It has been one month since the 27 of May when Times Now organized a debate on the Gyanvapi mosque dispute. The debate, telecasted in the prime time slot of the Newshour Debate show, was hosted by Navika Kumar and in line with the typical format of most prime time news shows, resembled a shouting match. Stereotypical panellists including BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party) representative Nupur Sharma attended it. On that day before attending the show on Times Now, Sharma had already attended shows on two other news channels – both on the issue of the Gyanvapi mosque.
In all three shows, Sharma used the same script of arguments: she began by accusing Muslims of ridiculing Hindu sentiments, would briefly refer to the alleged mentions of a flying horse and the earth being flat in the Quran and at the end, sharply broach the age of Aisha at the time of marriage to Prophet Mohammed.
Sharma was immediately cut off and rebutted on News 24, the first channel she appeared on when she began orating the script. Furious about being rebutted, she had left the channel in a huff and even tweeted about not appearing again on the channel.
On the second channel, she was requested – in a more moderate manner – to stop arguing. However, Times Now took the cake, the cherry and everything else from the carnival of hate marketed as news by channels. Instead of either condemning her or asking her to stop speaking, Kumar asked all panellists to remain calm and preached that the Shivling should not be called a fountain if it is not identified as a Shivling.
The clip from Times Now went viral. As the clip began doing rounds on social media sites, Indian Muslims responded in a predictable manner — there was a justified emotional surge, followed by demands for immediate action and the filing of First Investigation Reports (FIR) against Sharma.
For more than a week, nothing happened. BJP, in line with its political agenda, ignored the massive outrage of a community numbering around 20 crores and instead “rallied” behind Sharma, who continued to appear on television debates, including those of Times Now, to orate rhetoric along the same lines.
There were local calls for protests by the Muslim community across the nation, majority of which met with disproportionate police action. On 3 June, Kanpur emerged as the epicentre of such violence during the first spell of protests.
Since 2014, Muslims have been targeted in multiple ways on different fronts — legislation, sporadic attacks by right-wing cadres, and illegal incarcerations, to name a few. All of these had invited simmering outrage from the Muslim minority. BJP, far from addressing these concerns, had preferred to side with the perpetrators.
In Sharma’s case, BJP adopted the same modus operandi until the Gulf nations entered the scene on 5 June. Majority of the Gulf nations have maintained a silence on the targeting of Muslims in India, but blasphemy affected the nations too much to be ignored. As Sharma’s comments reached the populaces there, the states – reacting in a strenuous manner – summoned the Indian diplomats and demanded immediate action against Nupur.
The Indian nation-state enjoying a strong relationship with the Gulf nations, heavily marked by economic exchanges, did want to impair it. On 5 June, more than one week after the debate on Times Now, BJP issued a press release denouncing insults of any religion and followed it up by ousting Sharma from the party while the Indian diplomats issued embarrassing apologies and explanations in the Gulf nations.
Sharma also issued an apology, although the Supreme Court has termed it as a conditional one and warranted that she should have unconditionally apologized to the entire nation. BJP also issued other notices — condemning Sharma’s comments, warning its representatives against criticizing any religion, and distancing itself from the “fringe” Sharma — in order to claim that the party line is not to hurt any religious community, even as in the past senior leadership including the Prime Minister (PM) and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (UP CM) have orated rhetoric, similar to that of Sharma’s remarks.
One wonders if the PM, UP CM and other leaders are above the party line; one wonders if these are mere endeavours aiming to civilise the language of the party in order to avoid similar conundrums in the future.
A week later on 10 June, the epicentre of violence was Ranchi while Friday prayers were held peacefully in Kanpur on the same day. Muslims of Kanpur city alleged the Muslim leadership was under pressure from the state authorities while others accused it of corruption for not protesting on a designated day for protest against Sharma. Though, one must pause to consider the pragmatism of protesting in a geographical area where state institutions have a track record of conducting disproportionate action against the Muslim minority, especially as a week ago the city had witnessed a similar protest and its brutal repression.
The marking of certain cities as epicentres of violence denies the reality of widespread violence and perpetual terror Muslims experience every moment of every day in India. As of today, 415 people – mostly Muslims – remain incarcerated all over Uttar Pradesh for protesting against blasphemous remarks of Sharma.
The pattern of violence during the protests emerged at multiple spots at once. While it was entirely sporadic, what remains identical is the disproportional targeting of Muslims – by the state, by the institutions, by the Hindutva mobs. Paramilitary forces have been deployed in large numbers all over the state.
On 8 June, a protest was organised by students of Aligarh Muslim University. Hours before the protest was to commence, personnel of two military trucks – amounting to around 100 including female personnel – were stationed at Bab-e-Syed. In several cities including Aligarh, police personnel regularly march in Muslim majority areas.
Amongst the stagnant stationing of paramilitary forces across the nation, only statistics of those arrested are present – there are no figures for deaths, injuries, detentions, custodial torture or demolitions; no measure for estimating the aggregate of the physical and mental damage dealt to the Muslim community in the month of June.
An FIR has also been filed against Kumar. It remains dubious if she will actually be charged for modelling her prime-time debate as a carnival show where xenophobia against Muslims is dished out daily in the drawing rooms of most Indian houses – pretty much what is happening in newsrooms all over the nation. Washing their hands of the entire controversy, Times Now immediately deleted the video of the debate and furnished a tweet, claiming it does not endorse the views of participants and urges them to maintain restraint and not indulge in unparliamentary language against fellow panellists.
However, Kumar continues to host debates in the same manner, on the same range of topics that might be used as a stage to spew vile rhetoric. The same channel that did not condemn Sharma’s comment on air, is now beating its chest for confronting a Muslim cleric.
A sizable section of the Hindu community is upset with the BJP for ousting Sharma, for toeing the line of Gulf nations, and for warning its representatives against hurting any religion. The exact section defends Sharma. Hence, she continues to enjoy impunity, manufactured from the same fabric of collective consciousness that provided impunity to those responsible for calls of Muslim genocide or for the Bulli Bai website.
She has been provided security even as the state continues to conduct disproportionate action against the Muslim protestors. The fabric of impunity is invisible, cultural and no longer restrained to institutions, rather it is socio-economic and organic.
The blossoming of these narratives amongst the common supporters of Hindutva groups is no longer downward but upward – instead of right-wing groups distributing xenophobia in the individual, it is the individual demanding the institutions to act upon the xenophobia. Those defending Sharma are not defending her because an organization or a political party is telling them to, they are defending Sharma because they believe she did not say anything wrong. They believe Islam to be a vile religion. They believe all Islamists to be terrorists. They believe there is a Shiv Linga in the Gyanvapi mosque. They want the Gyanvapi mosque to be demolished just as Babri was, just as Gareeb Nawaz was — all on one of the lists manufactured by the Hindutva ideologues.
For them, Sharma is “the poster woman of domineering and militant Hinduism” and BJP is a puppet of Islamist nations. In this net of wants and beliefs, they are indeed ignoring that Sharma was not incited by the Muslim panellist and that Sharma’s line of commentary was scripted.
She had said the same thing in the previous two news shows. She was neither angry nor distraught. She was there to instigate the Muslim community. But the fabric of collective consciousness does not doubt the Hindus as it is essentially Hindu in nature and appearance. Instead, the consciousness and the cultural impunity will question Times Now for deleting the debate’s video as they cannot prove that the Muslim panellist incited Sharma beyond a reasonable doubt.
In spite, the collective consciousness continues on: it alleges Sharma is a victim as she is a believing Hindu who defended her beliefs and religion; it questions the absence of action against the Muslim panellist who demeaned the Hindu deities and got away with it by playing the victim card of being a minority.
This is the collective consciousness of the Indian nation-state. Is Maharashtra the exemption, is it a gaping hole in the cultural fabric? The Muslim community would like to be optimistic, as the state of Maharashtra has also been proactive in taking action against the perpetrators of the Bulli Bai website. However, optimism must not be blind. One cannot ignore the presence of a rift between Shiv Sena and BJP. In the political sphere where Muslims have been betrayed a thousand times, the community must remain vigilant in supporting the lesser evil. The support must be pragmatic, not ideological.
As hundreds of Muslims stand illegally incarcerated and Muslim properties lie illegally demolished, Sharma is absconding. The Muslim community is in a continual state of numb outrage. Sharma has not cooperated with the police investigation and remains untraceable; she has not appeared before police despite being summoned multiple times.
The same police force that efficiently functions to arrest Muslim protestors and demolish Muslim houses – even if it warrants working over weekends – has been unable to trace a woman even after camping for 5 days in Delhi. The same news channels that would have conducted a media trial and delivered a death sentence to Sharma had she been a Muslim, maintain a stoic silence over her absence.
No one is questioning the state institutions, no one is questioning the inefficiency of the police force, and no one is questioning the approval of the majoritarian community. Against the backdrop, cultural impunity for the Hindutva criminal behaviour expands vicariously.
Tazeen Junaid is a postgraduate student at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
