Incitement to violence / Hate

Since November, several similar rallies have been held across Maharashtra. At nearly all of them, speakers have called for violence against Muslims or floated conspiracy theories about the community. https://scroll.in/article/1045315/how-love-jihad-rallies-are-spreading-hate-against-muslims-in-maharashtra 

But even the Supreme Court’s scrutiny did little to stem the flood of provocative speeches at these rallies, which are being organised under the umbrella of the Sakal Hindu Samaj.

“Such hate speeches were never made in Mumbai before,” said Lara Jesani, general secretary of People’s Union for Civil Liberties. “That they are able to openly call for violence worries us.”

Observers of Maharashtra’s politics differ on why the rallies have picked up pace in Maharashtra.

Former journalist Kumar Ketkar said the reasons were electoral. “Polls are coming up,” he said. “They feel these rallies will benefit them, make fence-sitters switch sides and vote for the BJP.”

by Tabassum Barnagarwala

10/03/2023 

Women in Bengaluru protest Pramod Mutalik’s hate speech against Muslim women https://cjp.org.in/women-in-bengaluru-protest-pramod-mutaliks-hate-speech-against-muslim-women/  Days after the Hindutva extremist leader and head of the Sri Ram Sena Pramod Muthalik urged Hindu men to “get 10 Muslim girls for losing one Hindu girl to Love-Jihad, and declared that such Hindu men would be provided security and employment by his organisation, ordinary citizens protested outside the office of Director General of Police (DGP), Praveen Sood, protesting against the derogatory comment made by Muthalik.

Muslim women have been increasingly targeted with vile sexual threats, both online and on the ground. The blatantly abusive behaviour is often spearheaded with impunity by right-wing extremists and socio-culturally influential members of the majority community. It has been made clear above that the authorities have full power to take action against anti-woman and derogatory comments made by Muthalik. Despite this, no action has been taken. It is also pertinent to note that had such comments been made by a person who was not backed by the majority community, the actions followed such a statement had been different.

If this incident is ignored, even after there are directions laid down by the Supreme Court, it will add on to the current environment of unsafety that exists for the women and the marginalized in India. Such state sponsored impunity may make Muslim women more and more vulnerable in the social and public sphere.

The court was hearing a petition filed by a Muslim man from Uttar Pradesh who said that he was assaulted and abused in the name of religion, but police did not register a case in response to his complaint. https://thewire.in/law/sc-on-hate-crimes-primary-duty-of-state-is-to-protect-citizens-no-compromise-at-all 

A two-judge bench of Justice K.M. Joseph and Justice B.V. Nagaratna said “there cannot be any compromise on hate speech at all”, while adding that only when the state acknowledges such crimes can a solution be found.

“When action is not taken against hate crimes then an atmosphere is fostered which is very dangerous and it has to be rooted out from our lives. There cannot be any compromise on hate speech at all,” the court said.

08/02/2023

 The News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) on Monday, January 30, issued “guidelines for prevention of hate speech” which direct editors, editorial personnel, anchors, journalists and presenters who are part of its member organisations to refrain from using “language and agenda-driven words”, “terms and adjectives” and “all forms of expression” which among other things advocate violence or engender hatred against individuals or communities.

https://thewire.in/media/nbdsa-guidelines-hate-speech-tv 

These guidelines come just about a fortnight after a bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices K.M. Joseph and B.V. Nagarathna, had, while hearing a batch of cases involving allegations of hate speech, asked the independent broadcasting self-regulatory body about the action taken against anchors for hate speech. “How many times have you taken off anchors? Have you dealt with anchors in the way you send a message?” Justice Joseph had asked.

It is also pertinent to note that the new guidelines issued by NBDSA do not cover two major channels – Sudarshan TV and Republic TV – which had walked out of the NBA  a few years ago.

by Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

31/01/2023