The story of Nupur Sharma is presented as a case of bad behaviour necessitating quick correction. But when one traces the genealogy of the forces ranked behind her, a different story surfaces, writes Shiv Visvanathan
Foreign policy in the age of Trump and Modi is no longer a sedate, ritualistic, rational affair. Bad behaviour and calculated arrogance are its hallmarks in an era when mob mentality and majoritarianism dominate the collective mind. In the media, the story of now suspended BJP official spokesperson Nupur Sharma is presented as a singular case of bad behaviour necessitating quick correction. But when one traces the genealogy of the forces ranked behind her, a different story surfaces.
A typically brash BJP politician, Sharma is a frontstage player of an insolence machine who can insult the Prophet because she feels she embodies the collective arrogance of the BJP and larger sangh parivar. She is well-connected and knows she will be reinstated eventually, perhaps even sanctified. The BJP leadership is well-aware that hate mongering brings in the popular vote. Sharma senses that even if she is formally dismissed, like a modern Padmini of Chittor, she will be allowed shades of martyrdom. There is almost something filmi about her brashness, her born again patriotism. However, what we must examine is not this BJP spokeswoman, but the organisation that produces and encourages such people.
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One senses that Sharma is only a variant of hate spewing television anchor Arnab Goswami, a ruling party propagandist more loyalist than the king. Hysteria and aggression invented by him have become hallmarks of loyalty. A bully boy attitude marked by arrogance has created a new style of media interrogation, and bad behaviour is valued as superior policy articulation.
Sharma, a television habitue, is representative of a new epidemic of yes-sayers who echo and amplify the BJP’s political chorus. Prime minister Modi can remain immaculately silent like a waxwork in Madame Tussaud’s museum because he has a bandwagon of garrulous spokespersons to present the vote-catching hate-mongering that consolidates the Hindu vote behind BJP. It is policy, not spectacle we must analyse to understand the Nupur Sharma phenomenon.
Behind the screen are bureaucratic responses. Sharma is eulogised for what is a forthright, valorous truth to many people. But there is also a pragmatism behind her removal as a BJP spokesperson. Indians constitute a significant part of the workforce in several Muslim Arab dictatorships. Mass expulsion of Indian labour from one or more satrapies would have landed the BJP leadership, already being buffeted by slowing GDP growth, high inflation and unemployment, in real trouble. Therefore to placate Arab Muslim states, the BJP leadership extracted a belated apology from Sharma and replaced her. This disciplinary act served the purpose of smoothing ruffled feathers in OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) countries that are being wooed for subsidised crude oil supply and foreign investment. Meanwhile domestically, business can continue as usual.
Muslims in India protesting blasphemy are brutally beaten by cops almost as a matter of rule in police stations where Spanish-style inquisition supplemented with torture, is routine. There are two separate acts in this play. Sharma’s removal is protocol, ritual closure, even as police violence against outraged protestors is a reiteration of official ideology and restatement of intention.
There is a second point which has to be understood. It is clear that Sharma’s blasphemy has widespread rank and file support if social media hashtags are an index of approval. Sharma embodies the ideological rigidity of BJP foot soldiers. The party leadership understands the importance of duality in politics. Even as it revels in violence which enforces majoritarianism at home to harvest the electoral dividend, foreign trade is left intact for economic growth which is also necessary for electoral success.
The question one has to ask is whether this discussion will stop with a mere debate on brazenness. The BJP is essentially a mob-centric party from which the leadership maintains a distance to separate foreign policy from internal repression of minorities. The BJP’s cadres function as the equivalent of civil society while real civil society organisations are snuffed out. Anti-minority rhetoric and violence at home is hidden behind secular bonhomie abroad.
Two other things should be noted: hidden behind the bonhomie of foreign policy is the toxicity of media. Corporations use media to pander to rulers by inciting the public. They have created the spectacle of Arnab Goswami, the hysterical interrogator whose archetype haunts all media channels. The irony is the audience enjoys his Muslim baiting in which truth and ordinary decencies are unavoidable casualties.
In the final analysis, Nupur Sharma is a distraction. She is presented as a human-interest story hiding State violence. Foreign policy and latter day democracy are animated by lies. In this environment, Nupur could blossom into an icon adding a salacious touch to the violence and evil that’s becoming endemic in contemporary politics.
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