Par for the coarse
ARE we, as a people, getting increasingly hot under the collar? Is lack of restraint visibly noticeable amongst us? Political dialogues are getting crasser. They have been made worse in television debates where each side just stops short of calling others liars, fascists, appeasers — please note that appeasers became a cuss word in the 1980s. Watchmen become thieves. A Chief Minister calling his deputy ‘nikamma’ and ‘nakara’ was a first in our history. Functioning has become cruder. Sachin Pilot was served a notice, asking him to reply to something akin to a sedition charge! He had very little option left to manoeuvre. Then he was called names and it looked like an effort to throw him out of the party. More than Pilot, Ashok Gehlot also needs forgiveness. Crude language took place elsewhere also, but decades ago. Stalin had people shot, most of them his erstwhile colleagues, Bukharin and Borodin, had Trotsky ice-axed in Mexico (must have thought Mexico was a hot country), but never bad-mouthed them. Not a disparaging word passed from Stalin’s lips, overshadowed as they were by his walrus moustache. I read, years ago, a The Times reporter recalling that a minister was shouted down in the House of Commons with cries, “Resign, you swine!” But that was on behalf of a rhyme. Rhymesters have licence, and some of them (mea culpa) are given a long rope to hang others and themselves.
What is more worrying is that coarse language gets mixed with sectarian bias. A former CBI Director, who had stepped in as a stop-gap after midnight raids on the CBI headquarters, that lovely green glass-encased building, let go on his betters, people of the calibre of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Humayun Kabir. The poor RSS-leaning cop may not have known that Azad was considered one of the great Urdu scholars of the century. What had Nageswara Rao against these worthies? Firstly, that they were Muslims heading the Ministry of Education. According to reports in a national newspaper, Rao claimed on Twitter that Indian history had been ‘distorted’ with ‘whitewashing’ of ‘bloody Islamic invasions/rule’, and after Kalam, Kabir, Justice Chagla, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad and Nurul Hasan, leftists like VKRV Rao were posted there! Heaven help us! Leftists are anathema in a rightist Donald Trump-Bolsonaro world. Then four slides were shown and Nageswara Rao’s tweet started with the line: “Story of Project Abrahmisation of Hindu civilisation.” Was he gonna talk about Israelis swallowing another chunk of the West Bank? No, he talked about what the Kalam-Kabir and leftist agenda spread over 40 years was all about! He listed them: “Deny Hindus their knowledge, vilify Hinduism as a collection of superstitions, Abrahmise education and media, shame Hindus about their identity, etc.” Is this what has been happening, or is he drawing from some other reality?
Majoritarianism seems embedded in our polity and education system. There was a time when Akbar was called ‘Great’ and mentioned along with Ashoka. No longer. The Mughals, who left behind great monuments, an ineffectual attempt to synthesise and amalgamate religions — think of Din-i Ilahi, Dara Shikoh’s translations of Hindu scriptures, including the Upanishad, are hardly talked of. Are Mughals ever mentioned from the Red Fort on August 15?
On July 28, CPM leader Brinda Karat lodged police complaints and also wrote to the Home Minister, according to press reports, against Nageswara Rao for his ‘most outrageously politically-motivated statements’, and also for political statements praising the RSS and BJP for ‘re-Hinduisation of India’. He must be complimented for a new phrase. She also said that the officer was indicted for toxic statements in Odisha and found guilty. Nothing will come out of those letters, Madam Karat. Mr Rao is moving with the tide, sailing with the wind. Was it deliberate to post an officer with such a mindset to CBI during a crisis? Rao transferred a hundred people in a trice.
Police officers seem to be in the forefront these days when it comes to taking sides. They don’t even have the excuse of toxic TV debates. While the khaki brass in Uttar Pradesh is defending, surely on oath, the ‘encounterists’ (forgive my attempt to enrich Queen’s English), we have Praveer Ranjan, Special Commissioner, Delhi Police, shooting off a letter to his juniors. He tells his three teams investigating Delhi riots that there is resentment among the Hindus, and ‘due care and precaution’ (sic) must be taken while making arrests. They are advised to seek guidance from Special Public Prosecutors. Did Praveer Ranjan ever consider the possibility of issuing such letters when Delhi Police barged into the Jamia Millia premises, right into the library, in pursuit of students? Or when masked hooligans stormed JNU and beat up the union president (she had nine stitches on her head, remember?). No letters about ‘due care and precaution’ (sic) when it comes to beating up agitating students, or when accused from a majority community erase all mobile data, and CCTV footage disappears? The Delhi High Court demanded all such letters issued to be disregarded. Are such letters issued by police officers to curry favour with the Parivar and the government? This attitude of favouring the majority continues — a pregnant Safoora Zargar is incarcerated, Pinjra Tod activists like Devangana Kalita are arrested in four cases, and their bail opposed.
This attitude also reflects a lack of management skills, how to bring calm to a situation, effect a compromise, cool tempers. The BJP mantra is to send in the police with truncheons. Verbal excesses lead to excesses on the streets, that needs to be remembered.
