By Ranjona Banerji
The terrible beheading of a schoolteacher and the subsequent murders in France have upset and shocked the whole world but they have really roiled the Indian media and the Indian rightwing. The reason is not far to seek. It speaks straight to the Islamophobia which rules India today.
In 2015, after the awful attack on the offices of magazine the Charlie Hebdo by Islamic terrorists, leading to the deaths of 12 journalists, many of us changed our social media handles to “Je suis Charlie Hebdo” (I am…). To show solidarity with the victims, to stand against terrorism and to stand in favour of freedom of speech and expression. We knew that Charlie Hebdo was deliberately offensive and provocative in the way it targeted Islam and the Prophet Mohammed but to kill journalists was not a reaction that could be condoned under any circumstances.
Cartoonist EP Unny writes this sensitive and insightful op-ed in the Indian Express on Charlie Hebdo and its deliberate targeting of Muslims. He puts forward this considered argument:
“The French weekly that sees itself as politically left should have nothing against immigrants, but it has hurt them with the cartoon as a blunt instrument. France has a significant Muslim population, most of them immigrants. A good many are believers and new to the host culture, which is used to handling such excesses in a cartoon with a shrug of the shoulder, a pungent letter to the editor or a searing counter-cartoon. The settlers would take a while to acquire such skills. Meanwhile, the art form would get sufficiently demonised in their eyes. Historically, this is a sad betrayal of the abiding bond between the immigrant and cartoon art. The Hebdo cartoonist is antagonising a willing natural readership.”
This nuance is not a justification, but it points to context and consequences. Both of which sections of the Indian media deliberately ignore. They are all full of “freedom of expression” brimstone when they spread BJP propaganda but are full of coy reluctance when they have to take on the various transgressions of the Central government or the Hindutva and Hindu supremacist rightwing.
And I would argue that rather than be really bothered about whatever’s happening in Europe, or about the sudden reappearance of Islamic terrorism, these sections of the media are cynically using the deaths there to further demonise Indian Muslims who have no connection with the murderous tendencies of the perpetrators. After all, Canada also saw an attack on Sunday night where two people were killed and several injured, but since it was not Islamic terrorism, why bother to overplay it?
The innumerable public lynchings of Muslims in India since 2014 by Hindu mobs have not exercised these TV channels quite as much as terrorist attacks France or Austria. Even the Delhi riots of early 2020 sees these channels focus on those few episodes where Muslims were the accused, rather than the many more where they were the victims.
For the past few days, the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 is being discussed and rightly so. And even this terrible attack largely by Congress workers after the assassination of Indira Gandhi gets more space in some sections of the media than riots and acts of violence closer of these times.
The reasons are not far to seek. We are looking for a distraction from the mess in India today and we want to continue to demonise the “other”. This is a two-pronged Hindu supremacist approach, if you will, with the media as an active accomplice. There are elections on in India after all, and the BJP needs all the help it can get, right?
Je suis hypocrite.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal