Who Will Douse Delhi’s Flames?

The dead are not spared. A part of Delhi, the national capital of India, has been reduced to ashes. They’ve desecrated a cemetery, mangled vehicles, broken homes, injured people, killed people – 39, as I write this. North East Delhi is a lower middle-class area, the residents are mostly small shopkeepers and labourers.

On February 23, the eve of Donald Trump’s visit, mobs had collected in pockets and started torching houses. Their anger, apparently, was over the anti-CAA and NRC protests. According to the Citizenship Amendment Act, people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan can seek asylum in India, but only if they are non-Muslim. In North East states like Assam, detention camps have already been built. To serve the government’s purpose, legitimate Muslim residents are being detained as illegal immigrants using the National Register of Citizens. If it is introduced in the country there are fears Muslims will be most affected.

The identification idea was expressed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he said that arsonists could be identified by their clothes. The mobs in Delhi had begun to place saffron flags outside Hindu houses to identity whom to not target.

The rightwing has been on a high. Among them are two members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Anurag Thakur’s chant, “Desh ke gaddaron ko…goli maaron saalon ko (shoot the traitors dead)” has become the go-to anthem of the Hindutva herds.

Kapil Mishra’s role can be directly linked to the present violence. “He threatened to mobilize a mob to clear out the protesters. He said he did not want to create trouble while Mr. Trump was visiting, but he warned the police that as soon as Mr. Trump left India on Tuesday night, his followers would clear the streets if the police did not. Tensions shot up. As Sunday evening approached, gangs of Hindu men and Muslim men began throwing rocks at each other. This quickly degenerated into wider violence, with Hindu residents accusing Muslims of attacking Hindu statues and Muslim residents expressing fear that a Hindu mob was forming to get them.”

Shaheen Bagh has been the fulcrum of the protests; women gathered here day and night to peacefully demonstrate. It spread to other areas and would have continued had the mobs not struck. This was clearly an attempt to derail the protests and to project the brute power of majoritarian politics.

Is the world interested? At the press conference in Delhi, when Donald Trump was asked about the violence a few miles from where he was, he said, "As far as the individual attacks, I heard about it, but I didn't discuss that with him (PM Modi). That's up to India."

Bernie Sanders reacted: "Over 200 million Muslims call India home. Widespread anti-Muslim mob violence has killed at least 27 and injured many more. Trump responds by saying ‘That's up to India’. This is a failure of leadership on human rights."

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A few Muslim protestors were dragged along the ground, beaten up with batons, and made to sing the national anthem – not by the crowd, but by the police.

The complicity of the police force has been evident for a few weeks now. In one chilling incident, a guy aimed his gun at protestors at the Jamia Millia University campus. The cops standing yards away from him merely watched. They watched silently as he shot at a Kashmiri student. Another time, the cops entered the university library and beat up the students. In N.E.Delhi there has been a repeat. Many people have said that the police were helping the goons, or had a tacit arrangement not to interfere. One mob leader said, “Give us permission, that’s all you need to do. You just stand by and watch. We will make sure you don’t get hurt. We’ll settle the score.”

When mobs offer the protect the police, it ceases to even qualify as a police state. It is a gangster state that is asserting its religious identity by using nationalism as a trump card. As happened in Ashok Nagar. They set fire to a mosque, put up a saffron flag on its minaret while waving the national flag; they raised slogans saying, “Hinduon ka Hindustan”, the nation belongs to Hindus. In another mosque, they burned a copy of the Quran, the holy book. A man who probably had lost everything in the violence was collecting its singed pages.

People are stopped at random and asked what their religion is. One man lied that he was Hindu; they asked him to recite the Hanuman Chalisa, a beloved verse for Hindus. He could not. They beat him up.

Mohamed Zubair’s photograph pleading for mercy has become the face of these riots. “They beat me till they broke me. I begged them and they beat me some more, viciously. They made communally charged slurs and took (BJP leader) Kapil Mishra’s name. I don’t remember much. I just hoped my children were safe. I can’t bear to look at my photograph, my legs shiver with pain.”

85-year-old Akbari burnt to death inside her house when they set it on fire. She was too old and frail to run and save her life.

***

After three days of silence, and two days of his ostentatious show with Donald Trump, Narendra Modi woke up to comment on what is happening in Delhi. He did not address the nation nor did he hold a press conference, but he tweeted to say: “Peace and harmony are central to our ethos. I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace and brotherhood at all times. It is important that there is calm and normalcy is restored at the earliest.” There is violence in the streets. People are in hospital and dying. And all he can think of are homilies about harmony. There is no reaching out to the people, no assurances about how such normalcy will be achieved.

There is no one to question him. Arvind Kejriwal of the Opposition Aam Aadmi Party (People’s party), and the chief minister of Delhi, took a bunch of his ministers to Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, every politician’s favourite man for all seasons. Kejriwal has been mimicking Modi by taking a soft Hindutva stance, reciting verses on television and thanking Hanuman, the saviour of Lord Ram, in his victory speech. Politicians in India have to use religious nationalism to appease the majority that constitutes 80 per cent of the population. 

The role of mainstream media has been questionable. While the liberals among them give a fair exposure to both sides, as they must, it is the editorialising with such false equivalences that is problematic. There are indeed casualties on both sides, but a pogrom is a clear agenda against a particular group.

There are other casualties. Tahir Hussain, an opposition politician, has been booked for arson and murder because they found petrol bombs on his terrace. Nobody is interested in facts – the fact that he called the police several times because a mob had gathered outside his house and he was taken to a safe place. One is not opposed to an investigation into the truth, but there is a definite bias. Ruling party members who called for the murder of Muslims, that resulted in Delhi burning, are free.  The judge who asked the police to issue arrest warrants against them for incendiary speeches has been transferred. Delhi Police has told the high court that FIRs will be registered at an “appropriate time”. Are they waiting for more bloodshed? Is there a casualty quota they have to meet? The matter has been adjourned until April 13. In six weeks, there will be more destruction, evidence will be doctored, witnesses will be silenced, there will be more graves.

And they don’t even spare the dead.

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Published in CounterPunch

How He Turned The Tables: The Rahul Gandhi Interview

If you are looking for a parody or, more appropriately, a lame attempt at humour, then please skip this.

Rahul Gandhi may not be a great subject for a television interview, he may not even turn out to be a good political leader, but on the much-touted first-ever interview in 10 years (he clarified on camera that this was not the first, but the first formal one!) he did exactly what he set out to do. Say his piece. What seemed like repetition, if not ducking, was a strategy he adopted to bludgeon the inquisitor softly, if not tire him out.

Some in the media have dubbed this a Rahul vs. Arnab fight. I am amazed at the ignorance. No one, I repeat no one, in the higher echelons of power will give such a big interview without vetting the queries. Therefore, Rahul Gandhi must certainly have been aware of what Arnab Goswami (AG) would ask. If AG added specific queries later, then isn’t it funny that at the beginning of the interview he makes it clear and RG says “You can draw me back as much as you want” but would he be okay if he took a broader look? Think about it. Besides, it does not take rocket science (ahem, those Bharat Nirman ads) to figure out what the nation as filtered by the media would want to know. As he said:

"I have done a little media interaction, prior to this. I have done press conferences & spoken to the media. But mainly bulk of my focus has been on internal party work and that's where I have been concentrating, that is where most of my energy was going."

In the latter half I will reproduce some salient points, with quick notes.

First, the minutiae: This was not a live interview; it was conducted at Jawahar Bhavan; it lasted for a little under 90 minutes. According to The Telegraph:

But sources said the Congress leadership wanted to ensure that Rahul’s “outing” should be with a journalist who has a reputation for being unsparing. An off-the-record session between Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Goswami, over pakoras and tea, also helped pave the ground for the interview, the sources said.

It just so happens that those who are building up this “unsparing” interviewer have rather short or selective memories. Some of us do recall his almost obsequious questioning of Bal Thackeray; even Raj Thackeray has managed to stand firm. So, let us not create heroes only because we need to look down on certain people.

Let us talk about some problem areas.

Why was RG not being specific?

Why should he? He will do so in his speeches when he addresses the nation, not for revenue-run TRP-driven media. Has Times Now donated to the Congress Party’s election campaign? Is there a quid pro quo? No.

Arnab did his business of mentioning names – as the tagline of his show states – and Rahul spoke about the issue. Yes, the issues are more important. It is the system that deals with individual offenders. If he took the names, or repeated them after AG, he would be a bloody stupid politician and VP of his party.

Why did he not take the Modi bait?

This was by far the best thing Rahul could have done. He treated Narendra Modi as just another guy. The persistent questioning about whether he would agree to a debate with the Gujarat CM elicited what I thought was a perfect clincher: “The debate is already going on.” This effectively took the battle to where it belongs – outside the TV studios.

Why did he not apologise for the anti-Sikh riots of 1984?

What would he achieve by doing so? Get brownie points from the viewers and a pat on the back from the media, with Times going berserk by claiming that it was their channel that brought about this major penance? The PM and Sonia Gandhi have both apologised, and if RG has to do so it needs to be done to the people who are waiting for justice.

Why did he not come clean about his degrees?

Here you have an anchor who has netted a huge catch, and he is quoting a shark lapping in the shallows. Arnab brought in Subramanian Swamy to put RG on the mat regarding his educational qualifications. With all his Ivy League credentials, Swamy comes across as an uncouth man. Besides, how is it important? This Oxford-Cambridge showing off might appeal to the urban upper middle class, not the majority of the population.

Has anybody bothered to check for how long exactly Modi ran a tea stall that he is using as his new USP? Is there any evidence of it?

Why did he not commit on the Aam Aadmi Party?

Simple. The AAP is not one that sticks to its own word, so how can anybody else? Here is one bit from the interview

Arnab: Are you using the AAP to split the Anti Congress vote bank, to keep Mr. Modi out of power
Rahul: You are implying that we have brought the AAP...

This was really giving it to those ones in the politest of tones.

Why did he keep repeating about RTI, empowerment of women, the system?

Because these are crucial subjects, though they don’t sound terribly sexy. Indeed, he used these terms to also answer unrelated queries, but as I said at the beginning, he was here to say his piece.

We have got so accustomed in the past few months to war cry rallies and dharnas that someone who comes across as vulnerable, yet refusing to fall prey, is not easy to accept. Calling Rahul Gandhi a fool might prove to be our biggest fallacy.

Here is how he answered some of the questions, from Modi to being attacked, and why moving off-track sometimes seemed to be just the right move: