Enemies of the State — let’s not forget the old ones

When the other side labels rivals, be they politicians or leaders of a ‘national renaissance’, as ‘enemies of the State’, it is par for the course in this social media age. There is nothing dangerous in the fight.

The trope of defenders or enemies of the state is a ‘hot’ subject in the parlance of the social media. With the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States, the issue in all the diverse ways in which it can be understood and interpreted is not just a small-time fight between political rivals, but a red alert raising one. The discourse covers everything, from the substance, structure, and values as well as the relationship between the State, the government in power, and the critics of the two institutions, including bona fide national leaders permanently engaged in competition to capture the maximum number of votes.

It is the best time to watch a wide variety of films including the thought provoking 2021 production ‘Enemies of the State’, where a young hacker from a perfectly ordinary family is hunted down as an enemy of the State. It is also the time when instead of eruptions of righteous indignation expressed in the language of extremes, as in the recent fight that broke out between Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on the one hand, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the other, a less emotional and a more matter of fact exercise was initiated.

To get some perspective on it in the Indian context, it is easy to list organisations and movements many that have been operational for decades that reject the Indian State as it is currently constituted, or refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Indian State in the parts they believe belong to them. The Kashmiri separatists are currently the most cited in the political discourse, and some hyper-nationalist groups demonise the Muslims as a minority that does not owe allegiance to the Indian State. These examples, however, are part of the diversity of ways in which those who fight against the Indian State can be listed.

In the heart of the Indian State, the territorial space that is India, there are the Maoists, also known as Naxalites, and very different from the ‘Urban Naxals’ made popular in the political discourse. An encounter on January 21 between the police and Maoists on the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border in Gariaband district is the most recent confrontation in an on-going security campaign to make India Naxal-free, “Another mighty blow to Naxalism. Our security forces achieved major success towards building a Naxal-free Bharat,” said Home Minister Amit Shah.

After the recent Bijapur encounter in which the Communist Party of India (Maoist) acknowledged that 18 of its cadre died, including senior leader Damodar, of the Telangana State Committee, in a note the party said, “Bastar has now turned into the most militarised zone of the country and the tribal communities are being repeatedly targeted under the guise of so-called anti-Maoist campaign.”

Not so long ago, the Union home ministry, signed a ‘ceasefire’ agreement that will adhere ‘to the Ceasefire Ground Rules mutually agreed to and signed by the two sides. The Rules will be subject to mutual review and amendment with the involvement of both the parties’, the agreement stated. It was between India and the Niki Sumi faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (K). The war for a separate Nagalim, a contiguous territory including parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Myanmar has been waged for decades.

The United Liberation Front of Assam faction, led by the absconding Paresh Barua, has been at ‘war’ with the Indian State since the 1980s. The commutation of his sentence from death to life imprisonment, and now jail imprisonment for 14 years by the Bangladesh High Court is one of the irritants in the relationship between India and the new interim regime under Mohamad Yunus in Bangladesh.

The two separate statements, one by Gandhi and the other by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on the Indian State, however deplorable they may be to many, are par for the course in the ongoing political discourse. The continuing clash of ideologies conducted in strident tones, the Congress charging that the fight is not just against the BJP, the RSS, but “against and the Indian state itself” and Bhagwat declaring the “true” Independence of Bharat was achieved on January 22, 2024 — the day the Ram temple at Ayodhya was consecrated — are not in the same class as the small, localised ‘wars’ waged by the Indian State and the Government of India. The State, endowed with the power to use violence, in places like the North-East and Kashmir, where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is in force in ‘disturbed areas’ has deployed security forces to tackle militancy, insurgency, and separatism, the cost of which can be counted in lives lost on both sides of the divide to keep India safe. 

The war of words, on the contrary, between the Congress and the BJP-RSS, is a continuing campaign to woo voters and keep the support base engaged. The tenor of the statements is tame, compared with US President Donald Trump’s speech of January 6, 2021, “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," urging the massed crowds, including the just pardoned about 1,500 convicted or charged ‘Proud Boy’ and ‘Oath Keeper’ members in connection with the US Capitol riot four years ago, to put up a resistance to stop the confirmation of Joe Biden as the 46th US president.

Neither Bhagwat nor Gandhi were saying things that could be interpreted as ‘mad’ or bad enough to be described as treason. It was a clash of views that is intrinsic to the democratic discourse. When the other side labels rivals, be they politicians or leaders of a ‘national renaissance’ which is how the RSS describes its mission, as ‘enemies of the State’, it is part of the over-the-top routines of crowd management in the age of AI and social media. There is, however, danger in verbal combat that can incite violence and cost lives, when democratic politics becomes dysfunctional. Politicians are not bona fide armed combatants fighting the Indian State. Name calling, which is different from managing the high-cost risk of dealing with armed movements, should come with a ‘Handle with Care’ warning.

(Shikha Mukerjee Is a Kolkata-based senior journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.