By Ranjona Banerji
The news cycle in India is like a yoyo, swinging between one bizarre act by the government to another worship of the PM to one more ghastly act of communal, casteist and gender violence.
Of course, just because the news cycle swings like this does not necessarily mean that the Indian news media follows suit.
A very disturbing video of a school teacher urging students to beat up a classmate went viral this week. From the video it appeared that the teacher was urging the students to hit the boy harder and also what sounded like this treatment was for all “Mohammedans”.
From both the communal angle as well as the child rights angle, the video was painful to watch. Most people who saw it on sites like X (formerly Twitter) were outraged, including several shameless TV people who have consistently egged on anti-Muslim sentiments and violence for the past nine years. The video was shared by many, picked up by news sites and spread across cyber space.
https://www.thequint.com/news/india/muzaffnagar-muslim-child-beaten-classroom-tripta-tyagi-neha-public-school
https://www.boomlive.in/news/uttar-pradesh-neha-public-school-tripta-tyagi-muslim-student-beaten-viral-video-22860
As the internet outraged away, the pincer movement from our strong Hindutva brigade began. The National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights posted that the video should not be shared because it violated the rights of the child, and action would be taken against those who continued to share it. The BJP propaganda website known as “OpIndia” (as in “Opposed to India”, I feel) tagged the NCPR chief and asked for action to be taken against Mohammed Zubair of Alt News, the fact-checking website. The post ended with the line, “let’s get him this time”.
I add that line for all of you who continue to believe that this BJP site is a genuine news site.
Then people identified the school, the boy’s father was located, the teacher was named – Tripti Tyagi, and the Muzaffarnagar Police was also activated. I should not need to specify that the school was in India’s most developed and forward state, Uttar Pradesh, but I shall do it anyway.
The defence of the teacher began in a number of ways: she was differently abled so could not get up and hit the child herself, she was asked by the parents to beat up the child, she was loved by the villagers, she was ashamed, she was not ashamed, the video was edited and she only meant that “Mohammedan children should not be taken to their maternal uncle’s homes by their mothers or they would miss school”, the boy had not done his homework and any number of such stories.
The school was found to be unregistered and unlicensed and apparently shut down. The teacher was “booked” but not further action was taken. There are laws about beating up children, but never mind. Let’s see what happened next.
Which was that an FIR was filed against Zubair for sharing the video. Out of the thousands of people who had shared that video, only Zubair was targeted. Because of his fact-checking stories and his Muslim name, Zubair has been a consistent target. The bullseye on his back was painted by the BJP website, and obviously, the system was activated.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/police-book-alt-news-mohammed-zubair-sharing-video-muslim-boy-being-beaten-181627
A number of side arguments carried on around the incident: many teachers are like this, this has always happened (the foremost excuse from liberals which translates to “do nothing), this is not “my’ Hinduism, what about the student who was beaten up in Jammu for writing Jai Shri Ram on the blackboard (teacher arrested), where were you when Mahmud of Ghazni did that or that.
But everyone inside themselves knows how deep the hatred has seeped and knows how the mainstream media has played a massive role in fanning those flames.
The internet is now full of other videos of children spouting vile communal propaganda.
And then comes this incident, from a Delhi school:
https://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/delhi-gandhi-nagar-sarvodaya-bal-vidyalaya-in-gandhi-nagar-hema-gulati-why-didnt-you-go-to-pak-delhi-teacher-charged-for-comments-in-class-4338256
Sadly, for us all this will soon be forgotten. The G20 summit begins in Delhi in September and the mainstream media will begin collective sashtang pranams (genuflection) to the glory of the Emperor.
Children can now get thrashed with impunity, Muslims killed, Dalits killed, women beaten and raped, Manipur burn and all the rest of it.
Prove me wrong.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal.