Incendiary and provocative election speeches by BJP MP Anurag Thakur who is also the star campaigner for the Delhi elections can only erode the democratic ethos of this country. The MP is stated to have instigated participants in an election rally in Rithala to raise slogans against anti-CAA protestors in Shaheen Bagh calling them traitors that should be shot at. Another BJP MP Parvesh Verma went a step further. He warned that what happened in Kashmir to the Kashmiri Pandits could happen in Delhi too. This is an insidious warning to the protestors in Shaheen Bagh, mainly women that they could be assaulted, raped and even killed.
Never before has India seen such hate-filled and communal speeches. Shaheen Bagh has become India’s symbol of resistance against anti-democratic forces at work in the country today. The CAA/NRC/NPR offensive of the BJP-led NDA Government has brought out its worst traits. Regular verbal attacks on protestors by no less a person than the Home Minister who also is campaigning for the Delhi elections, are unparalleled. Across the country there is a sense of foreboding of what could happen next, especially after the Modi-Shah experiment with Kashmir in August last year.
The entry of masked men into the JNU campus at the start of the anti-CAA protests, the violence that visited protestors in Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia Islamia all portend a dangerous trend of gross intolerance. That the protestors are mostly students and comprise that critical demographic dividend should cause anxiety. A violence that was allegedly perpetrated by those in power against a section of the student community and the venom that is regularly spouted by the Home Minister himself, also infamous for labeling all who have taken adversarial positions on the CAA as anti-national, has far reaching consequences. It is no longer a war of words that the BJP is unleashing on students but also physical violence. What feelings will the student protesters carry about the government of the day which has turned them into pariahs? These are serious questions which India’s citizens need to engage with. What is unfortunate is that large sections of citizens of this country are today hugely polarized along religious lines and a good number refuse to see reason. But somewhere, it is the image of India that is taking a beating and this will continue to haunt us even when the BJP is no longer in power because strong emotions as are evident today cannot be switched on and off. This actually calls for a serious societal discourse.