By Syed Amjad Hussain
On 12 August, Rajiv Tyagi, the national Spokesperson for Indian National Congress Party (INC), appeared on a television debate where he was bullied and berated by the National Spokesperson of the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra, true to his style ridiculed him by calling him “Jai Chand” (A semi-historical legend where a Hindu Ruler Jai Chand supposedly allied with Muslim invaders and betrayed his own people). Rajiv’s Hindu faith was constantly questioned for not being vigorous enough in condemning Muslims for the riots which took place a day earlier in Bangalore. Minutes after the highly acrimonious debate, Rajiv Tyagi died of a cardiac arrest. His case is a poignant reflection of the toxicity that Indian TV debates have been churning over the years.
In a quintessentially Indian TV-style, the entire debate was mired with blatant Islamophobia in which the news anchor was repeatedly interjecting Muslim panellists along with putting words in their mouth while allowing the BJP spokesperson to spew communal hate & bigotry. The BJP Spokesperson started with Islamophobic comments like, “We should not use terms like a specific community while referring to the rioters, we should say openly that rioters were Muslims”, and went on to assert how all Muslims are united while Hindus are divided into castes and sects. Finally, after more than 3 minutes, the anchor intervened only to provide further cues to the BJP spokesperson on how the SDPI (a Muslim dominated political party) can be contained. Indian media is often accused of deploying tactics of serving cues instead of questioning the authorities.
Rajiv Tyagi being on the defensive continued to claim that every rioter must be arrested and punished, along with the BJP worker whose post led to riots. Only to be accused by the anchor of not belonging to a pro-Hindu party (A routine charge levelled against Hindus who don’t lean right).
While Rajiv Tyagi was answering the allegations, the anchor interjected stating, “Why are you justifying the riots by stating police delayed the arrest of the person whose post led to riots?” A deliberate attempt to vilify Rajiv Tyagi and paint him as anti-Hindu despite him being a Hindu. Rajiv Tyagi reminded the anchor of his unequivocal condemnation of the rioters again, which as usual fell on deaf ears. What is clear is that the role of the facilitators and anchors in TV debates can no longer be dismissed as being agents of manufacturing and actively propagating hate.
In Indian TV debates, very often, every issue gets reduced to the usual Hindu-Muslim dichotomy. Touching a new low, the debate that cost Rajiv Tyagi’s life went to define Hindu versus true Hindu. Amidst the range of personal assaults, Patra repeatedly termed him as a traitor to Hinduism. He continued his tirade against Rajiv Tyagi by stating that “No one becomes a true Hindu by applying tika on the forehead”, referring to Rajiv Tyagi’s tilak (A tika/tilak is a mark worn by Hindus on forehead).
Opposing the social and political ostracization of Indian Muslims is often termed as Muslim appeasement & treachery. This ecosystem is created using Islamophobic slurs to discredit centrists, left, liberals and progressives.
The hate that has now been set off and has become the new normal is at times no longer limited to the Opposition parties.
Late Sushma Swaraj (former External Affairs Minister of India) and a stalwart of BJP was trolled, abused and threatened with rape after she stopped the harassment of interfaith couple by a passport office employee in June 2018. Her intervention was termed as an effect of having an Islamic kidney. A year earlier Swaraj went under a kidney transplant procedure and it was assumed that the donor was a Muslim.
No one is spared in the vicious world of twitter trolls.
Barkha Dutt, a reputed Indian journalist faces rape and death threats daily. She is constantly labelled as a Muslim lover (and by implication, anti-Hindu) for her nationalist but nuanced coverage on issues related to Women, Muslims, Kashmir and Pakistan.
Television news anchor Sagarika Ghosh, actor Swara Bhaskar, IAS officer Tina Dabi, are some of the names that feature in the long list of non-Muslim victims of Islamophobia. People from all walks of life face abuse and threats for questioning the right-wing narrative. Any view not conforming to the ultra-right propaganda is slammed and abused.
If Islamophobia wasn’t blatant enough, the anchor decided to step up the game by feeding the fuel to a self-proclaimed right-wing political analyst Sangit Ragi, by asking “were these riots planned? Were they a conspiracy?” To which the reply was “These riots do not depict Muslims, rather it depicts Islam as it comes from Quran and its verses”. He continued unopposed, “What is the reason that anyone who believes in Islam anywhere in the world is always indulged in violence, arson and terrorism”? He concluded with claiming all Muslim are inherently disposed to violence by stating “Hindu isn’t ideologically disposed to violence unlike Muslims”. For the next full 4 minutes, the entirety of the Muslim community was dehumanized while the anchor stayed mum. At the same time, Rajiv was heckled whenever he tried to speak.
Within 30 minutes of the spiteful harassment, Rajiv Tyagi died due to cardiac arrest. Though another BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Mittal has said it is “preposterous” to link the death of Rajiv Tyagi with the debate, as the FIR’s mounted against Sambit Patra. Wife of Rajiv Tyagi held Sambit Patra responsible for the death of her husband, as the last words of Rajiv Tyagi were “These people killed me”. Rajiv Tyagi became a traitor to his religion for BJP because he refused to demonize the 182 million Indian Muslims.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/FMfcgxwJXftSstkrRLzchQjWKbFwWqrW?projector=1