Dear pseudo-patriots and pop-nationalists, please stop your whataboutery

Unlike clans and tribal groupings, nations and nation-states are recent constructs and need a well-defined system of institutions. They also tend to have their own mythologies, historical legends, rituals and emblems, flags and anthems.

Our present ruling coalition has never shied away from sharing its vision of the Indian nation from time to time – be it about secularism, the uniform civil code, abrogation of Article 370 that, among other things, gives Jammu and Kashmir the right to have its own flag or about “Vande Mataram” being a more suitable national anthem for Bharat, that is also a hyphenated Mata – or mother – today.

Many among the government and its supporters do not seem to take well to these views being questioned. Indeed, they do not seem equipped to handle the very thought that any patriot could actually have a different way of looking at these issues.

With failures mounting on various spheres, the frustration of the government and its supporters seems to be mounting too. Which is perhaps why a renewed effort seems to be on to show who's in charge and an attempt is being made to stifle and shut down all democratic debate. As any and all dissent is sought to be suppressed by strong-arm methods, the sight of the police wielding sticks and firing rubber bullets and water cannons seems to be becoming a regular feature on our television news.

As far as the police is concerned, an agitating, slogan-shouting mob of young dissenters is no exotic creature to be treated with kid gloves. Party spokespersons on television, too, it seems are having to increasingly adopt coarse and belligerent tones when called upon to defend the indefensible.

Lawless in New Delhi

The latest fracas, ironically, at the premises of Delhi’s Patiala House courts on Monday, February 15, is a case study in how the rule of law has been subverted. (There was an eerie replay of the incident on Wednesday.)

This is where a mob of about 100 people, which included several lawyers – or people in lawyers’ attire – abused, threatened and assaulted several teachers and students from Jawaharlal Nehru University, along with journalists, who were awaiting the court appearance of the university’s student union president Kanhaiya Kumar, charged with sedition and taken into custody on Friday, February 12.

At least seven journalists were assaulted, their phones and cameras were snatched away. Eyewitness accounts by those present make it clear that the attack was unprovoked:

The lawyers slapped, punched and abused their victims, raining blows on their heads with shoes. For over an hour, Delhi police constables stood by - most passive, some smiling.

Why were the teachers who had come to ensure safety and a free and fair trial for their arrested student leader pushed around? Why did the large posse of police mobilised for the occasion stand mute? Why did some of the women face physical harassment and get jostled around? The stock answer from the authorities to all these questions was: We are looking into it.

But there were other answers on offer too: Because they were “anti-national” Left sympathisers from JNU. All those who were in a Kurta or had a beard were beaten up as being from the JNUs

"It is not wrong if somebody shouting such slogans (‘Pakistan zindabad, Hindustan murdabad’) is beaten up or even done to death"

Thus spake OP Sharma, fiery Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Delhi Legislative Assembly from Vishwas Nagar, who was caught on camera kicking and punching a rights activist and supporter of the Communist Party of India outside the Patiala House Courts complex on Monday. He did not stop there, and went on to add:

“Mai’n golii bhii maar detaa agar bandook hotii. Koii hamaarii maa ko gaalii degaa to kyaa use maaroge nahin (I would have shot him if I had a gun. If someone abuses our mother, won’t we beat him up)?”

“Desh Ke Ghaddar [traitors of the nation],” shouted the mobs led by such worthies, as they freely slapped the journalists who were making phone calls and trying to record the happenings.

Back to whataboutery

In the TV studios, the defenders of the government were quick to deploy their favourite weapon for such occasions: Whataboutery. They triumphantly pointed out the similarities between the excesses against dissenters on campuses under the previous government, just as once the German conservatives recounted the similarities between Soviet and Nazi crimes.

Comparing successive governments on their indifference or high handed tackling of public disaffection is clearly an attractive proposition for news television panelists in general. In this, they are of course heartily supported, in particular, by a channel that calls itself the leader of the pack, led by its hysterical anchor baying for the blood of "unpatriotic" sons and daughters of Mother India.

Each night he arises out of the blue darkness like some mythical Vlad, a messianic representative of the nation who heckles, jeers and disallows all who disagree with him. His brand of TV anchoring is now being imitated by many Hindi and English channels. Together, they make a heroic effort to reduce the excesses we have all seen in the last few months, to more local, less horrific proportions.

This dismal line of argument – “they did it too” – adopted by the apologists of the ruling coalition and their embedded journalists, finally slips into the conclusion that the horrific actions of the pro-government groups, and the equally horrifying silence and inaction of the local administration and the police, were merely a defensive reaction to the mobs’ aggressive slogan mongering that threatened the “very fabric of the nation”.

As has depressingly become routine, this was accompanied by threats and abuses on social media for journalists and channel-heads covering the violence and others who dared condemn the assault. It is not just political opponents or dissident members of minority or backward communities who are being targeted. The real attack is on the fundamental freedoms that democracy gives us all – to speak out, to differ, to choose and still move around fearlessly.

From the breathlessly frantic but inane defence mounted by a red faced administration and screaming party spokespersons, it seemed as though India’s secular republic and its constitution have been handed over to the tender mercies of a demolition company . It is also horribly apt that this latest outrage should have taken place first in the premises of a renowned centre for higher education and then inside and just outside courts of law in the heart of the national capital.

The way forward

Where do we go from here? Let’s first ensure that we collectively raise our voice whenever the constitutional rights of any citizen, particularly the vulnerable, minorities, women, marginalised castes and classes – and justice-seeking students – are sought to be trampled upon.

All we need to do is to call a spade a spade, an injustice an injustice and a lie a lie. Because something also happened under a different government earlier does not mean that it should be allowed to take place again. The increasingly rigid parameters of patriotism and nationhood being drawn out in the media by the self-appointed defenders of Bharat Mata have to be questioned, challenged and called out.

For residents of the national capital, it is a familiar sight to see hapless bands of rhesus monkeys who, having lost their natural habitats, now refuse to follow the utterly meaningless frontiers and closed boundaries of Lutyen’s Delhi. Today they can – and do – bring traffic to a halt as they cross the roads that lead to the well guarded Presidential palaces and the army headquarters. Having been ejected from their natural habitat and denied a safety zone, they have done what the dispossessed will do to survive: organised themselves into gangs of marauding pests, thus establishing the laws of the jungle in the heart of New Delhi.

In this year of the Monkey, perhaps we can take a lesson from our simian brethren. We have been pushed and threatened beyond endurance. It is time we collectively pushed back – and reclaimed our constitutional rights.

(This piece was written before reports came in of journalists and Kanhaiya Kumar being attacked inside Patiala House court premises once again on Wednesday afternoon.)