New Delhi: Why is it that many young Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, many of whom have been brought up in multi-religious and secular backgrounds, have started speaking the language of hate?
Is it because they somewhere feel compelled to use the tone and tenor which propelled senior party leaders to the heights they now command? Or have the political atmosphere and social divides in the country become so vitiated and deep that this is the only kind of language that they believe would appeal to the masses?
These are some of the questions which arise when one sees repeated utterances, amounting to or verging on hate speech, coming from these relatively young politicians.
The latest such episode involved BJP MP from West Delhi, Parvesh Verma who, along with several other speakers, has been accused of making inflammatory speeches at a Virat Hindu Sabha meeting organised in Northeast Delhi earlier this month. Incidentally, communal riots had taken the lives of 53 people, a majority of them Muslims, in the same part of Delhi in February 2020.
A murder case was used to breed hatred
The meeting, it was reported, was called to protest against the brutal murder of a youth, Manish, over what the Delhi police had termed an old rivalry. While six accused – Sajid, Aalam, Bilal, Faizan, Mohsin and Shakir – were arrested, right-wing groups tried to use the incident to breed hatred.
Verma did not name any particular community in his speech but called for the “total boycott” of “these people” – leaving little to imagination as to who he was referring to.
He was quoted as saying: “Wherever you see them, I say that if you want to set their minds straight … then there is only one remedy and that is complete boycott… Do you agree with this? Raise your hands if you agree. Say with me, we will completely boycott them, we will not buy any goods from their shops, we will not employ them”.
Though he later defended his speech saying he had urged only boycott of those who indulged in violence, several Muslim organisations – including the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind – had protested against the event and sought action against Verma and others who spoke therein.
Also read: Delhi Police Probe Alleged Hate Speeches by Hindutva Groups, Including BJP MP
The Jamiat had also stated that its delegation had visited the Delhi police and urged the special commissioner of police (CP) to make sure that a first information report (FIR) was registered against the speakers. The police, it said, had only registered a case under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the organisers of the event for not taking permission for hosting.
Children of liberal leaders adopting a radical approach
While Verma, who comes from the Jat community, is known to be outspoken in matters of religion, what surprises many is how the son of former BJP Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma could adopt such a radical approach.
Sahib Singh was never known to harbour any ill-will against minorities. In fact, when he won the erstwhile Outer Delhi Lok Sabha seat, it was the most populous in the country and represented 21 of the 70 assembly segments of the national capital – many of which had a large minority population.
It is now being said that the BJP’s central party has sought details of the incident involving Verma, ostensibly since the Gujarat assembly elections are due shortly and the party does not want to antagonise the Pasmanda Muslim community, which is largely involved in trade and business and which it has been trying to woo in the state.
The BJP is now also mindful of the backlash that can come from Islamic (and other) nations in such matters. It is not too long back that controversial comments by former party spokesperson Nupur Sharma on Prophet Muhammad had stoked a major controversy and invited condemnation from several nations in the Arab world and beyond.
But so far, the BJP has not issued any kind of warning to Verma for his utterances. This is also demonstrative of the changes the saffron party has witnessed over the past couple of decades. Earlier it often used to criticise or warn its leaders when it felt that they were crossing a certain limit.
From ‘right-of-centre’ to ‘ultra-right’
One may recall 2009 when erstwhile BJP candidate from Pilibhit, Varun Gandhi, had made communal remarks leading to the registration of an FIR against him. At the time, the BJP had denounced his actions.
Varun, who is the son of the late Sanjay Gandhi and Maneka Gandhi, was quoted as speaking against Muslims during an election rally. “This is not a hand (Congress symbol), it is the power of the lotus (BJP symbol). It will cut the head of… Jai Shri Ram,” a report by news agency PTI had quoted him as saying.
And in another meeting, the agency quoted him saying: “If anyone raises a finger towards Hindus or if someone thinks that Hindus are weak and leaderless; if someone thinks that these leaders lick our boots for votes; if anyone raises a finger towards Hindus, then I swear on Gita that I will cut that hand.”
Varun’s aunt and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi was among the first to criticise his remarks as “unethical and against the law”. The BJP also distanced itself from the vitriolic comments. Its then leader, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, had termed the speech “a manifestation of his family’s past Congress culture” and insisted that this outburst “did not reflect the BJP’s traditional culture”.
Also read: 10 Times When BJP Leaders (Not Fringe) Made Anti-Muslim Hate Speeches
As with Verma, it was difficult to comprehend what made a person like Varun, known among his close associates to be of a left-of-centre mindset, to present such a side of his.
Then, before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when BJP leader from Bihar, Giriraj Singh, had termed people out to stop Narendra Modi as being “pro-Pakistan”, threatening that they “will have no place in India” after the BJP comes to power, the party had again urged its leaders to “exercise restraint”.
Does a radical approach ensure a rise on the political ladder?
However, now firmly entrenched, the BJP no longer feels the need to chastise – at least publicly – those of its leaders who believe that hate speech will help them rise higher up the political ladder.
And this appears to be the reason why the likes of Verma or Kapil Mishra, who was an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA before he joined the BJP in 2019, feel compelled to make such statements.
In the case of Mishra, within months of joining the saffron party, he had stirred a major controversy in January 2020 when he likened the upcoming Delhi assembly polls to an India versus Pakistan match. The following month, at a rally against anti-CAA protesters, he was accused of trying to intimidate the police into removing the protesters from the Jaffrabad and Chand Bagh areas within three days and of threatening to take matters into his own hands thereafter, saying he would “hit the streets” and “not remain peaceful”.
Within hours of this speech, violence erupted in Northeast Delhi. Even East Delhi MP, Gautam Gambhir, had stated that “Kapil Mishra’s speech is not acceptable”. But Mishra was not punished for inciting violence.
He has since become a regular face in TV news debates for presenting ultra-right views on issues. What still confounds many is how a man, who had in 2016 termed Modi an “ISI agent” in the Delhi assembly, could change his colours so quickly and radically.