By M.A.A.Pathan
The Akbar Owaisi episode has brought to light many uncomfortable aspects of the diverse segments of the Indian society. Predictably the Hindutva right has pounced on his remarks without actually making an attempt at nuanced understanding. The Sangh and its talking heads immediately declared him a ‘traitor’ with the extreme fringe calling for his ‘death by hanging.’ In this they conveniently forget their own record of relentless expounding of unambiguous hate. One only needs to listen to the likes of BJP MP Yogi Adityanath to discover this duplicity. The role of the so-called ‘liberal,’ ‘secular,’ and ‘mainstream’ media and other elites in creating an Islamophobic atmosphere also needs to be explored.
For some time now a section of the ‘secular’ media has adopted a paternalistic attitude towards the Muslim by subtly dictating what is expected of them. Hints of this could be found when the likes of Barkha Dutt routinely tell the community that it should adopt Shahrukh Khan or some other Bollywood celebrity as a role-model. They expected the articulate Asaduddin Owaisi to fall in line and dance to their tunes. When he refused at first these leading lights of the media wondered how a young and London-educated barrister will not do their bidding. They were especially perplexed when Asaduddin Owaisi told them that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is a role model for Muslim. As the years progressed the media slowly went about transforming him into a hate figure. Their efforts accelerated when they came under attack from the right for not treating the Muslim extremists with equal vigour as they do to their Hindu counterparts.
Major media expected the articulate Asaduddin Owaisi to fall in line and dance to their tunes.
In their attempts to find Muslim equivalents the Indian media faced several challenges– prime being that there is no equivalent figure among Indian Muslims to match with people like Praveen Togadia, Ashok Singhal, Uma Bharti or Acharya Dharmendra. What few extremists exist are marginal and local figures and none of them have a pan-Indian appeal. In addition, they didn’t speak in a language that could be understood by the media or the masses. In their classic self-service, bordering on laziness style, they went after Muslim leaders who spoke in a language which they could understand and went about transforming them into hate figures.
This first became apparent during last year’s Assam riots when they called Maulana Badruddin Ajmal an ‘extremist’ for being outspoken enough to say that Muslims will not take things lying down. It all became too much when Asaduddin Owaisi warned of a ‘third wave of radicalization’ if the anti-Muslim riots of Assam are not controlled. That one statement was enough to solidify his position as an ‘extremist’ in the mind of the liberal media and via them into the society. Even Rajdeep Sardesai went on to tweet, ‘Owaisi guilty of worst kind of vote bank politics in parliament speech. Flip side of Togadia.’
When Akbaruddin Owaisi gave his controversial speech the media found yet another reason to pounce upon him, his family and the community at large. While Ashis Nandy is given the benefit and people being urged to see his comments in their proper context no such thing was afforded to Akbaruddin Owaisi. In short, he was a perfect scapegoat to pounce upon. Even veteran commentators succumbed to the temptation. No one urged that his speech should be looked in its proper context and entirety. Selective clips were shown to falsely portray, among other things, that he is a supporter of terrorist Kasab. The fact of the matter is that he has clearly articulated his support for his hanging.
More dangerously they also tried to implicate the community based on the applause which Akbaruddin Owaisi’s speech received. That Balbir Punj and his colleagues writing in the Organiser wouldn’t surprise anyone. What is shocking is that many of the leading lights of the secular elite are making this argument. None of them expressed any alarm when the Mahant Adityanath or a Togadia receive thunderous applause when they make venomous remarks against Muslims in gatherings of several thousands. By indulging in this vilification of the community, they (either wittingly or unwittingly) are advancing the agenda of the ‘securitization’ of the majority community. At present the first step of securitization is near completion in which societies argue within themselves as to what constitutes a threat to their community. The securitizing actors are the elites who name the threats and attempt to persuade or coerce the society for the validity of their claims. There appears to be an emerging consensus about the threat emerging from the Muslims. Not only the masses but also the liberal Muslims are being implicated as is seen by a statement by the soft-talking Sri Sri Ravishankar, who called on them to come out of their drawing rooms and confront Akbaruddin Owaisi.
Security theorists argue that perceptions of threat in order for them to be successful cannot only be imposed but societies need to be convinced that certain other groups or actions constitute a threat. Once such a consensus is achieved the society supports enactments of extraordinary means to alleviate this threat. It appears that the majority community is well on its way in arriving at such a consensus and the liberal media no doubt has a role to play in it. One hopes that it is not but if it does then it should be of concern to every Indian who believes in equality, justice and fair play.