Editorial: When sane voices are silenced

As though the BJP-led government does not have its hands full with a war-like situation on the border, a sensitive diplomatic situation with important world powers, and key trade negotiations with the US, the ruling party’s overeager busybodies are serving up an endless supply of unwanted poison-laced controversies. The latest kerfuffle kicked up by them is the arrest by the Haryana police of Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad over his innocuous social media posts.

Prof Mahmudabad was arrested on May 18 following complaints by the chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women and a local BJP leader. In their separate but seemingly in-concert complaints, they alleged that his post on Operation Sindoor was disrespectful to women in the armed forces and promoted enmity between religious groups.

It must take disingenuity bordering on the stupid, or wickedness of devilish proportions, to read malicious intent into the writings of the academic. He excoriates Pakistan for pretending to be a victim of terrorism while organising non-state actors to create mayhem in Kashmir; he praises India’s armed forces for executing New Delhi’s new doctrine of inevitable consequences if terror acts are staged on home soil. He cautions against war hysteria and draws a line between patriotism and war lust. While applauding right-wing commentators for supporting Col Sophia Quraishi, he goes on to say “…but perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the BJP’s hate-mongering be protected as Indian citizens. The… optics must translate to reality on the ground; otherwise, it’s just hypocrisy.”

Nothing brings out the hypocrisy more than the gratuitous complaints by the two BJP leaders, the hasty arrest by the Haryana police and the failure of leaders in the higher echelons of the Haryana government or the Union government to stay the action or walk it back. Dr. Mahmudabad remains in police custody, with a court hearing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. The charges against him include sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita related to acts endangering sovereignty, promoting enmity between groups, and insulting religious beliefs.

Coming in the wake of a Madhya Pradesh minister’s wanton remarks relating to Col Sophia Quraishi, this episode begs several questions: Are these just overactions by tone-deaf BJP factotums acting on their own? Or do they have the sanction of high leaders? If the latter, why are they so invested in cleaving India by faith while presenting a façade of amity to the world?

While Dr Mahmudabad’s colleagues and students have shown solidarity with him, and 1,200 academics have signed a petition demanding his immediate release, bad actors in the media have been trying to deflect attention to specious ruses. These include nudge-nudge references to the professor’s grandfather, who was a member of the Muslim League and a close associate of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as if that fact is ample justification for his arrest. Not only does this contain an egregious and preposterous insinuation, but it also ignores the fact that his other grandfather was a Padma Bhushan awardee and a foreign secretary of India when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the external affairs minister.

Are these merely gratuitous cases of overreach by people who know no better? Why can’t they be reined in? Why would the powers-that-be be so indulgent towards media anchors who whip up war hysteria with fake battle reports and so intolerant at the same time towards sane voices?