corona Go’ (right), a cartoon circulated by Hindutva groups in 2020 showing the coronavirus riding on the shoulders of a Muslim man, being confronted by Narendra Modi and India. Source: US Holocaust Museum, performindia.com

Siddharth Varadarajan

22/Feb/2022

The Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat which first gave us Narendra Modi and Amit Shah has now delivered a cartoon of such depravity and venom that it simultaneously reminds us of Nazi propaganda against the Jews and the celebratory visuals of lynchings that racists in the southern United States used to send each other as postcards.

Posted on Twitter and Instagram but since deleted by the two social media platforms themselves, the party’s cartoon shows a group of Muslim men with nooses around their neck, swinging from a rope. ‘The truth alone shall triumph’, the cartoon says in Gujarati. The official emblem of the Indian state has been used (in violation of the law) for added effect.

The reference in the cartoon is to the 38 men sentenced to death by the trial court which heard the case against 77 persons accused of planting a series of deadly bombs in Ahmedabad in 2008. The explosions killed 56 people and injured 200 more. Eleven of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment while 28 persons were acquitted.

The bombings were an atrocious crime against the people and there is no reason for anybody to show mercy towards the perpetrators. Of course, the state will appeal the acquittals while those convicted have the right to move the higher courts. And yet, it is worth asking what the BJP — which is in power in Gujarat and India — wishes to convey by publishing a cartoon of this kind.

Is the message merely the party’s tasteless way of appreciating the fact that justice has been done to a specific set of individuals? In all likelihood, this is the plea its leaders are likely to make. Or are the bearded Muslim men in skull caps shown hanging grotesquely a metaphor for something else? Could the BJP actually be signalling to its supporters that this is the fate Muslims as a whole will face in the future?

The question is relevant because of the centrality that Muslims as a group occupy in the ideology and propaganda of the BJP and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. At election time, this focus is almost obsessive. The campaign speeches made in Uttar Pradesh especially – by Modi, Shah, UP chief minister Adityanath and other party functionaries ­­– are full of hostile references to Muslims, either explicit or implied. By marvellous happenstance, the verdict and sentencing in a case that dates back to 2008 has come in the middle of election. That is why it should be obvious that in the cartoon put out by the BJP, the Muslims are the message.

The reason their cartoon has evoked horror is because we have seen this sort of singular obsession with a targeted religious minority before and know where it leads.

“… [T]he Jew,” — Jeffrey Herf, a leading historian of Nazi propaganda, quotes Viktor Klemperer as observing — is in every respect the centre of the language of the Third Reich,” indeed of its whole view of the epoch.”

Klemperer was a scholar who lived in Germany throughout the Nazi era and kept a diary full of observations about the Nazis and their impact. Anti-Semitism for him, says Herf, “was not only a set of prejudices and hatreds but also an explanatory framework for historical events.” Turning next to a landmark 1969 essay by E.H. Gombrich, Herf notes how he wrote that

“Nazi propaganda had created a mythic world by ‘transforming the political universe into a conflict of persons and personifications’ in which a virtuous young Germany fought manfully against evil schemers, above all the Jews. The Jews were the cement for this myth, first in the political battles within Germany and then on the international plane. It was ‘this gigantic persecution mania, this paranoiac myth that [held] the various strands of German propaganda together. Gombrich concluded that what characterized Nazi propaganda was ‘less the lie than the imposition of a paranoiac pattern on world events’.”

For the RSS and BJP, the imposition of a paranoiac pattern on all events is a central facet of their political propaganda. For every threat, real and imaginary, the villain is the Muslim, the victim is Hindu. Non-Muslim opponents are assailed for the sin of ‘appeasing’ this villain. The bicycle used by the Ahmedabad bombers was turned by Modi into an accusation against the Samajwadi Party, whose election symbol is the bicycle. Why did they choose this symbol, he asked, suggesting that the support of Muslim voters which the SP counts on is contaminated by terror.

In 2019, Modi had famously declared that no Hindu can ever be a terrorist so we can be sure that there will never be a cartoon depicting BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya and her associates swinging from a noose. The crime they are charged with committing involved the use of a motorcycle –a cousin of the bicycle – and happened around the same time as the Ahmedabad blast. In fact, her trial has not even begun. But given that terrorism, in the BJP’s imagination, is purely the handiwork of Muslims, this is not seen as a problem.

Since terrorism has waned in recent years, the ‘paranoiac pattern’ is imposed elsewhere. In 2020, BJP leaders gave free rein to the vicious ‘Corona Jihad’ propaganda, which blamed Muslims for the pandemic. Then there is spit jihad, land jihad, love jihad, mafia, encroachers, rioters, infiltrators, termites.  Once the line is set from the top, the Hindutva ecosystem is quick to produce and circulate the necessary visuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Then and Now’ (left) and ‘Producer-Distributor’ (right), cartoons circulated by Hindutva groups in 2020. (Source: Lakshmi Murthy, ‘The Contagion of Hate in India’). Here the Muslim is not just spreading a disease but has allied with India’s external enemy, China.

Several analysts have noted the parallels between the Hindutva organisations’ ‘corona jihad’ campaign and Nazi propaganda blaming Jews for typhus, but when we look at visual depictions, including the caricature of the Jew and the Muslim, the resemblance is even more striking – and chilling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Protect yourself from Typhus, Avoid the Jews’: A Nazi propaganda poster from occupied Poland in 1941 blaming Jews for the spread of lice. ‘Go Corona Go’ (right), a cartoon circulated by Hindutva groups in 2020 showing the coronavirus riding on the shoulders of a Muslim man, being confronted by Narendra Modi and India. Source: US Holocaust Museum, performindia.com

What do these Hindutva propaganda visuals tell us, and why should we take urgent note instead of dismissing them as ‘fringe’? Because, as Herf tells us in his paraphrasing of the historian of fascism George L. Mosse, “the racism of bodily stereotypes and countertypes ‘was the catalyst which pushed German nationalism over the edge, from discrimination to mass extermination’.”

Of course, the Nazis had a much more developed notion of the ideal body and of the reviled countertype than the RSS-BJP does – Hindutva fascism draws on different historical and cultural streams than its European counterparts. Nevertheless, the somatic preoccupation with Muslims – their facial hair, their clothes, their diet, their modes of worship – marks them out as a group that should be reviled, feared and ultimately put in their place. To borrow a line from the racist lynching postcard from the United States,

‘The Muslim now, by eternal grace,
Must learn to stay in the Muslim’s place’

You can recognise them from their clothes, Modi had said of the people opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The BJP in Gujarat – a state Modi ruled for 13 years – now wants us to recognise them dangling at the end of a rope.

Source: TheWire

The India Fix: What does the unchecked rise of violent Hindutva groups mean for India?

 The India Fix

A newsletter on Indian politics from Scroll.in.

Shoaib Daniyal

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prakadh Singh/AP 

India’s democracy is going through some troubled times. Exhibit 1: On Wednesday, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Uttar Pradesh who holds the rank of a minister expressed his support for two men accused of shooting at Hyderabad member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, Asaduddin Owaisi.

India is no stranger to political violence. However, even by those standards, a minister from the ruling party cheering on the assassination attempt on an MP is new. This comes a few months after senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s house was attacked and set on fire by Hindutva extremists.

Communal violence directed at minorities in India is a decades-old phenomenon, dating right to the moment of Independence. But India is seeing a new wave of vigilante violence by Hindutva extremist groups so powerful that even top Muslim politicians are under attack. What does this mean for the future of Indian politics?

When did this new wave start? In 2015, Mohammed Akhlaq, 52, was lynched by a mob from his own village who accused him of eating beef. What was truly remarkable in this grisly crime, however, was the support the accused received from powerful sections. Not only did they get bail soon, they received explicit support from the BJP: an MLA promised them jobs and they were even invited to a party rally by chief minister Adityanath.

Akhlaq’s lynching set off a pattern. In 2018, a Union minister garlanded eight men convicted of murdering a Muslim cattle trader from Jharkhand when they were out on bail. Two years later, another Union minister led a crowd to chant about “shooting traitors dead”, a slogan used frequently by Hindutva leaders to oppose the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Union minister Jayant Sinha feting a man convicted of murdering a Muslim cattle trader.

Support from the highest levels means that Hindutva radicals have upped the ante in the past few years. Gau rakshaks or so-called cow protection groups have established an iron grip over states such as Uttar Pradesh, assaulting and, at times, killing people with few legal repercussions.

Increasingly, hate crimes against Muslims have started to be broadcast by the perpetrators themselves, assured of the fact that little criminal punishment will follow. In fact, they know that the violence may even be rewarded politically. In 2017, for example, a Muslim man was hacked and burnt to death, with the murder being captured on video by the attacker himself. Incredibly, the gruesome killing did not lead to outrage but shows of strength by Hindutva groups, who hoisted religious flags over a local court in Udaipur.

As Scroll.in reported in 2021, broadcasting a hate crime is now a career advancement tool for many Hindutva leaders. Moreover, associating with hate crime is beneficial even at the highest levels. In 2019, for example, the BJP nominated Pragya Thakur as its Lok Sabha candidate for Bhopal. Thakur is an accused and under trial in the 2008 bombing case in which 10 people were killed and 82 injured in the Muslim-majority town of Malegoan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hindutva groups storm a local court in Udaipur as a show of strength following the murder of a Muslim man. Credit: https://twitter.com/Drshadabsk

The impact of the widespread growth of violent groups is obviously immense as far as the country’s 200 million-strong Muslim community is concerned. The country’s largest minority now feels physically unsafe and unprotected by the law. This was partly the reason behind the massive mobilisation in 2020. While the new Citizenship Amendment Law was the proximate cause, fears around physical safety also played a significant part in prompting Muslims from around the country to hit the streets.

At the moment, the Bharatiya Janata Party has, tacitly if not openly, supported these new groups. However, it must be noted that many of these new groups have no actual organisational links with the BJP, with outreach networks often more via social media than anything else.

As Scroll.in had reported in 2021, an infamous extremist priest from Uttar Pradesh, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, often receives tacit support from the BJP rank and file. However, in some cases, BJP functionaries on the ground were also annoyed with the attention Saraswati was able to garner – attention that should have come to the BJP.

Since then, Saraswati has had run-ins with the BJP. In August 2021, a video of him surfaced abusing female leaders in the BJP. In January, he was arrested by the BJP-led government in Uttarakhand for hate speech.

Similar unintended effects can be seen with the rise of cow protection gangs. With cattle trade grinding to a halt, farmers in the Hindi belt have been forced to let loose cows that have stopped giving milk. The effect of this has been the rise of massive herds of feral cattle, roaming states like Uttar Pradesh, causing huge losses to crops and a large number of automotive accidents.

So much so that it is also one of the main hurdles for the BJP in the ongoing Assembly elections. Yet, gau rakshaks are so powerful that a year after they allegedly shot dead a police officer in Uttar Pradesh, they even installed a statue of the man accused of the killing.

At the moment, it is unclear how the BJP can stop them, even if it, hypothetically, would want to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The charred carcass of Inspector Subodh Singh's car. He was allegedly shot dead by cow protection extremists. Credit: Abhishek Dey.

Similar chaos was seen in Delhi in 2020, where BJP leaders, including most infamously Kapil Mishra, threatened anti-CAA protestors. Actual violence broke out only a few hours later. The week-long riots that followed were not only devastating to the victims but also India’s image.

Ironically, the Delhi Police has itself claimed that the riots – that it should have been responsible for stopping – could not have been a “greater international embarrassment” for the Modi government given that they took place at the same time President Donald Trump was in the city. Indians like to claim to be on the cusp of superpowerdom but anyone looking from the outside and observing even the national capital not immune to a complete breakdown in law and order would probably come away with a very different impression.

India is a chaotic place at the best of times. But for the state to allow, and in fact even encourage violent independent groups to establish themselves, is the state shooting itself in the foot. While these extremists do benefit the ideologically-aligned BJP in the short term, inevitably there is a high chance of this spinning out of control with unpredictable consequences.

The example of Pakistan is a relevant one, given there too, the state handed significant control over to extremist groups, leading to a long, and still ongoing, spell of chaos. Notably with 1.3 billion people, India is more than six times the size of Pakistan and, should vigilante violence cross a threshold, far more difficult to control.

Local is national

The prime minister of the second-largest nation would surely have a lot to do. Why then is he spending his time launching tiny developmental works?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One answer to that question is that we are in a new phase of centralised personality-based politics. This means the Supreme Leader is often personally credited with development and welfare. And come election time, every little bit helps.

Chinese whispers

Speaking of trains, this before and after image of China’s high-speed rail network is going viral. In just 12 years, China has somehow managed to connect up the entire country with trains that can cross speeds of 300 kilometre/hour (India’s fastest touches 180). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: scrollin