In Odisha Train Tragedy, Twisted Facts And Narratives Fed To The Vulnerable

Take for example the news of the train accident near Balasore in Odisha. It sent shockwaves across India and also abroad. The first normal human reaction was silence. The sheer numbers and the freak nature of the accident left people stunned. But, I am wrong. Not all in our country have remained normal human beings.

Immediately after the accident, posts started circulating on different platforms of social media which indicated that there were conspiracies behind the accident. One of the posts said that it could not be a coincidence that it was a Friday, another post cropped a photograph of a religious place near the site of the accident, calling it a mosque, indicating that there must be a connection between this ‘mosque’ and the accident. It was later discovered by fact-checkers like Md Zubair that the structure was actually an ISCON temple and not a mosque. But the handle which had posted it brazed it out adding further that the areas near the accident site were populated by Rohingyas.

Another post said that the station master was a Muslim and had fled after the accident. Again, the lie was busted. The station manager was a Hindu and he was very much there after the accident. Another handle talked about the possibility of the accident being a part of “Train Jihad”. There were other posts made saying that it could not be a coincidence that it happened when Rahul Gandhi was in the USA. It gave the opposition leader?a handle to attack the government.

All this was being done when people were trying to make sense of the accident. These suggestions were bombarded when minds were the most vulnerable, receptive to conspiracy theories. It gave them a quick answer to their questions and put their minds at ease. These posts suggested that it was a planned thing, a conspiracy. A mosque, a Muslim station master, Friday—all tropes which fitted with a Hindu mind which has already been so oriented as to see everything from a conspiratorial angle. This mind has been conditioned in a way that it is ready to believe any theory which has Muslims as conspirators and perpetrators of violence.

A Hindu mind has been manufactured which looks at this government as its saviour. It is not only guarding the Hindus from their enemies but it is also undoing the cultural injustice done to it, by aliens, mainly Muslims. It is recovering India for the Hindus. Demolition of the Babri Mosque was not enough, getting the land on which a Ram Temple stood in the imagination of Hindus before it was destroyed to erect a mosque on it was crucial. This government achieved it, something which had not been done for centuries.

Similarly, the reconfiguration of Varanasi is aimed at restoring its cultural primacy in India and the recent move, aided by the courts to make the Gyanvapi Mosque available to the Hindus, are seen as another step in getting mosques reconverted into temples that they were originally, as Hindus are persuaded to believe.

These are civilisational tasks which would take time and for which the mundane and material things can and should wait. Those prioritising these material things over civilisational or cultural are seen as saboteurs who want to wreck this great project. That is one reason, sections of people who want the government to be made accountable and who want their rights are seen as selfish, who are creating obstacles in the oath of this government and diverting its attention from the main task, which is to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra.

Enemies have been identified and also labelled. Or, they had already been named by the founders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent body of the present ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Enemies of the Hindu Rashtra are Muslims, Christians and communists. Now communists have a fancier name, urban naxal or Maoist. Muslims need not be called Muslims, they are terrorists, outsiders, intruders,?etc. The charge of conversion can stick to Christians.

Before this train accident, we have seen the agitation of the women wrestlers being defamed. They were not even agitating against the government. They demanded action against an individual blamed by them for sexually harassing them. But the very act of demanding justice for oneself is now seen as a nefarious design to disturb the government which is busy with a more serious work—of transformation of the country into a true Hindu Rashtra.

That is the reason why these women wrestlers, Hindus themselves and at one point in time (and who knows even now) supporters of the politics of this government insisted on having their rights, they were attacked. They were defamed as being misled by the opponents of this regime, of being infantile being driven by some anti-national elements sitting behind the curtain.

No one is seen as an independent mind. Farmers cannot think on their own, for themselves, nor can the players or workers or students. The idea of an independent mind is unthinkable for the politics of Hindutva. There is no individuality either. Everyone has to be essentially a representative of some vested interest group. Everything is a conspiracy. Some of it aimed at wresting back power from the hands of the Hindus which they managed to get in 2014 after waiting for centuries.

That is why the farmers’ movement was seen with suspicion in the so-called Hindi-speaking areas. Since the majority of the farmers were Sikhs, it was easy for the BJP, again aided by the bug media, to paint it as a Khalistani conspiracy in which Islamists and Urban Naxals were also involved.

So, if a Muslim man marries a Hindu woman, he does it on behalf of the whole of his religious community, not out of love for the woman but to use her to expand the Muslim population with the ultimate objective of overwhelming the Hindus. Similarly, if a Muslim is involved in some violent act in which the target is a Hindu, it is again not an individual crime. It is being committed with the sanction of the whole community for which it must be punished. After an alleged crime by a Muslim in Uttarakhand, posters went up everywhere, a Mahapanchayat announced asking Muslims to leave villages and shut their business.

Muslims, of course, in this whole scheme are existentially a conspiracy against the kind of Hindu India that is being built. So, their grievance against the CAA was met with brute force, supported by Hindus in general. It was impossible that Muslim women could start a protest, organise it and lead it. Women are not seen as thinking minds and Muslim women could only be a cover for the ever-violent Muslim men conspiring against Hindus.

A round-the-clock propaganda tapping the basest instincts and appealing to the biases being carried by Hindus against Muslims and Christians has led to a situation in which violence against them is being seen as legitimate.

This Hindu mind is also losing the ability to recognise the pain of others. These others can also be Hindus. The other is now one who speaks for herself, for her rights and asks questions from the government. For example, migrant labourers who had to walk hundreds of miles during the pandemic were seen as irritants; those who were creating trouble for this government. Similarly, those criticising the government after demonetisation were attacked for being selfish who could not see the larger good that the Modi government had in mind while taking such momentous step. Before them, a vicious campaign against Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University was unleashed calling them dens for terrorists. Students and teachers were attacked for wasting the tax payers’ money.

As said, all this is a result of a multi-pronged assault on the minds of the Hindus. It has caused cognitive damage due to which these Hindus fail to comprehend the reality before their eyes. They did see people suffering and dying during the pandemic, the mess that was created by the sudden announcement of the lockdown but could not see it as a result of the policies of the government.

This mass which now cannot see but un-sees, has lost the ability to empathise with others and has lost the sense of solidarity. How can students stand with the farmers? Why should artists speak for Muslims? Why is the Opposition joining the fighting wrestlers? If you stand in solidarity with people who are not from your community or do not belong to your interest group, there must be something wrong with your act, you must be part of some conspiracy. You must have been paid or you must be part of an anti-India gang. International solidarities are out of the question. So, when Rihanna spoke for the farmers of India, it was alleged that she was paid millions to do that.

This is what we see happening now after the train accident in Odisha is deemed as an act which is aimed at weakening the government. The hate machine through its campaign has created an impression in the minds of lakhs of Hindus that it could be an act of sabotage involving Muslims. Yes, it has been fact-checked and proved to be a lie, but this clarification only cements the suspicion in the minds of this vulnerable mass. Why it is being fact-checked at all? Who is doing it? Are they not the same people who have been fact-checking and proving that this government has been lying in all crucial matters? So, they must not be trusted.

The biggest loss that the nation has suffered in these eight years is this—we as a society are losing the sense of rights, the sense of knowledge, the sense of justice. A time will come when the process of our cognitive recovery will start but now is not that time.

(Views expressed are personal)

(This appeared in the print as 'Twisting Facts And Narratives')

Apoorvanand is a teacher and writer