Hindu terror? You must be joking!
This is then a terror network in which each individual operates without knowing the others
Two recent "developments" are worth looking at.
Priyanka Chopra's repentance for the "Hindu terror" link in Quantico. And Parshuram Waghmare's execution and admittance of terror, killing Gauri Lankesh, in the name of defending the Hindu religion. The term "Hindu terror" is getting pulled in opposite directions, putting execution and denial in a tight relationship.
What stands out is the refusal of this term to come into wide currency. Even the so-called "pseudo-seculars" really pushing hard for it seem unsure — in fact, the Congress is not sure if the term can be justifiably used at all.
Facts or instances of such "terror" prove less efficacious in the face of a narrative which refuses to accept "Hindu" or "saffron terror" as a fully stabilised term. This denial cannot always be seen as a sinister move to defend Hindutva violence, but, I would argue, often follows from the nature of the beast at hand. Thankfully, Waghmare's revelations to the Special Investigation Team (SIT), supposing these are true, provide us key insights.
First, notice the expected response. Reports say Waghmare has told the SIT that he killed Gauri Lankesh since she was apparently a threat to the Hindu religion. He did not kill her for money, but in order to save his religion. Ok, typical of a right wing Hindu fanatic, you would say.
But you want to notice the other details Waghmare reportedly provides.
He reveals that none of the accomplices in the murder plan apparently knew each other from before. Waghmare was driven on a bike to Bengaluru by a stranger. Then, he stayed in the room of a guy whom he did not know. Then, he was shifted to another room and taken for a recce to Lankesh's residence — then, reportedly later, he actually shot and killed Lankesh.
Each contact, each link in the chain is anonymous, unknown, unnamed to the other.
But, more crucially, the one who pulls the trigger seems to not personally know his accomplices. A report says, "Waghmore said he didn’t know who the three men (his accomplices) were. 'Asking such a question is taboo', he was quoted as saying".
This is then a terror network in which each individual operates without knowing the others — what is called the "need-to-know basis".
So, you get a network which is not a "network", or rather an internally differentiated network - all very cleverly done!
That is why, for the police, these are: "an underground group of radicals, one among many, who despite having links with various fringe right-wing outfits, appeared to operate on their own, and lured drifters (like Waghmare) and goaded them to commit crimes after systematically indoctrinating them". "Drifters executing the murder", "operating on their own", means that even when caught, even when exposed, the entire network, particularly its ideological instigators, will never be revealed.
More crucial is the claim Waghmare made that he did not know the identity of the person he was killing.
Gauri Lankesh was just a "target", unnamed and anonymous, "the one" who must not live anymore if the Hindu religion was to be saved! So, it is not that the murderer looks up, Googles his target before killing and is personally convinced about her "crime" in the Hindutva logbook. Not at all.
But a fair question: he must have known something to agree to pull the trigger on Lankesh?
What he knows and is convinced about is that there is a threat to the Hindu religion and nation, that there are sinister people and entire gangs and modules, actively planning and conspiring against "we Hindus".
Hence, it is not just Lankesh but at least 27 people in the Hindutva "hit list" — including Girish Karnad — all of whom apparently form this "plot" to destroy the Hindu religion. Add to this, Jignesh Mevani, Umar Khalid and many anti-BJP voices who are getting threat calls.
And alongside, if you believe Atul Kochchar, the celebrity chef, this campaign against Hindus is being executed over the last 2,000 years and is only gathering strength!
Then there are media channels who will oppose the killing of Gauri Lankesh, but will constantly spin stories about how Hindus cannot celebrate Durga Puja in Mamata Banerjee's Bengal even as Muslims freely celebrate their Moharram. This is the way they want to expose "Lutyens media", by secretly pushing for the theory of this plot.
The idea of "the plot against Hindus" and an active conspiracy is planted everywhere — it becomes the air we breathe. And this is the air Waghmare breathed, and he clearly breathed tons of it.
It is then easy to induct "drifters" to carry out the murder, keeping the real movers and shakers, who keep spouting anti-Muslim venom, safe, outside of culpability and criminal intent. Celebrity chefs, ministers and demagogues can keep donning their respectability and innocence, even as "unfortunate incidents" keep happening.
This is a macabre division of labour.
Most likely, the ongoing police investigation will definitively end with the "drifters" as both executor and mastermind, much before it starts identifying the real masterminds who infuse hatred and communal polarisation. This shows in a microcosm the internal working of Modi's Hindutva, or of what Arun Shourie would call a "decentralised emergency" or "a pyramidal mafia state" and pseudo-seculars call "fascism".
This means that "Hindu terror" will continue to appear as a marginal phenomenon — something supposedly carried out by unaccountable drifters and "fringe groups". It is always fading away before it ever appears with any clarity, always overshadowed and made invisible by the stereotype of the "peace-loving Hindu".
There is also a broader point to be made here. Islam and Christianity have historically foregrounded the use of violence in their crusades, holy wars and jihads. Unlike these religions, terror or violence mostly works in Hinduism through the violence of what Ambedkar called "Hindu social ideology", the caste system.
Not satisfied with "ideological violence", Hindutva leaders now want to step into direct violence. They however carry over the caste divides that now get reflected in the macabre division of labour. I am reminded of the caste break-up of those convicted after the Gujarat 2002 riots, where the Dalits were disproportionately convicted even as the bigger saffron conspirators mostly went scot-free. Anand Teltumbde calls this "damning the Dalits for the Bania-Brahmin crimes in Gujarat".
So, not to blame Priyanka Chopra alone — for, in the way it operates, "Hindu terror" cleverly generates its own deniability, its own strategic invisibility. It is, in fact, most "natural" to deny it, making it both violent and uniquely sinister.
All this allows a creeping fascism to exist within the "normal" functioning of democracy. Terror and denial, rule of law and its unapologetic violation can coexist in an eerily rhyming see-saw. Hence, the pogrom of Sikhs in 1984 could be quickly forgotten to then move onto normalcy, regular elections and what not; till, say, 2002 Gujarat, and then to normalcy again — the hide and seek continues...
And all the while "Hindu terror" appears elusive, always receding, untrue — perhaps this elusiveness and denial is the very condition for maintaining the facade of Indian democracy as endowed with some minimum credibility and respectability. Otherwise all of it will appear junk, a big lie.