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href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/h-Runs-Rampant-India-Elections/m9vvdw/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
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Hate Speech Runs Rampant in India’s
Elections</b></a></td>
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valign="top"><b>By Vijay Prashad</b>
<div><br>
A bizarre event took place in northern India
between December 17 and December 19, 2021. It
was a “<a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/muslim-hate-speech-laws-broken/m9vvdy/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">religious parliament</a>”
(<i>Dharma Sansad</i>) with the theme, “The
Future of the <i>Sanatan Dharma</i> in
Islamic India: Problem and Solutions.” The
event took place in Haridwar, a city in the
Indian state of Uttarakhand. The speakers—each
of them dressed in saffron robes, which are
usually worn by Hindu monks—took to the stage
during the <i>Dharma Sansad</i> and spoke in
a startlingly dangerous and provocative
fashion. Sadhvi Annapurna, the general
secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha, a right-wing
Hindu nationalist outfit in India, was the
most forthright in spelling out the agenda of
hatred against the Muslim community that
marked the tone
for this event. “Nothing is possible without
weapons,” she <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/tatus-1473581283242491904-s-20/m9vvf1/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a>. “If you
want to eliminate their [the Muslim]
population, then we are ready to kill them.”<br>
<br>
The reference to “their” and “them” in her
speech was clear to everyone in the room and
anyone who watched her clip, which circulated
widely on social media and on television
channels in India. Sadhvi Annapurna was
referring to the 204 million Muslims of India.
“Even if 100 of us are ready to kill 20 lakh
[2 million] of them, then we will be
victorious and are ready to go to jail,” she <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/tatus-1473581283242491904-s-20/m9vvf1/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a>.<br>
<br>
Despite calls by some sections of society,
including a <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/vt-officials-to-uttarakhand-cm/m9vvf3/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">group</a> of retired
government officials, to investigate and
arrest the organizers and speakers of the <i>Dharma
Sansad</i> for making these provocative hate
speeches, the police in the state of
Uttarakhand did not take any “serious action”
against those who tried to incite violence
through this event, stated government
officials in a letter they <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/vt-officials-to-uttarakhand-cm/m9vvf3/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">sent</a> to
Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh
Dhami “condemning his government’s response”
to the <i>Dharma Sansad</i>. Uttarakhand is
governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
whose leader
Narendra Modi is the prime minister of India.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, Dhami did not make any statements
against the event, although <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/citizens-protest-hate-assembly/m9vvf5/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">photographs</a> of
him bowing before one of the speakers at the
conclave appeared to suggest a close
association with the people involved in
organizing the event. That speaker in the
photograph, Swami Prabodhananda Giri, the head
of the Hindu Raksha Sena, a right-wing
organization based out of Uttarakhand, <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/tatus-1473626972458668033-s-20/m9vvf7/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a> at the
gathering, “Every Hindu must pick up weapons,
and we will have to conduct this cleanliness
drive.” It is clear that the association of
“weapons” with “cleanliness” refers to the
kind of ethnic or religious cleansing
witnessed during various periods in history,
including the Holocaust during World War II.<br>
<br>
<strong>Elections and Hate</strong><br>
<br>
Between February and March 2022, <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ning-for-bjp-and-oppn-7691759-/m9vvf9/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">three</a> key north
India states are expected to go to the polls;
among these states is Uttarakhand. The other
two states—Uttar Pradesh and Punjab—are key to
the fortunes of the ruling BJP, which will see
its popularity tested after Modi had to <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-rights-of-farmers-everywhere-/m9vvfc/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">withdraw</a> three
farm bills on November 19, 2021. Farmer unrest
in both Punjab and Uttar Pradesh led to a
year-long protest campaign that soured the
reputation of the BJP in these two states and
has created the possibility of new electoral
maps being drawn in both these states in
India. Uttar Pradesh (which has a population
of approximately
200 million) is India’s most populous state,
and the fortunes of the BJP there will
determine the authority of Modi’s government
in Delhi, India’s capital and the central
government’s seat of power. A defeat in Uttar
Pradesh, or even a reduced majority, would
give the opposition greater confidence to
challenge Modi’s fiat approach to policymaking
and to counter the right-wing ideology
propagated by the BJP.<br>
<br>
Currently, the BJP dominates the state
assembly in Uttar Pradesh (it won 312 out of
the 403 seats in the <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/icleshow-81754076-cms-from-mdr/m9vvff/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">assembly elections</a>
of 2017). The atmosphere in Uttar Pradesh <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/icleshow-87216333-cms-from-mdr/m9vvfh/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">remains</a> tense for
minorities (around <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-in-uttar-pradesh-1933418-html/m9vvfk/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">19 percent</a> of the
population in the state are Muslims), largely
because various Hindu right-wing
organizations—such as those represented at the
religious conclave—have stoked the fires of
hatred against the Muslim minority for
generations. As part of its vote-gathering
arsenal, the BJP has developed a <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/e-in-india-article27297239-ece/m9vvfm/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">strategy</a> to
provoke religious violence, polarize the
population, and ensure that the majority Hindu
vote gathers under its banner. This is what
the BJP did to succeed in the 2014 general
elections, before which local party officials
<a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/s-let-off-for-lack-of-evidence/m9vvfp/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">engineered</a> a
pogrom in the town of Muzaffarnagar in August
to September 2013 that resulted in the <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-convicted-article36332900-ece/m9vvfr/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">death</a> of more
than 60 people and left thousands of others
displaced. In the aftermath of that violence,
BJP leader—and
now home minister of India (responsible for
law and order in the country)—Amit Shah in
2014 <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/icleshow-33280520-cms-from-mdr/m9vvft/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">told</a> a crowd in
Shamli in western Uttar Pradesh that the
general election, which eventually led to the
BJP seizing power in India, was about honor,
and was “an election to take revenge for the
insult” and “to teach a lesson to those who
have committed injustice.”<br>
<br>
In November 2021, the Samajwadi Party and the
Rashtriya Lok Dal (National People’s Party) <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ar-pradesh-11638127224370-html/m9vvfw/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">formed</a> an
alliance for the Uttar Pradesh legislative
elections. The Samajwadi Party had governed
the state from 2012 to 2017 under the
leadership of former Chief Minister Akhilesh
Yadav. The Rashtriya Lok Dal, meanwhile,
brings heft in the western districts of Uttar
Pradesh, where the farmers’ agitation had the
greatest impact. This combination threatens
the BJP’s divisive agenda. It is likely that
more events like the <i>Dharma Sansad</i>
focused on spreading and strengthening
religious hate in Uttar Pradesh will be on
offer to polarize the electorate to the
benefit of the BJP.<br>
<br>
<strong>Sewers of Hate</strong><br>
<br>
The religious conclave held in December 2021
suggested that there was a threat to Hindus in
“<a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/muslim-hate-speech-laws-broken/m9vvdy/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">Islamic India</a>.”
This is a theme that goes back to the 19th
century, when leaders of the Hindu right wing
began to say that Hinduism was being
threatened by, among other things, the rising
<a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/y-quraishi-article34011389-ece/m9vvfy/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">birth rate</a> of
Muslims. Facts apart, this idea festered in
the sewers of right-wing thought continues to
find favor in the currents within the BJP,
such as Shah, who had <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/icleshow-33280520-cms-from-mdr/m9vvft/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">described</a> the
minority
Muslim population of Uttar Pradesh as the
people “who have committed injustice.” To <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/muslim-hate-speech-laws-broken/m9vvdy/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">refer</a> to India as
“Islamic” is part of the exaggerated paranoia,
a festivity of hatred that results in violence
and in the consolidation of political power
for the BJP.<br>
<br>
Rather than face arrest for their hate speech,
the men and women who spoke at the assembly
filed a complaint with the police <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/maulvis-dharma-sansad-haridwar/m9vvg1/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">against</a> “<i>maulanas</i>
or clerics” and “the Quran, <i>maulvis</i>
[Islamic scholars] of Haridwar and other
unnamed Muslims.” Sadhvi Annapurna, who had
called for the murder of Muslims, is heard in
a <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/tatus-1475863419085418500-s-20/m9vvg3/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">video</a> posted on
Twitter on December 28, 2021, telling a police
officer to “show us that you are not biased.”
Yati Narsinghanand, who organized the
religious conclave, interjects to say that the
police officer is “biased and on our side.”
Following the religious conclave in
Haridwar, 21 “Hindu monks” who participated in
the conclave <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-detained-threaten-resignation/m9vvg5/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">formed</a> a
committee to hold more of these meetings and
to “convert India into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’
[state].” “You [the Hindus in India] can fight
them only with arms,” the monks <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/r-armed-fight-against-muslims-/m9vvg7/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a>, with no
need to elaborate on whom they meant during
their reference to “them.”<br>
<br>
Democracy in India is wounded by the acidic
legacy of the Hindu right wing, which thrives
on intimidation and false pride as the fuel
for its success. The farmers’ agitation
offered an alternative path. The two roads
will be tested in these legislative elections
expected to take place in early 2022.<br>
<br>
<em><b>Vijay Prashad</b> is an Indian
historian, editor and journalist. He is a
writing fellow and chief correspondent at <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-01-05/m9vvg9/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">Globetrotter</a>.
He is the chief editor of <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-01-05/m9vvgc/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">LeftWord Books</a>
and the director of <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-01-05/m9vvgf/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">Tricontinental:
Institute for Social Research</a>. He is a
senior non-resident fellow at <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/y2hdjcpo/m9vvgh/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">Chongyang Institute
for Financial Studies</a>, Renmin
University of China. He has written more
than 20 books, including</em> <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1595583424--tag-alternorg08-20/m9vvgk/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">The Darker Nations</a>
<em>and</em> <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/1781681589--tag-alternorg08-20/m9vvgm/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">The Poorer Nations</a><em>.
His latest book is</em> <a
href="https://go.ind.media/e/546932/catalog-product-view-id-21820/m9vvgp/974333026?h=xpG6HvOwj6tgbVhdGYe4Awwvv-hGVuL3m5_cmieQtPY"
moz-do-not-send="true">Washington Bullets</a><em>,
with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.</em></div>
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