AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. RAJDEEP SARDESAI

October 15, 2015

In response to your facebook post: ‘Yeh kahaan aa gaye hum’.

Rajdeep’s post appears in italics.

My song for the night was Yeh Kahan aa Gaye hum: a classic from Silsila. It typifies my mood: I truly feel a growing sense of impotent rage.

The thing is Rajdeep that I feel that too. As do many of us. But for reasons that are different from yours.

Intolerance has always existed in this country, only never before has extremism been legitimised so brazenly by powerful sections of society.

One of the most powerful and famous ‘legitimisation’ of violence came many years ago: 1984 to be precise. When Indira Gandhi was assassinated and her son said, in response to the riots that followed, the very famous lines of ‘jab ped girta hai …..’. You are all too familiar with that. That was a statement by the then Prime Minister of the country. Does it get more powerful than that?

Mr. Mulayam Singh not very long ago made extremely objectionable statements about rape in UP, saying to a largely muslim audience: Ladkey hain. Galti ho jaati hai. Was that par for the course as far as you are concerned?

And you say ‘only never before has extremism been legitimised so brazenly by powerful sections of society’. Who is legitimizing extremism? Can what the Shiv Sena says be taken seriously beyond a point? Can what Sakshi Maharaj say be taken seriously beyond a point? What happens when a Muslim candidate says ‘boti boti kaat doonga’ about Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi appears on stage the morning after this video goes viral and asks for votes in his name, is that not the legitimization of extremism? So, I am not sure what you are talking about.

A man is lynched in Dadri and very few truly empathise with the grief of a poor family. Instead, rabble rousers continue to pursue their agenda to decide on what people should eat: the obvious aim is to stir a Hindu Muslim divide.

The tragedy is that along with the heinous murder of the man in Dadri was an equally heinous hacking to death of a Hindu anti-cow activist in Karnataka. Why were you not outraged at that? Why? Forget about outrage. Why did you not even cover the ghastly event? Why did you not feel that India’s secularism was under threat? You owe us an explanation Rajdeep. There are a zillion other examples of crimes on Hindus that go unreported and I am not even going there. I am restricting this to the violence that has occurred due to the issue of the Cow.

And coming to your comment on ‘what people should eat’. The whole issue on the beef ban has got nothing to do with what people should eat. It has to do with a deeply cultural issue and one that affects millions of Hindus. When you talk about an inclusive India, what is it that you mean? Do you mean that any belief of the Hindus is open to negotiation, criticism and ridicule. BUT dare anyone say anything about any other belief, it suddenly challenges your ‘Idea of India’? How is that ok?

Would it be ok to serve pork during an Iftaar party? Even the idea would seem really objectionable to you. Why? Aren’t there enough non-muslims at all these parties? What about their right to eat what they want? Where is this nonsense going to lead us?

Ink is thrown at a public figure, a music concert of one the greatest ghazal singers is stalled: the debate isn’t about free artistic expression but becomes about who is ‘patriotic’ and who is not. Sahitya Akademi award winners return their awards and their right to dissent is not accepted; instead, they are abused and targeted as ‘pseudo-intellectuals’.

I don’t doubt the fact that these awardees are feeling angst and concern. Surely they must. It’s just incredibly suspect that they feel angst for the Dadri murder and none for the anti-cow activist who was lynched? Maya Krishna Rao called the Dadri lynching the ‘WORST incident in independent India’. Really? Has she been comatose for the last 65 years? I would like to know what made this the WORST incident that woke her up from her stupor. When a man was pulled out of a police station (in the NE) and lynched by a mob, on the rumour that he had raped a girl, and was then hung on a pole — why is that any less horrific than what happened in Dadri? And to top it all, the rumour was later found to be baseless too.

The point is this: Condemn Dadri. Of course you must. But can you not do it on a bed of damn lies and distorted history?

We really have to stop pretending that communal violence in this country is new and that it was invented in May 2014. Stop denying history and the horrendous incidents of communal violence that have continued to plague us. It would be entirely foolish to believe or have any of us believe that this is somehow a new phenomena.

The new buzzword is ‘selective outrage’: if you didn’t outrage about a crime against a Hindu you have no moral right to outrage when a Muslim is killed. Killings it seems have become a zero sum game: your riot versus mine.

Unfortunately Rajdeep, Selective Outrage is a reality. And if you are really interested in trying to do your bit to soothe India’s torn communal nerves then you are going to have to introspect too Sir. You are the media, and what you say is NOT your personal opinion. Atleast, it is not supposed to be. So when you consistently ignore one part of the story and only focus on another part, your motive becomes suspect.

Let’s take the Muzzafarnagar riots. The start of the riots happened something like this: A girl was teased by two muslim boys. (Surely you are a champion of women’s rights) When the brother of the girl came to beat up these boys, he was KILLED!!! How did that not become the WORST incident of India’s independent history? Why was that somehow ok? Did you report that? And if you didn’t, I would like to know, why not?

The spin that the media gives to stories is important as that becomes the ‘narrative’ (Oh! How I hate that word!). Everytime there is a communal incident, the scales are somehow titlted against the Hindus atleast as far as reporting is concerned. And you expect to then be taken seriously? In my books, this equals bias. And forget about making it politically motivated, it even goes against the basic tenets of good journalism.

We don’t spare anyone who might wish to break from the official narrative that seeks to promote majoritarianism in the garb of silencing all those who might insist on a greater reach out to the more vulnerable minority groups.

It has to be modern media’s greatest irony that people are sitting on national television, making the most vile and vicious statements about the current dispensation and of Mr. Modi in particular and then saying that their freedom of expression is under threat. Reams and reams of newsprint and screens and screens of webprint have been devoted to vicious abuse of the Prime Minister in the most objectionable language, and you talk of curbing of the ‘freedom of expression’? Did irony just die?

The Kalburgi murder was not acceptable. Period. No justification or context can make it ok.

But is this the FIRST time that this has happened in independent India? Then why lie about it? What is the agenda?

When Naseeruddin Shah, arguably the finest stage actor of our generation, says he is being made conscious of his Muslim identity for the first time, being dubbed ‘anti national’ for attending a seminar, you wonder what kind of a civil society are we bequeathing to the next generation.

Social media did not exist a few years ago. The presence of this media makes many things more palpable. It was simply not possible for people to tell someone off so easily as it is today. It is just so easy to sit on this keyboard, hiding behind this screen, and say anything that one likes. That is part of the problem today. People have been dubbed ‘anit-national’ before too for sounding or making pro-pakistan statements. Am I condoning that? No. But it’s not the first time and so let’s STOP making it out to be.

What if I tell you that I feel that my Hindu identity feels like it is under threat? Would that concern you? Or simply because I am part of 85% of the population, what I feel is irrelevant?

Even our respected prime minister from whom we seek leadership and guidance will tweet to wish Navjot Sidhu a quick recovery from hospital but will not say a word on Akhlaq’s family’s loss.

The Prime Minister — who is constantly made out to be some sort of a communal monster — has time and again, repeatedly, constantly shunned this ‘minority’ debate and has always and consistently talked about ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’. Why does that not mean anything to you? Why is ‘minority appeasement’ the only language that you will understand? And pray, where has 65 years of minority appeasement brought us? Does simple common sense not tell you that ‘minority appeasement’, wearing the skull cap, attending iftaar parties and doing NOTHING to change the reality on the ground is not the answer and has not worked? Is it not better for someone to actually Do something and not just talk? And what if he does say something? Will that be acceptable? Will the debate and the commentary not be then about ‘what he did not say’, ‘what he should have said’, ‘why did he say this word’, ‘why did he not say that word’?

This is an India which is crying out for a Mahatma who puts compassion and tolerance above all else. We are left instead with men with self proclaimed broad chests but very small hearts. As I said: yeh Kahan aa Gaye hum

Tolerance has to work both ways Rajdeep. Why are we not tolerant of the Hindu belief that the Cow is sacred? Or is that not part of our ‘tolerant’ nature? Are you going to define tolerance? Are you tolerant about what other people have to say, who don’t agree with you? It is so easy to preach tolerance and so hard to practice is when your own beliefs are challenged.

So does that make tolerance a bad thing? Not at all. It is the only way. But it will work ONLY if it comes from all sides. Constantly chiding one group of people for something, while condoning the same behavior from others, even if by just maintaining silence, is going to get us nowhere.

The media has to introspect. The narrative has to change. This has been one moment in India’s history where we have the chance to change our story. I implore you to be part of this positive change. We need to change the script that is currently running on a never-ending spool. And this narrative needs your help for it to change. India is more, much more than Hindu-Muslim. And it is upto you to discover that India.