Heed SC on action against hate speech

The Supreme Court has minced no words in criticising the hate speech directed against the minorities, which is becoming more frequent and strident. It has called for preventive and corrective measures against the spouting of venom and hostility from the so-called religious platforms, and specifically asked the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to explain the steps they have taken to stop the airing of hate speech at such congregations. The court’s intervention had some effect because the authorities in Uttarakhand have since then prevented the holding of a Dharma Sansad in Roorkee. The court put the heat on both governments by asking them why they did not act early enough to prevent hate speech and why action was not taken against those who made such speech. It also made it clear that the state governments were bound to take action in such cases.

At a religious conclave in Haridwar in December, Narsinghanand, the head priest at a Ghaziabad temple, made a call for genocide of Muslims. He was arrested by the police only after much dillydallying and he has continued to make inflammatory remarks after being released on bail. There are others also who are making such remarks, claiming that Hinduism is in danger and that Hindus have to take to arms to save their religion. A sense of victimhood is being created and the Constitution, which treats all citizens equally, is implicitly and explicitly faulted. The police have been reluctant and unwilling to deal with the propagators of hatred. Recently, the Delhi police told the Supreme Court that “no specific words against any community were uttered” at an event organised in December, though it was clear that much of the speech made there was directed against Muslims. The court had to tell the police to file a “better affidavit’’.

Incendiary and communal speeches are delivered not just from religious platforms. The idea that religion is in danger has its origin not in any thinking about religion or in the minds of religious leaders but in the politics of religion that has been promoted in the last few decades. Religious leaders have only taken their cue from political leaders. The hostility to minorities is also a political idea. Political responses to the hate speech from religious platforms shows this. That is what is highlighted by the letter written by over a hundred former senior bureaucrats, police officers and diplomats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which they told him that his silence on hate speech is deafening.