What would happen if there was a terror attack at a place of worship in India?
It would be all over our TV screens, screaming from our front pages. A terror attack, especially at a religious site would have caused a wave of shock and horror.
If the accused had been identified and found, their homes and work establishments would have been demolished.
Calls for extra-judicial encounters would have reached a crescendo, and social media would have been full of people in droves demanding that the accused be sent to Uttar Pradesh for ‘police jeep turns’ justice.
Politicians across the board would have expressed condemnation. Some would use the issue to encourage hatred and discrimination against the religious community from which the terrorist in question belonged. Everyone and their uncle would have asked for the death penalty and anyone opposing the death penalty would be declared a traitor.
Roadside shops of innocent people from the same community would have been attacked. Students in universities from the same community would have been attacked.
After Shiv Sena workers demolished the venue where Kunal Kamra performed, Eknath Shinde said “every action has a reaction”. This argument would have been used to justify incidents of violence all over the country.
On March 30, there was a large explosion at a mosque in Beed, Maharashtra. While no one was hurt, cracks developed in the structure of the mosque. Two people were arrested soon after.
Their names? Vijay Rama Gavhane and Shriram Ashok Sagde. Their homes have not been demolished.
Also read: In UP’s Mosque Coverings, a New Chapter From The Hindutva Playbook Unfolds
One of them posted a video of holding the explosives on his Instagram account. In a report in The Indian Express, a senior police officer is anonymously quoted. In his quotes the officer is offering compassionate psychoanalysis of the mind of the accused: “We believe that the incident is a result of Gavhane’s ego and angry temperament. We have learned that he had a fight with someone a day earlier, which led him to seek Sagde’s help, enter the mosque and lay the gelatin sticks.”
Ego and angry temperament.
Perhaps one should fall on one’s knees and offer profuse gratitude that at least we are not being told that the act was in service of the highest ideals of patriotism.
Terror is when a Muslim does it. If a Hindu does it, it is error. Error on account of ego and angry temperament.
The copy uses the word “bomb” only when it has to say “Bomb Detection Squad”. Otherwise it doesn’t say that the two planted a bomb, it says they planted gelatin sticks. I wonder if in other stories we are told that the accused planted a “device with a trigger+shrapnel+gunpowder and some other mechanical parts”.
The PTI headline says “Gelatin sticks trigger blasts, communal harmony ensures peace on Eid eve”.
First, Shinde may be surprised to see that the “action” was a blast and the “reaction” is harmony. The PTI report concludes with: “Amid tensions, villagers from Hindu and Muslim communities ensured that the situation did not escalate. They organised a peace committee meeting and decided to repair the damaged structure.”
Second, I suppose a longform report of the incident may have noted, “It was a sunny morning when gelatin sticks left their house with a nefarious plan to go trigger a blast.”
While the world chases AI, the Indian media has discovered sentient gelatin sticks. This headline has been used ad-nauseum by many.
A report in The Print is also very educative. The very first sentence of the story is: “An altercation with some Muslim youths led Vijay Gavhane to allegedly plant gelatin sticks inside a mosque in Maharashtra’s Beed district in the early hours of Sunday, ThePrint has learnt.”
Islamophobia, radicalism, ideology? No. Altercation. A personal dispute which just spilled over into a blast inside a mosque. There is nothing to see here.
Also read: Communal Violence Isn’t a Law and Order Problem. The BJP Knows This But Pretends Otherwise
There is so much more to unpack. The justification, “an altercation”, is set in stone. It is not preceded by the word “allegedly”. The act itself however must carry doubt: “allegedly plant gelatin sticks”.
The officer quoted in the report shares the progressive multi-cultural outlook of the accused and says: “According to the officer, Gavhane does not have a communal history and also has friends in the Muslim community.”
The officer should have kept quiet about this one. Prison is the least of what has happened to many Indian citizens for having friends in the Muslim community. Unless the officer meant it as criticism.
Neither The Print nor The Indian Express articles quote anyone affected. Not the muezzin, not the villagers, no one who prays at the mosque. Only the FIR, anonymous and named police officers, and the chief minister are quoted. The story is what the state says it is. A masterclass in stenography masquerading as journalism.
Was it just that? A petty dispute, an altercation, just young men being young, you know, and trying to blow up mosques?
There is a clue, in the First Information Report, also quoted in The Print story. Here it is: “Gavhane allegedly said: “Why is a mosque being built here? Destroy it, or else we will destroy it.”
Do you still have any doubts?
But why all this obfuscation, erasure and denial? Answering this is important.
What is it when Muslims do it, allegedly or not? Islamic terror. Radicalism.
What will it have to be called if two Hindu men named Vijay Rama Gavhane and Shriram Ashok Sagde commit terrorism?
And if you think it’s simply a matter of pointing out that even Hindus can be terrorists, and not just errorists, you would be wrong. To say it would be to throw away the charade protecting a fundamental truth. That the RSS-BJP political project combined with their failure to offer employment and prosperity to the country is leading to men taking to radical terrorism.
Too many seats across assemblies and Parliament, too many thousands of crores invested by businessmen depends on this truth staying hidden. This is why the media, the police, must fall over themselves, paint compassionate psychological profiles to hide this truth.
Muslim women sitting in protest in Shaheen Bagh are terrorists. Sikh women sitting in farmers’ protests are terrorists. Muslims are terrorists even when they try to get government jobs. Terrorists for trying to sell vegetables on the streets. Umar Khalid is in prison for over three years for peacefully protesting. Muslims are terrorists for praying. Muslims are terrorists for existing. Hindus are not terrorists even when they plant bombs. Even the bomb stops being a bomb and becomes a gelatin stick.
A Muslim child who entered a temple to drink water was mercilessly beaten on camera. Two Hindu men who have planted explosives inside a mosque are almost being defended by the media and the police.
The BJP-RSS project has many Indians believing that an average Muslim child has a terrorist. It also has too many Indians believing that two Hindu men calling for demolition of mosques and planting bombs? They’re just angry young men. Future recipients of garlands and with some luck, a seat in Parliament.
Dushyant Arora is a lawyer and research consultant.
