Trigger warning: Mentions of rape, caste-based violence
A charge sheet in the Delhi riots case has been filed, but contrary to our expectations, the rabble-rousers in the streets whom we all saw in our drawing rooms on our TV sets have not been named. Instead, the opposition leaders, parties and minority organisations found mention on the chargesheet. Although unanticipated, the anti-CAA protestors were named as perpetrators.”Victims” and “perpetrators” became synonymous. Not only that, the ante of foreign money and foreign hand was brought up.
A look back may help us understand things in perspective. Even before the charge sheet was filed, there were speeches and Whatsapp forwards from people close to the establishment about the nefarious designs of the anti-CAA protestors, minority organisations and even a foreign hand in orchestrating the riots and absolving the familiar rabble-rouser we saw on our TV screens making incendiary statements of any wrongdoing.
The charge sheet sought to make those Whatsapp forwards from void rumours to a true solid investigation. However, it may seem like deja vu, but those parties and organisations that were named in the charge sheet have been getting called “anti-national, urban naxals” for the past four years by the ruling circles. The chargesheet only packed this a legal envelope, thus starting the “international conspiracy” motive to show India in a bad light.
The NIA arrested three people from West Bengal, and that too from a minority dominant district, claiming an alleged link with the Laskar-e-Toiba. This was flouted for being the first such arrest to be made in Indian history. The ruling party leaders at the Centre were quick to declare West Bengal as a hobnob of terrorists as if persons with an alleged link with terror have been arrested for the first time arrested.
What was intriguing was that according to the NIA, there was a link between the terror-accused people to more people in two other states. Names of those states need not be anybody’s guess — Kashmir and Kerala. The links of the puzzle is becoming interesting, isn’t it?
Then there is the Hathras gangrape — a story of a cover-up unfolded in the TV screens across the country. The police burning the corpse of India’s daughter without the permission of her kith and kin. The mother could not bid her child the last goodbye. Excuses for not following law and order were given. What good is for the state to keep a police force that cannot guarantee law and order, and protect the rights of the victims’ families. If in the name of ensuring law and order, the police does an illegal, unconstitutional or inhumanitarian job, then is it not better to save taxpayers’ money by shoving the police force?
Next, we saw the same police force who cannot ensure the life of a girl and rights of victims’ family getting up for making the village a fortress so that media and opposition leaders need not enter their bastion. Such was the autocracy. Every sane mind would have pitched the whole incident as failing in law and order, acting unconstitutionally with the state government.
Any compassionate government would have acted on its own failings, but this government thought it otherwise. The UP government, though acted like a snail in the Hathras rape case, was very swift and aggressive in its stand against “conspirators violating the peaceful atmosphere.”
Instead of taking action against its own officials for covering up the case and denying justice, the state government decided to go “as you like it” by calling for action against these mythical conspirators. Once said, it’s done. Meanwhile, while this hollow drama was unfolding, the UP police brought out their innovative investigation skills and named opposition leaders, opposition groups and some media personnel, while the real perpetrators of the Hathras incident sought justice for the victims, blaming instances of incited violence and a vitiating atmosphere.
And guess what? The individuals accused of inciting violence also belong to minority communities or from the left political spectre. And yes, again, the hand of foreign was found. Far from a solid investigation, the Hathras incident became a mythical conspiracy. The same argument of an international conspiracy behind it became the premise of the brutal rape. Justice had a wild laugh.
However, the question remains: since when did exposing caste cruelty and oppression become an incident of inciting caste violence? Or is it because caste oppression in India is just a myth that international conspirators have invented?
Another question that remains: who brought the ruling dispensation in a bad light — the officials who gave bizarre statements day and night, oppressed the victims’ family, curtailed the rights of the victim’s family to cremate their loved one and the media, and unlawfully took the rights of a family to cremate their loved one or those messengers who ought to bring to light this complicit behaviour of the state?
Another burning question remains:
If the ruling dispensation, with its majority in the Parliament and a majority in the state, is not able to throttle the hands of international conspirators and their allies (media, opposition leaders), then what will this dispensation do to save our country from external aggression?
If only a small group of opposition leaders and media, whose number can be counted on our fingers, can bring such havoc to the country and inflict riots and violence right under the nose of such majestic power, is the country really in safe hands?
Words of caution to all conspiracy theorists:
Remember that this international conspiracy made Indira Gandhi’s government to impose emergency, which the current dispensation proclaimed to have fought for.
The two most intriguing parts in these three cases are the identity of the perpetrators — minorities, opposition politicians, left-leaning anti-nationals and urban naxals mostly having link in two Indian states, i.e. West Bengal and Kerala — and the international conspiracy — including mention of foreign money, foreign hand-gulf or our common enemy or punching bag, Pakistan.
Doesn’t this look too scripted? Isn’t this too predictable to guess for the next time?
Somebody is still typing.