Hate speech, riots and Facebook Live

We will not buy anything from their shops. We will not give them any work… we will not buy vegetables from their handcarts, we will not engage them…we will have to enforce a total economic boycott if we want to fix them, once and for all.” Those are the words of Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, a BJP member of the Lok Sabha and one of the famous trio of rabble-rousers of the Delhi riots of February 2020. No prizes for guessing who he wants to boycott, but when a journalist from the Indian Express asked nevertheless, Verma said he hadn’t named any religious community.

Speaking at the same event on 9 October, Nand Kishor Gurjar, a BJP legislator from Uttar Pradesh, showed even less restraint: “Our beautiful city has become a city of pigs,” he said.

Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code deems words and action that creates enmity between groups on the basis of religion, race, caste or language an offence carrying punishment with imprisonment that can extend to three years, or fine or both. But while Delhi Police have booked anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protesters for sedition, or under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and under Section 153 of the IPC, with far less provocation, lawmakers like Verma and Gurjar, and sundry self-styled saints and seers openly calling for genocide, have been left alone.

Hate speech directed at Muslims is certainly the new normal in India, and the vocabulary has progressed far beyond the old references to ‘traitors/ terrorists/ parasites/ termite’ and suchlike. The police have often been mute spectators in the face of the worst excesses, and in extreme cases, as a new citizens’ report on the Delhi riots finds, even been complicit.

NDTV’s VIP hate tracker this week claimed that 80 per cent of hate speeches after 2014 were delivered by BJP ministers, MPs and MLAs. The police have largely ignored complaints against VIP hate speeches, or at best stalled on the pretext that they were still investigating. Said VIPs themselves have maintained that they have not named any community or individual, never mind that even the Prime Minister famously said that miscreants can easily be recognised by their clothes.

A BJP MP and MLA delivering offensive speeches in the national capital last Sunday and the release of a new citizens’ report prepared on the 2020 Delhi riots have revived the focus on hate speech.

The citizens’ report, titled Uncertain Justice, prepared by/ for the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a body of retired civil servants, under the supervision of a panel headed by Justice Madan Lokur (former Supreme Court judge) and including Justice A.P. Shah (retired chief justice of Delhi High Court), Justice R.S. Sodhi (retired judge of the Delhi High Court), Justice Anjana Prakash (retired judge of Patna High Court), G.K. Pillai (former Home Secretary) and Meeran Borwankar (retired IPS officer), traces the build-up to the riots, the role of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the investigation by Delhi Police and what the courts have said on the evidence. It also examines the role of the media. While the report stops short of commenting on the merits of the cases against the accused, with trials still pending, the title itself is revealing.

The report documents the VIP hate speeches in 2019 that preceded the riots. It quotes Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma saying in a video interview to the news agency ANI on 28 January 2020, while referring to the anti-CAA protesters: “…the fire that raged in Kashmir, where daughters of Kashmiri Pandits were raped is raging in a corner of Delhi… the fire can engulf houses in Delhi anytime… these people will enter your houses, rape your sisters and daughters and kill them… there’s time today… Modiji and Amit Shah will not come to save you tomorrow.”

Anti-CAA protesters, particularly Muslims, had come under sustained attack after the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed in Parliament on 11 December 2019; the protests had broken out in many parts of the country. There were police firings in Assam and Karnataka and peaceful sit-in protests in several cities.

On 6 January 2020, the Election Commission announced the polling date (February 8) for the Delhi assembly election; simultaneously, the BJP cadre started mobilising support in favour of the CAA, NRC (National Register of Citizens) and NPR (National Population Register). The NPR is supposed to be a list of all residents as distinct from the controversial NRC, which was supposedly an exercise to list bona fide Indian citizens. While claiming that Muslims had nothing to fear, Union home minister Amit Shah repeatedly said that the NRC and NPR would be rolled out throughout the country. He also spoke of the chronology, with the CAA to first grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees in India; the NPR would follow and finally ‘doubtful voters’ excluded from the NRC and possibly disenfranchised.

While BJP leaders pitched it as the patriotic duty of every Indian to support the CAA, it created insecurities among Muslims. Their women, mostly from poor families, came onto the streets, some with their children, and occupied one of the lanes at Shaheen Bagh for a peaceful protest. This agitation really fired up civil society, as never before in recent memory, and found echoes in other parts of the city and country.

On January 20, BJP leader Kapil Sharma swung into action, raising that incendiary slogan: ‘Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko’ (Gun down these traitors) at a pro-CAA rally. For the BJP’s young extremists, this became the new anthem; it was taken up with gusto by Union minister Anurag Singh Thakur and others on January 27. Tarun Chug, then a national secretary of the BJP, tweeted: “We will not let Delhi become Syria and allow them to run an ISIS-like module here, where women and kids (sic) are used…we will not let Delhi burn”. Once again, no community was mentioned but the reference was unmistakable.

Former CSDS fellow and columnist Abhay Kumar Dubey sees a pattern. “Like war strategists, they have created low-intensity conflict zones, somewhere in the name of love jihad, somewhere in the name of a madrasa survey, elsewhere demanding a ban on hijab… the idea is to keep the communal pot boiling”.

“This cannot happen without the consent of the BJP and Sangh brass. The immediate aim seems to be to wean away voters from AAP in the impending local body polls in Delhi and also influence voters in pollbound states such as Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka.” The long-term goal, Dubey says, is to make India a majoritarian state on the lines of the Gulf nations.

BJP watchers in Delhi also seek to explain the rise of rabid communal rhetoric in terms of changes in demography. Traditionally, they point out, politics in Delhi was controlled by Jats and Banias. But the influx of people from ‘Purvanchal’ has so skewed the demography that it has become more competitive. There is also an element of one-upmanship: Kapil Mishra, also known for his communal rhetoric, is from Purvanchal while Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma is a Jat.

Unsurprisingly, a few VHP members we spoke to defend the communal rhetoric: both Muslims and liberals should ponder why Hindus are forced to speak this language. If the Hindu youngster had not been stabbed, we wouldn’t have organised the meeting in the first place, they argue. There was no communal angle to the stabbing incident, police said, but the communal discourse had been set and it didn’t need to lean on facts.

Uncertain Justice provides graphic details of how the riot was engineered and by whom. People associated with the BJP and Hindu nationalist groups made use of Facebook Live extensively on February 23 and 24 to mobilise people.

Addressing a Facebook Live at 8.21 am on 23 February 2020, Sanjeev Sharma called upon viewers to block roads leading to anti-CAA protest sites and prevent food and ration from reaching the protesters. “All you have to do is to block these roads, in support of NPR, CAA, NRC, which are used by them to get their rations, their biryani and everything… Let’s all get out of our homes… we will have to come out of our homes, else they will break into our homes. Jai Shri Ram. Bharat mata ki jai,” he said.

Anupam Pandey, in a Facebook post at 10.46 am the same day appealed to “Hindu brothers” to reach Maujpur Chowk in large numbers. “Sit in your homes till they block roads to our homes. Shame on 100 crore people!” In his fourth post that day, at 12:24 p.m., Pandey wrote, “We will not let Jaffrabad become Shaheen Bagh…We will come out in support of CAA and Delhi Police. At 3 p.m. at Maujpur Chowk.”

Anjali Varma posted at 11:27 a.m., “Grihayudhh ki karo tayyari, tab sudhrenge mulle topi dhaari.” (Prepare for a civil war, only then will the skull cap-wearing Mullahs learn).

Ragini Tiwari posted live videos from Maujpur Chowk itself. In a Facebook Live video, she said, “Bahut hua sanatan par vaar, ab nahi sahenge vaar. Sanataniyo baahar aao. Maro ya maar daalo. Baad mein dekhi jayegi. Bahut hua. Ab jiska khoon na khaula, khoon nahi wo paani hai.” (Enough is enough. We won’t tolerate attacks on our ‘sanatan’ [dharma] anymore. Sanatanis, come out. Kill or get killed. If your blood is not boiling even now, it’s not blood but water.)

Akash Verma toured Maujpur chowk and in a live broadcast on Facebook, he is heard humming along with slogans raised by Hindu mobs. “Modiji, tum latth bajao, hum tumhare saath hain; lambe lambe latth bajao, hum tumhare sath hain.” (Modiji, you beat them with sticks, we are with you. Beat them with long sticks, we are with you.) He also asked his viewers to join him at Maujpur Chowk in large numbers. His video clocked about 40,000 viewers.

During this livestream, Verma showed a wagon filled with stones being unloaded. He says, “See this, the stones have reached the roads.” A voice from the mob can be heard shouting, “Vijay Park ke mullo ke liye yahin girao.” (Drop them here for the Muslims of Vijay Park). Vijay Park is a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood in the area.

As the wagon dumped the stones on the ground, the mob, including Verma, cheered Jai Shri Ram. Verma appeals to his viewers to mobilise again on the next day, February 24: “Friends, by morning, we must gather in large numbers. We must show our strength, the strength we have.”

Anjali Verma went live on Facebook at 5:35 a.m. on February 24, from Maujpur chowk where she had spent the night. “We have been at Maujpur the whole night. We didn’t leave. I am asking all Hindu brothers to reach here. Aaj bahut bada tandav karna hai.” (We have to create a huge ruckus here.)

Verma ended her Facebook Live saying, “Now that the Hindu has awakened, we shall not retreat. Let it not become Pakistan.” The video clocked over 49,000 views.

(Inputs, Facebook details and the table on police deployment from the report Uncertain Justice)