As Delhi continues to be rocked by
violence instigated by anti-CAA crowd, there apparently an orchestrated
movement on the part of mainstream media to build an equivalence between
pro-CAA groups and anti-CAA groups. It is sought to be projected if there was
violence, the anti-CAA was not alone in its culpability. The perception that is
sought to be given is they were provoked by pro-CAA groups who should be held responsible
for flare-up.
There might be a provocative statements
by those counter-protesting against Shaheen Bagh or Jafrabad. Yet these
protests were seemingly a reaction to the nearly three month standoff between
anti-CAA ‘Dadi’ crowd of Shaheen Bagh. While there cannot be condoning of
violence by any individual or group, to the media perhaps it is an occasion to
paint false equivalence between the two communities. Without doubt, an
intentional attempt to create an equivalence so that the other side too has to
pay for the price. Sacrifice of pawns by Shaheen Bagh crowd, it seems will have
to compensated by equal sacrifice by the other side irrespective of their involvement
or not. The media’s agenda is to ensure it doesn’t look one-sided. Moreover,
the murder of the unarmed constable has made the Shaheen Bagh cheerleaders on
the defensive, given the perpetrator being a Muslim. It seems the masks are off
after all pretensions of swearing allegiance to constitution, preamble etc. Therefore the strategy of projecting
perpetrators as victims has been adopted yet again, something that has seen
repeated numerous times in the past. A glance at history suggests manufacturing
false equivalence and send Hindus on a guilt-trip and coerce them to make
concessions as nothing unusual. The ‘Muslim veto’ is all too old in the Indian
political lexicon.
The modus operandi includes manufacture
of stories linking to Hindu alleged refusal to accommodate minority (read Muslim)
aspirations, link it up to accumulation of minority grievances, causing a
reaction. Counter reactions will lead to violence thus building up a chain of
events that would make Hindus feel guilty of their treatment of minorities. This
class intimidation technique has been perfected for decades. Any attempt to
call out the same invites a necessity to project a so called nonpartisan
attempt. Implied in this non-partisan project is identifying Hindu elements
however fringe they might be and projecting them as mainstream points of view. Thus
for every minority grievance imagined or real, there is a majority oppression or
refusal perchance fictional to treat on equal footing as a counter.
The plot takes in ancestries in the
partition of the country in 1947. Jinnah built his case for separate Muslim
nation on the professed impossibility of co-existence between Hindus and Muslims
without a sacrifice of power and privileges by Muslims to Hindus. To Jinnah,
the refusal of the Congress to share power with the Muslim League in UP post
1938 elections was case in point. Apparently there was an agreement to share
power but ostensibly Congress went back on its word. This gave a boost to
Jinnah to press his case for Partition. To add, the ill-advised move by the Congress
to resign from the ministries protesting against British refusal to consult
Congress on World War II helped Jinnah. In absence of Congress, Muslim League
was able to build equations with British government and thus Muslim question
became a critical talking point in the negotiations between Congress and
British till 1947.
The partition and its immediate aftermath
culminating in killing of thousands shook the Indian psyche. There was a point
to be proved that India would not turn into Hindu equivalent of Pakistan.
Secondly, there arose a question on treatment of Muslims who stayed back in
India for various reasons. The minorities in Pakistan both Western and Eastern
sides were experiencing riots and torture forcing them to migrate.
Nehru-Liaquat Pact was ostensibly to control the same yet was ineffective given
the Pakistani refusal to honour the accord.
PM Nehru perhaps wanted to prove that
Muslims in India will not face the same situation as their Hindu counterparts
in Pakistan. To him, perhaps India’s image was at stake. He believed in all
likelihood that both his and India’s image would suffer irretrievable damage if
Muslims start moving towards Pakistan. So they had to be coaxed to remain in
India even if it meant giving them significant concessions in political terms. The
opinion leaders who could transfer votes should be allowed exercise of certain
veto. Implied was the government would not intervene in the internal affairs of
Muslim community. The granting of special status under Article 370 and 1952
Sheikh-Nehru agreement virtually creating quasi-independent Muslim ruled Jammu
and Kashmir was a consequence of the same. In fact, Indira Gandhi when she
brought in the Adoption Bill in the 1970s had to face severe backlash from
Muslim community which refuses to recognize adoption. The All India Muslim
Personal Law Board arose from this controversy under whose relentless pressure,
she was forced to withdraw the bill.
Secondly, while the Muslim community had
to be mollified, coaxed, appeased, there seemed to be a need to paint Hindus as
villains of equal culpability if not more. Therefore the storyline needed some
raw material. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by an alleged Hindu activist
provided the fuel for the same. Despite Hindu Mahasabha being a peripheral
force with negligible influence, it was consistently targeted and blamed for
Partition. The attempt by the media was to weave a narrative of Veer Savarkar
as being the first to advocate Partition. Further they built up on his
statements to demonstrate he was of the firm belief that Hindus and Muslims
cannot co-exist thus creating a path for partition. Despite partition being a
outcome of irreconcilable personal ambitions of Nehru and Jinnah, the blame was
constantly shifted on the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and allied organizations.
Through her reign, while Indira Gandhi did some pro-Hindu measures, she sought
to mollify the Muslim leadership through no-holds barred attack on Jan Sangh
though it was hardly a significant force politically. She further sought to
balance both the leaderships through regular sops. This ideas was sought to be furthered
by her son Rajiv yet he failed miserably. The diminishing returns were possibly
taking effect.
The contestations assumed a new shape
with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the ascendance of the BJP on the
political horizon. To many in the media and public intellectual complex, BJP
was the archetype desperado in generating Hindu-Muslim fault lines. They have been
unable to reconcile the changed narrative and decreasing tolerance to the appeasement
of Muslim leadership for narrow political ends. Therefore to the new woke
mainstream, any reaction from the minority leadership would have to be rooted
or at least manufactured to presume to have roots in certain action by the BJP.
The refusal of Narendra Modi government to accommodate media privileges
accentuates the relationships. Artifical Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb narrative is
withering away at the grassroots. It never existed in the first place and if it
did was essentially imposed as a one way street. The Tehzeeb has to exist or
Hindus were forced to concede to appease Muslims because of apprehensions that
they might migrate to Pakistan. The hangover of the Partition and
guilt-tripping accompanied by the Stockholm syndrome, a product of centuries of
Islamic rule in the heartland all contributed to building this fallacy. There has
to equivalence however false it might be of creating equal culpability between
the two communities. This equivalence has widened the fault lines rather than
bridging them. The current narrative is a continuum of the same yet as discussed
in the posts on woke here
and here
we are beginning to witness a final stand by the so called top-down mainstream
narrative builders. In fact the trend is eerily resembling something that was
projected here.
The perception broadly aligns with the so
called liberals, the ones in the forefront of the Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb narrative
are losing to the green leadership. The narrative which sought to use the
shoulders of the Shaheen Bagh to fire against the government for loss of their
power and privileges seems to be backfiring. The greens having tasted blood are
unlikely to concede or retreat or even accept the leadership of the liberals.
In exchange for Muslim veto, the leadership had remained with the Hindus. The upper
caste deracinated Hindus who believed they might gain power through appeasement
of Muslims will have to retreat or perhaps are facing signs of irrelevance. The
tipping point is around the corner and of the foundations of Shaheen Bagh, new
contesting narrative might emerge that may not be in the interests of peaceful
India. There has been a drive to postpone conceivably perpetually the unfinished
business of partition reflected in the anger and agony of the victims. India
might have to confront that moment soon. CAA is a pretext, an experiment the
agenda is deeper and sinister. It is the first step in expanding the Overton
Window of advocating separatism under the guise of freedom of expression. Yet
it is testing the Broken Windows of the alleged government non-reaction to the
violence. The cheerboys might want to postpone the inevitable but might become the
first casualties going forward.
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