MUZZLING DISSENT

Almost every government, be it at state or Centre across parties, uses its executive authority and total control over the police to muzzle dissenting voices

- Rajdeep Sardesai

A few weeks ago, I broadcast a contentious video blog, “My Name is Rahim Khan” to reflect upon what it meant to be an Indian Muslim in the age of Hindutva political dominance.

I was instantly targeted by the Hindu Right ecosystem which accused me of falsely portraying Muslim ‘victimhood’ to escape confronting the real problem of rising Islamic extremism. On hindsight, maybe I got the blog name wrong: I should have titled the video blog, “My Name is Ali Khan Mahmudabad.”

The recent arrest of the Ashoka University professor of political science for an opinionated Facebook post reveals all that is horribly wrong with a political establishment that has pushed the Indian Muslim to the wall. Ali Khan Mahmudabad’s ‘crime’ was that he had chosen to express himself on Operation Sindoor by questioning what he saw as the hypocrisy of the Right wing commentariat in celebrating the presence of Colonel Sophia Qureishi in the government’s media outreach on the Indo-Pak conflict. “I am very happy to see so many right wing commentators applauding Colonel Qureishi 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 of two women soldiers presenting their findings is important but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy.”