Fear can be protection

Saba Naqvi

Driving through the phase II constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, somewhere on the road between Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, we came across what seemed an “incident” of the highway. A crowd had gathered in a circle around the scene of conflict and some people held their mobile phones high and were recording whatever was happening. Three Delhi journalists, all veterans of political coverage, were in the car, two Muslims, one a Brahmin.

During elections of the past, we would have stopped to see what was happening in case it was linked to a political spat. But my co-religionist, too, did not want to stop and neither did I as the first thought that came to my mind was that someone is being lynched and here are two Muslims whose faces are often on TV. The Brahmin colleague — the only one who could have gotten off the car in case it was a mob thrashing a Muslim — asked, “You really feel like that now?”  

We did not stop and drove off. Later, I checked the Agra news and there was no reported lynching that day. But from the car window, it looked like it could have been one of those terrible acts of humiliation on members of a particular community. Remember, the recent image of the old man from Assam being made to eat pork? It is imprinted in my mind over other collages of hate, including one that particularly haunts me is of a young boy strung up from a tree in Jharkhand.      

I have a voice, can express my opinion, have platforms to do so and do not want it to be coloured by that creeping fear of thinking like a victim. Or worse, becoming the one. Yet the daily drumbeat of abuses does make one wonder about the toll on the mind, body and soul to be at the frontline of receiving threats.  

This election brings out these moments of reflection as it has become more toxic than before. This toxicity is increasing not because the people are rioting or engaged in a communal bloodbath. On the contrary, in Uttar Pradesh, Hindu hatred towards Muslim was not a primary factor in the first two rounds of voting (It is, however, a cleavage that is being fanned in West Bengal, the state where our pre-eminent party hopes to make gains). 

In the Hindi belt, the BJP has to do a holding exercise and feedback suggests that there have been losses. That is why the leadership of the RSS and the BJP has ricocheted up the gestures, the words, the symbolic and real threats to the minority community. The most dramatic is the decision to field Sadhvi Pragya Thakur from Bhopal. It is a move that is sickening in the scale of its callousness towards the rule of law, sensitivities of people and just common decency. She is accused of plotting a bomb blast in Malegaon, Maharashtra, in which six persons were killed and more than 100 injured on September 29, 2008.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested Sadhvi Pragya and others in the case, alleging they were part of a Hindu extremist group. The NIA, later, gave Sadhvi Pragya a clean chit, but the court did not discharge her and she still faces charges under the stringent UAPA.  She is out on bail only on health grounds. After her nomination, she also made sickening remarks about police officer Hemant Karkare, who died in action during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. She said the former chief of the Mumbai ATS died because of his “karma” and she had cursed him his “entire lineage would be destroyed”. 

What is the symbolic value of fielding Sadhvi Pragya? It sends a signal that even the Hindutva fringe is now mainstream and people accused of killing Muslims can be heroes. 

What is the symbolic value of every radio ad of the BJP saying that they will extend the NRC to the rest of India? The NRC is a Supreme Court-mandated exercise in the context of a particular situation in Assam. By saying that the BJP intends to extend it across India, the subliminal message is “hey, we will kick all Muslims out”. No less than BJP president Amit Shah has repeated the NRC pitch ad nauseum. 

Finally, what did the PM mean when he went to Bagalkot in Karnataka and said that the Congress-JD(S) did not want India’s airstrikes in Balakot, Pakistan, to be highlighted due to the fear that the “vote bank will be upset”. Our PM asked: “Is the Congress-JD(S) vote bank in Bagalakot or Balakot?”  The PM is, therefore, suggesting that Indian Muslim voters are Pakistan supporters. If we add the dots with other statements, Muslims deserve no rights, should be kicked out and if the views of Sadhvi Pragya are to be applied, their entire lineage should be destroyed. That’s why there is a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach.