Susceptibility to stoked vulnerabilities

Polarisation within the Indian society has subliminally existed within the realm of religion, caste, region, socio-economic factors etc., however, now it has assumed acute levels of hyper-sensitivities that manifest instinctively and violently to presupposed indignations, whether intended or not. Aiding this unprecedented battle of 'identities', is the proliferation of social media that has brought information and disinformation in equal measure, with the speedy and easy access to all. Unfortunately, fake and extremist views on such platforms have a natural tendency to travel faster, deeper and more convincingly, than the insipidity of facts. This affords a crucial lever of disseminating 'news' by all those parties that have a vested interest in sharpening the societal 'divides' and harnessing hatred, for ulterior motives. The winds of revisionism, 'correcting history' and identity-assertion are working overtime to prey on any incident in the country and expand its implications to levels beyond its limited framework. This often leads to 'trials by perceptions'.

Recently, an unfortunate incident in the capital typified society at the edge of its stoked vulnerabilities–videos of policemen thrashing a man who had earlier brandished a weapon at some policemen circulated, and soon the auto-instinctive exercise of additional prefixation and suffixation of the situation and its participants, started. What ought to have been a straightforward yet serious case pertaining to the recurrence of police brutality in handling a situation and that of an individual, literally taking the law into his hand by way of a weapon, expanded into the unrequired domain of religiosity, centre-state turf war, politics, and even legally mandated entitlements. Soon the man was not just a tempo driver involved in a serious fracas, but a 'Sikh' who had taken out his 'Kirpan'–factually correct, but details that are susceptible to inflammatory-misuse by stoking latent concerns that have uncontrollable dynamics of their own, once unleashed.

Cross-FIR's were lodged and a flurry of outrage was expressed by politicians, administrators, clergy to an average citizenry that was bitterly divided with sharp opinions in favour of one side versus the other–the fact that both the policemen and the man concerned were guilty of excesses and required unequivocal condemnation, was a minority perspective. Almost immediately, insidious cues that were suggestive of desperation to establish an expanded narrative, including communalism or the perennial state-centre dissonance in Delhi, ensued. The fact that the Sikh community has historically punched way above their numerical weight in service to the nation, especially in the 'Uniform', was ironically lost on some. Sikhs have had an unparalleled record of gallantry, community service and upkeep of the law of the land, which is also obvious in the responsible manner that the community has displayed in bearing the sacred 'Kirpan', in places where other such-like weapons may typically be disallowed. While this incident should not have been about any specific community, the incident also did not behove a security force that has committed itself to give 'Shanti, Seva, Nyaya' (Peace, Service, Justice), as the video visuals had no correlation to the same. Policemen are freighted with the highest responsibility of propriety and legality, and the same was clearly amiss in the incident. Both parties had failed their constitutional duties (even moral and religious), yet pent up emotions within society got the better of absolute condemnation both ways, and piecemeal contextualisation sullied the narrative.

Similarly, the recently adjudicated rape case of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua had earlier spiralled into angularities that went beyond the basic gruesomeness of the tragedy, one that should have uniformly shamed us as a society. Sadly, the initial counter-arguments had assumed the usual communal overtones, political slants and even one of the regional disparities between the three sub-regions of J&K ie, Jammu, Kashmir valley, and Ladakh! Provincial leaders had partaken the opportunity to assert their own spins and in the midst of the distractive hullabaloo, even the tricolour was not spared to doctor a convenient narrative. Simplistic and extremist arguments were professed and the same had gained unhealthy traction in the sensitive border-state owing to the wounds of the past. Simple facts like the unique ethnicity of the victim's Bakarwal-Gujjar Muslim community and its yeoman service in the restive history of J&K was lost in the melee of uninformed and manufactured emotions. After many tumultuous and twisted turns of legal proceedings that were subjected to a parallel 'trial by media/emotions', the culprits were finally sentenced.

In an important move to thwart vigilantism, self-appropriated sense of entitlement and to assert the supremacy of law, the Prime Minister made a mention of the recent Jharkhand lynching, and insisted that 'incidents of violence should be treated in the same manner and perpetrators of violence should get the message that the entire country is one on this issue'. This candour and specificity was important as silence by the leadership of the nation, state or any political party can be conveniently misconstrued by the perpetrators, as encouragement–it is a fact that all political parties have been complicit by way of telling silence, especially when the onus has been on speaking up and condemning the act, irrespective of the electoral considerations. Within a couple of days of the important message and tone-setting by none less than the Prime Minister himself, came the regrettable images of a lawmaker hurling a cricket bat at government officials–the unconvincing counter from the lawmaker was that he was 'provoked' by the government official, as the official had supposedly behaved indecently with a women!

There are undeniable tensions and faultlines in our diverse society which is reeling under historical socio-economic challenges that it needs to be safeguarded from the additional burden of inflammatory rhetoric. Leadership in the political, religious, casteist to even governmental institutions, for instance, Police Services, needs to evolve, progress and not pander to basic-instincts that are repressive and regressive. Setting the agenda for the supremacy of law and constitutionality starts from the top, and this needs constant reiteration and enforcement, without contextualisation or bias.

Lt General Bhopinder Singh (Retd) is a former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry. Views expressed are strictly personal