Opinion Himanta Biswa Sarma video is hate speech, Delete is no answer
If the BJP lets its own Chief Minister cross a political and constitutional red line, if it does not remind him of his duty and responsibility, it will be doing a disservice to its own mandate.
An election is approaching in Assam and the BJP is bidding for a third straight term against a divided opposition. The Assam BJP uploaded on Saturday a video showing an image of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma firing at men wearing skull caps, with the caption “point blank shot” — it deleted the video Sunday. But that cannot be the end of the matter. The video came a little over a week after Sarma publicly exhorted the people of his state and the Election Commission’s SIR exercise to target “Miyas”, a name given to Bengali-speaking Muslims, also a term of a communal dog whistle politics. This video, coming after that rhetoric, is, by any definition of the term, hate speech. In a diverse country, hate speech is not always only an individual offensive expression or aberration. When a Chief Minister uses it, and the media amplifies it, it strikes at the heart of, and violates, the constitutional promise of equality, dignity and fraternity. Sarma claims ignorance about the video but hasn’t said a word in condemnation. Acting on it is, first, the new BJP chief’s responsibility. Nitin Nabin cannot let this be.
An election is approaching in Assam and the BJP is bidding for a third straight term against a divided opposition. Clearly, under Sarma, it seems to have taken a call that it cannot rely only on welfare schemes, or infrastructure development, or even, by all accounts, the CM’s own popularity. In a state with a fraught history, and criss-crossing religious, ethnic and sub-regional faultlines, Sarma’s politics aims for consolidation through polarisation. His is an attempt to stoke fears among the indigenous Assamese by peddling spectres of a demographic takeover by “outsiders”. Of course, there are legitimate concerns in Assam about illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and these have also been recognised by the Supreme Court. But the same Court has also engaged, intensively, with hate speech as a constitutional harm, one that legitimises the exclusion of communities. In October 2022, the Court gave a seminal order — directing police authorities to register FIRs suo motu in cases involving hate speech without waiting for a formal complaint. Failure to act, it said, would invite contempt proceedings. But, not surprisingly, enforcement has remained uneven. In Sarma’s government, which officer is independent enough to book the creators of this video?
Which is why the onus needs to be cast, first, on the political leadership. In 2022, the BJP was quick to take action against its leaders for remarks allegedly disparaging the Prophet. If the party lets its own Chief Minister cross a political and constitutional red line, if it does not remind him of his duty and responsibility, it will be doing a disservice to its own mandate. Those behind the video need to be held accountable because Sarma’s hate video also implicates his party.
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