DC Edit | Assam CM's Hate Talk Needs To Be Reined In

The contents of the petitions moved in the Supreme Court by Left parties CPI and CPI(M) and a few residents of Assam seeking action against the state’s chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his non-stop spewing of hatred on the Muslim community in the state are a troubling sign of the times which all right-thinking people in the country, and not just the judiciary, must address to find a solution.

The charges against Mr Sarma are not about taking a political position or an ideological stance but instead about what can easily fall into the category of hate speech. It is very tough for an Indian citizen to conceive the chief minister of a state making an open to call to the people to underpay Muslim employees and assuring them that the “Assam police will take care of the rest”. His video, purportedly with a gun aiming at two Muslims, shared by the official handle of his party, completes the picture of a ruler who has failed to live up to the oath that he took while entering the office. He is constitutionally mandated to treat every citizen under his government equally and “act without fear or favour”.

Mr Sarma has been out to prove that he is more loyal than the king to the Hindutva cause ever since he assumed office in 2021. The politician who grew up in the Congress and was made a minister by that party several times switched his loyalty to the saffron side late in the day. He now appears to be in a hurry to establish himself as a true-blue Hindutva apparatchik. His statements and actions targeting the Muslim community must be seen as only a part of this hidden agenda.

Mr Sarma and his party have every right, and responsibility, to act against illegal migrants in the state. There are established and legal ways to carry out that responsibility but Mr Sarma is not seen doing just that. Instead he indulges in rhetoric that flies in the face of every convention, protocol or even common decency. He has infamously threatened to use the special intensive revision of the electoral roll in the state as a tool to disenfranchise the Muslim community. It is completely undemocratic, not to mention inherently inhuman, to paint a whole community as comprising illegal aliens and lead a hate campaign against them. It is something even chief ministers of other BJP-ruled states have refrained from doing.

Hate is something that India with its diverse social fabric can ill afford. There will be a number of fault lines in every small society in India, something that is unusual in another country. Religion, region, language, race, sex and caste are some of the ready reasons for discovering those fault lines. A sensible society will build bridges over them so that the people can progress as a community. History has proved that divisive tactics have never paid their users expected dividends. The Supreme Court, which failed to take suo motu cognizance of the matter, must at least now take up the issue in right earnest, and not just another topic for political parties to score some brownie points with in an election year, as it itself suggested while admitting the petitions against the chief minister.