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Pramod Muthalik compares Gauri Lankesh’s murder to death of a dog: So, who’s shocked?

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Yashee
YasheeJun 18, 2018 | 19:45

Pramod Muthalik compares Gauri Lankesh’s murder to death of a dog: So, who’s shocked?

Pramod Muthalik is the head of Hindutva group Sri Ram Sene.

It is not about one man, one comment.

Pramod Muthalik, the chief of the Hindutva fringe outfit Sri Ram Sene, on June 17 compared the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh to the death of a dog, and asked why the PM should be bothered over it.

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The comment is vile, utterly disgusting. But what is worse is that it is not shocking. Actions and statements supporting those accused of heinous crimes are all too common in New India.  

Muthalik made the comment in a public gathering. The crowd, according to reports, cheered him on with chants of Jai Shri Ram. A fund-raising campaign has begun for the family of Prashant Waghmore, the man police claim has confessed to Lankesh’s murder.   

So how many actually mind what Muthalik said?

Lankesh, after the Jharkhand lynching victims, after the 8-year-old child from Kathua, after Mohammad Afrazul in Rajasthan.

Gauri Lankesh was apparently a threat to the Hindu religion.
Gauri Lankesh was apparently a threat to the Hindu religion.

People violently killed, their lives snatched away by those blinded by hate, or by those conveniently using hate as a means to settle scores. People failed by the system in life, and then again in death, after the society they were a part of defended their killing, pledged support and money to those accused of murdering them.

If there is one legacy this BJP government — which swept into power amid much hope and euphoria in 2014 — leaves behind, it will apparently be this: the normalisation of hate to an extent where right and wrong are blurred, where a public, desensitised to violence, sits down to examine motives and affiliations before it condemns — or does not — a rape, a murder, a lynching.

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People marched with the National Flag in support of those accused of raping and killing an 8-year-old girl in Jammu's Kathua.
People marched with the national flag in support of those accused of raping and killing an 8-year-old girl in Jammu's Kathua.

Lynchings and riots did not start in India after 2014, but their celebration and glorification, on the scale we witness now, did. Social media, of course, has a role to play. But the biggest responsibility, and culpability, lies with the political class — the saffron variety, whose active malice has encouraged this, and the intermittently “secular” Opposition, whose opportunistic condemnation has done nothing to stem it.

Seeds of hate

The BJP came to power with very attractive slogans — "accche din" were about to come, there would be "sabka saath, sabka vikas". But it carried with it its rather less attractive saffron underbelly — the fringe it is either unwilling to, or plain unable to, control.

This is the fringe that looks forward to the as-yet-incomplete dream of a Hindu Rashtra, the promised land where Bharat Mata will be ruled by her rightful, true sons, and the minorities, and the wrong kind of Hindus, will be shown their place and kept in it.

The idea is a seductive one, and thrives on two ugly emotions: fear and hatred. The past four years have been a study on how to keep these alive.

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Funds were raised to help the family of Shambhulal Regar, accused of burning up a a man alive on live camera.
Funds were raised to help the family of Shambhulal Regar, accused of burning a man on live camera.

Thus, it is not the violence that matters, but the spectacle of it — rousing speeches, emotive appeals, raking up fears. A shock-and-awe tactic that mesmerises the public into accepting a new "normal".

After Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched in 2015, BJP leaders made no attempt to hide their support for the accused. Tourism minister Mahesh Sharma visited Dadri and said: “The murder took place as a reaction to that incident (cow slaughter). You must also consider that there was also a 17-year-old daughter in that home. Kisi ne usey ungli nahin lagaayi (nobody touched her).” 

Not one top leader condemned the lynching of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan. Instead, we witnessed whataboutery and justifications, repeated emphasis on the sacredness of the cow, statements about why must Muslims insist on killing “Hindus’ mother”.

Those in power making statements, the constant injection of hate and insecurity from the top, has a trickle-down effect. By the time Mohammad Afrazul was lynched in Rajasthan over “love jihad”, the project was complete — people came out in support of the accused Shambhulal Regar, pledged him money, even stormed the courthouse.

This was repeated in the case of Kathua, and now, with the case of Gauri Lankesh.

The Opposition has blame to share

While BJP leaders have been actively involved in spewing hate and the government has clearly not done enough to rein in saffron goons, a share of the blame falls on the Congress and other “secular parties” too.

Afrazul was killed when the Gujarat polls were close, and Congress president Rahul Gandhi made not one statement to condemn it. He spoke up on Kathua only after his silence triggered a Twitter debate. He did not criticise the Karni Sena over the Padmaavat madness till bypolls in Rjasthan were over.     

Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi have all apologised for the 1984 riots.
Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi have all apologised for the 1984 riots — years later.

When leaders cherry-pick issues to outrage over, when their championing of causes is bound by electoral opportunitism, not only does it dilute their secular credentials, it sends out the message that the Right can make them bend to its will, that the minorities and more vulnerable cannot be sure of support from any quarter.

In this manner, the Congress and other Opposition parties too have contributed to the normalisation of violence and the emboldening of its perpetrators.

But whataboutery no defence

However, the Congress’ failings are no defence for what the BJP is doing today.

Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi have all apologised for the 1984 riots. On the other hand, Muthalik might have been inspired from Narendra Modi, who, when questioned on the Godhra riots, had said in 2013: “If someone else is driving a car and we're sitting behind, even then if a puppy comes under the wheel, will it be painful or not? Of course it is.”

The macho reveling in violence, the glee in subjugating those weaker than us, the pleasure in bullying, in outright murdering,  we are witnessing today is ugly, and very dangerous.  

Deaths and rapes are becoming political tools and whataboutery is the new neutrality.

This is both a tragedy, and a ghastly farce.

 

Last updated: June 18, 2018 | 19:46
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