Politics of Hate Speeches

(Published in the weekly magazine ORGANISER in its May 24, 2009 issue. You can visit http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=292&page=25 )

I am surprised to see the likes of Javed Akhtar and others who on one issue are always visibly vocal in support of ‘freedom of expression’ but on another incident are now strangely advocating to curb the freedom of speech. There is no doubt that Varun Gandhi’s utterances qualify for being a hate speech but I equally fail to accept the ‘freedom of expression’ associated with the hate-paintings of Hussain or Hashmi. How can their paintings be considered as ‘expressions of respect’ or ‘depiction of truth’ and not hate. A lecture on ‘gender discrimination’ turns into an accepted hate speech against men, a lecture on 'social reforms' gets morphed into a hate speech on the upper cast minority, 'concern for worker’s cause' manifests itself in the spontaneous eruption of naxal-like hate towards capitalists. But these are valid and accepted hate campaigns. Throwing shoes on George Bush creates hero out of a man but spitting on a Kashmiri separatist leader qualifies for being an unacceptable and thoroughly condemnable behavior. Pragya qualifies for being hanged without interrogation but Afzal needs to be freed even after conviction. I am fed up of noticing for so long that attributing unproven intentions to Narendra Modi ( ‘Firaaq’ is the latest in the series and many others are destined to follow) is not a hate campaign against a democratically elected popular government but is unveiling the hitherto un-established truth.
Are we trying to establish that there are some 'justified' hate expressions and some 'unjustified' hate expressions? Are these not justifying the blame often hurled on us that a hate expression against majority is justified whereas a hate expression against minority is unacceptable?
We all know that Pakistan is a creation of a hate campaign, Babri structure demolition was a culmination of another such hate campaign, Gujrat riots were the result of an ultimate hate campaign and 1984 riots are yet another example of such campaign. Cases are far so many and instead of accepting the need to investigate the causes of successive successes of such hate campaigns and try for its removal we try to take an ostrich-approach! We must understand that hate speeches do not manufacture or create hatred out of nothing, they just try to cash on the existing hate present in the society and uses the differences prevalent in our society in its favor. The solution lies in identifying the root cause of the differences and addressing them face to face. This problem is not going to die on its own and is actually aggravating with our attitude of 'ignoring the real issue'.
And please for God’s sake do not advise me to find a solution within the constitutional framework since our constitution has never been treated as sacred and has conveniently suffered several hundreds of amendments. We already have a provision of Article 370 in the same constitution which justifies solution beyond our constitution (it is really confusing!!!). Instead let us first investigate the problem completely and then find a convincing solution after that we would try to get it implemented by all means.