A hate-laden speech and murder: Why did Chetan Singh vanish from the news cycle?

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on August 10, 2023

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2023/08/10/a-hate-laden-speech-and-murder-why-did-chetan-singh-vanish-from-the-news-cycle

July 31, 2023. That is a date we need to remember. What happened that day has already been relegated to the inside pages of most newspapers and has vanished altogether from our shouty TV channels. They are currently obsessing over the violence on the doorstep of India’s national capital, and the debate in Parliament over the no-confidence motion tabled by the opposition parties.

Yet, while the media must address the latest drama, there are several reasons why the event of July 31 needs to be followed up and analysed in much greater detail. 

On July 31, even as the Jaipur-Mumbai Superfast Express was speeding through Gujarat towards Mumbai, a Railway Protection Force jawan decided to make use of the loaded weapon he was carrying. Chetan Singh first shot his own senior after an altercation. He then walked through the train, picking out bearded men and shooting them at point blank range. He shot three such men. They were all Muslims. 

It is not just the act of shooting Muslim men, whose identity was evident from their beards and clothes (in one instance, he asked the name of the man to be sure). It’s Chetan Singh’s rant, recorded by several passengers on their phones, that is chilling. Here is what he said according to a report in The Wire:

“Pakistan se operate hue hain, tumhari media, yahi media coverage dikha rahi hai hai, pata chal raha hai unko, sab pata chal raha hai, inke aaqa hai wahan...Agar vote dena hai, agar Hindustan me rehna hai, toh mai kehta hoon, Modi aur Yogi, ye do hain, aur aapke Thackeray.”

Loosely translated: “They operate from Pakistan, this is what the media of the country is showing, they have found out, they know everything, their leaders are there...If you want to vote, if you want to live in India, then I say, Modi and Yogi, these are the two, and your Thackeray.”

Singh was apprehended before the train reached Mumbai. Most of the early reports in print media focused on his mental stability rather than his deliberate targeting of Muslim men.  

Television news coverage was a different story altogether. According to this episode of TV Newsance in Newslaundry, Times Now reported that the men were killed in “crossfire”. By this, one presumes they thought that Singh and his senior were firing at each other with loaded guns and three Muslims, sitting in different compartments just happened to come into the line of fire!

After this first, brief, and mostly inaccurate reporting of the train killings, television news moved on to the communal clashes in Nuh just outside Delhi. The follow-up was done mostly by Mumbai’s local newspapers. 

Mid-Day, for instance, reported that the investigators had concluded that the man knew what he was doing and admitted he hated Muslims. He also said, according to the paper, that he would have shot many more people had the train not stopped before reaching Mumbai. Singh has now been charged under sections relating to hate crimes.

Apart from follow-up reports, there was also little by way of comment that questioned why Singh had such a deep hatred of Muslims that he would go about shooting them without provocation. An exception was Ajaz Ashraf who writes a column in Mid-Day. 

Ashraf’s op-ed is worth reading because it questions the talk about mental illness and this kind of targeted killing. 

He concludes:

“We would be deceiving ourselves in case we think Chetan’s killing spree was merely because of his mental illness, which might also be a condition waiting to be diagnosed among a substantial segment of Indians, given the increasing frequency with which hate-driven violence is perpetrated. Certainly, the impulse not to hurt has weakened over the last nine years. There is a post called Chief Statistician of India. We desperately need to have a Chief Psychiatrist of India, who could measure India’s growing sickness.”

“India’s growing sickness”, as Ashraf terms it, is the visceral hate of Muslims that has been planted in our minds. Of course, political parties, specifically the BJP and its family members like the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, are primarily responsible.  But their hate-filled narrative would not have found purchase to this extent had not the media amplified it.  

Whether you watch Indian TV news channels or not, look at the episode of TV Newsance mentioned above to get a sense of the poison emanating from them every night. 

There have been instances in the past where the media has been held responsible for spreading hate.  For instance, after the 2002 Gujarat communal carnage, the Editors Guild of India had sent a team to look specifically at this aspect.  

Their report makes interesting reading today, more than two decades later.  Although TV news was not as ubiquitous as it is now, Gujarat 2002 is often referred to as the first “televised” riot because by then there were private television channels not beholden to the government. Journalists from these channels were stopped and even attacked by Hindutva groups, accusing them of only giving the Muslim point of view. This is unlikely to happen today.

Print media was still dominant and several leading Gujarati newspapers were questioned about the headlines on their front pages, and the news that they chose to emphasise. But the report also mentions pamphlets distributed by groups like the VHP that played a role in spreading misinformation. A parallel today would be social media that is all pervasive and much more dangerous.

Clearly, we need a detailed study on how and to what extent all media, television, print and social media, have amplified the narrative of hate, especially since 2014. 

How is this deliberate spread of hate to be checked? No one in the media will recommend government censorship. There are already rules and regulations in place that could, if they are used, offer some checks.

But ultimately, the responsibility lies in the hands of those who finance these media houses, the owners, as well as those who support them by way of advertising.

There is little doubt that the deterioration in media content has coincided with the corporatisation of the media from the early 1990s. Since then, media professionals running these organisations have to find ways to make their companies profitable. And what better way than to sensationalise and play up sentiments that echo what the majority believes? The combination of this is deadly, as we can see. 

This daily dose of poison has not just been seeded in the minds of millions of people but has begun to bear fruit. Chetan Singh’s hate-filled killing of Muslim men is a telling example of this.

Can our media introspect? Will it? I personally doubt it so long as people continue to buy and financially support the peddlers of hate. Even tighter regulations will not suffice if there is a “market” for these ideas, which there is, and so long as the dominant politics supports it, which it does.

July 31 and Chetan Singh’s targeted killing are a warning that we must heed, as media, but also as citizens of a country that seems to be hurtling down a precipice of hatred and violence. 

 

Hate speech by media: Will regulation really work?

 Broken News 

Published in Newslaundry on September 30, 2022

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/09/30/hate-speech-by-media-will-regulation-really-work

In the flurry of political developments around the election of the Congress party’s president, perhaps the significance of the Supreme Court’s recent observations on the media and hate speech has been overlooked.

On September 21, while hearing a clutch of 11 writ petitions seeking the court’s intervention to regulate hate speech, Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy made some observations that are worth considering and debating.

As reported in the Indian Express, the judges singled out the debates conducted on the electronic media which they held were “the chief medium of hate speech”. This has been pointed out innumerable times, especially this episode of  TV Newsance on this platform, but to hear it said from the podium of the highest court in the country carries with it added gravitas.

Speaking about talk shows in television, Justice Joseph said, as reported in Live Law:

“The role of the anchor is very important. Hate speech either...takes place in the mainstream television or it takes place in the social media. Social media is largely unregulated… As far as mainstream television channel is concerned, we still hold sway, there the role of anchor is very critical because the moment you see somebody going into hate speech, it’s the duty of the anchor to immediately see that he doesn’t allow that person to say anything further.”

Furthermore, although the question of whether and how the media should be regulated on hate speech was the primary focus of the discussion in court, Justice Joseph reiterated the importance of press freedom: “Political parties will come and go. But the nation will endure. The press is a very important institution. Without an independent and totally free press, no nation can go forward. It’s absolutely important that we have true freedom. The government should actually come forward, not to take an adversarial stand but to assist.”

Of course, in a democracy, only a free and independent media can take an “adversarial” stand against governments. But taking such a stand at present in India has serious adverse consequences, as is evident from the intimidation of independent media, or what remains of it, and of journalists who dare to be critical. 

The case is still being heard. But it has already thrown up several important issues relevant not just to the media but to consumers of media. It asks us to consider, even if we agree that a free and independent media is essential for democracy, whether specific laws are needed to check the role played by the media in spreading hate speech. Balancing freedom with government regulation has always been a tricky issue. 

An additional factor was highlighted in this comment by Justice Roy: “Hate drives TRPs, drives profit.” For it is not just the “how” of feeding hate but the “why” of it. Media houses today think of themselves as “profit centres”. Thus, anything that feeds the bottom line is acceptable, including allowing people spewing hate to speak unchecked on television. 

Of course, the fundamental problem in dealing with the spread of hate through media is that there is no legal definition of hate speech. There are laws that exist that can be used but these are not specific. In 2017, the Law Commissionsubmitted a 53-page report specifically on this issue and pointed out, “The apprehension that laying down a definite standard might lead to curtailment of free speech has prevented the judiciary from defining hate speech in India and elsewhere.” It recommended changes in the criminal law. 

To date, no action has been taken on it. 

We must also keep in mind that hate speech is not a new phenomenon. Those of us who covered the communal riots in Mumbai following the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 cannot forget the role that the media, and one particular newspaper, played in ratcheting up communal feelings. Those were the days when print media was still important. 

As Sujata Anandan reminds us in this report, there were several cases filed against Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray for hate speech and also against the editor of the Sena’s mouthpiece Saamna. But as journalist and author of Riots and After in Mumbai: Truth and Reconciliation Meena Menon found, many of these cases were either dismissed or not pursued. 

Amongst the cases against Thackeray was one filed by a former municipal commissioner of Mumbai JB D’Souza and journalist Dilip Thakore. One of the editorials from Saamna, which they quoted to make their case on hate speech, said: “Streams of treason and poison have been flowing through the cities and Mohallas of this country. These Mohallas are inhabited by fanatical Muslims. They are loyal to Pakistan. Riots occur only in those cities and Mohallas with a growing Muslim population. It is clear from this fact that the root cause of riots lies in the Muslim community and its attitude.” 

This case too was dismissed both by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. 

Many years later, the ruling in a 1987 case on hate speech against Thackeray was upheld by the Supreme Court. He was debarred from standing for election, which in any case he never did, for a period of six years – later reduced to two. These experiences underline the difficulties of using the law to convict people and, by extension, the media for hate speech.

Justices Joseph and Roy have asked the government to come back with proposals of what can be done to regulate the media on hate speech and suggested that perhaps something along the lines of the Vishaka guidelines, issued by the Supreme Court in 1997 before the law on sexual harassment was enacted in 2013, could be considered. 

This suggestion raises many questions.

As an editorial in Indian Express rightly points out, “At the heart of the problem is the political economy of TV news which thrives on hate speech today more than ever. There is little cost to pay for hate speech, there are few incentives for TV at prime time to be fair and accurate. Indeed, most anchors are paid employees of their channels and they know they can get away with peddling hate because someone in the boardroom has taken a call in its favour.” 

Corporate ownership of media houses has fed this monster of hate speech because it attracts eyeballs. It is further exacerbated by the silence of those in power, who benefit from it. 

At the same time, any kind of regulation will be difficult to enact for numerous reasons, including provisions on freedom of expression in the constitution that the Supreme Court has upheld in the past in other cases and which the Law Commission also bookmarked in its report. 

To quote again from the Indian Express editorial: “And when politics fuels, legitimises that hate, judicial interventions are unlikely to work. A new law on hate speech, as the court has suggested, runs the risk of being challenged – and violated – every second given the ceaseless cycle of news and social media.” And concludes: “Nothing is a stronger deterrent against hate speech than those in power speaking up against it, calling it out every time, without fail.” 

That last sentiment is clearly wishful thinking given the predilections of the current dispensation. Perhaps a better suggestion is to urge consumers of the media to reject and speak out against the channels that spread hate, thereby shaming these sellers of hate that masquerade as “news” channels.

#Bullibai will lead to attacks on all women, not just Muslims

Published in National Herald on January 26,2022

Link: https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/bullibai-will-lead-to-attacks-on-all-women-not-just-muslims

Given the nature of breaking news, and the daily litany of media reports on atrocities in the current communally charged climate in India, our sense of outrage seems to have been anaesthetized.

This year began with news that Muslim women were being "auctioned" on social media. The "Bulli Bai" app followed a similar attempt in July last year with the "Sulli Deals" app; and within weeks emerged evidence of how social media platform Clubhouse is being misused, with participants in a discussion using sexually explicit and violent language while mocking, objectifying and humiliating Muslim women.

Unlike last July, the outrage this time pushed police in Mumbai and Delhi into action. Several young people from different parts of the country were arrested. Each time an arrest was made, police claimed they had found the "mastermind". Yet, there is little evidence to suggest that they have actually got to the bottom of who created and funded these apps.

The law will, or will not, take its course. There is little about the way the criminal justice system works that gives us confidence that it will. However, the process of tracking down the culprits behind this dehumanising, misogynistic and Islamophobic ploy has revealed a much more disturbing and uglier reality.

The young people detained so far are all in their late teens to early twenties. They are educated and tech-savvy. Evidently, being "educated" does not protect you from irrational and hateful propaganda. The question we must ask is how much hate do you need to imbibe before you become a part of a hate-spewing system? What compelled these youngsters to be part of such a system?

Also, irrespective of whether any one of these young people is the main instigator, we are confronted with not just a bunch of lonely, twisted individuals, but an entire ecosystem that is spawning such people.

A major contributor to the creation of this ecosystem is mainstream media, especially news television that amplifies communal bias and hate speech. Some TV channels have virtually become the mouthpieces for those who want to keep Indian society divided along communal lines. The latest slogan on some of these channels is "Hindu khatre mein hai" (Hindus are in danger) taking off from an out of context statement made by a Muslim preacher and to detract from the vile hate speech that emanated from Hindu preachers recently. Such shenanigans would be laughable if they were not so dangerous.

Equally responsible is social media. Initially, it was seen as a space for self-expression, for connections, for community. It has now become home to misogyny and communal hate of the vilest kind. It works on the basis of confirmation bias. You read or hear all that confirms that bias because the system is designed to do just that. As a result, it assists in creating these vast pools roiling with hate towards the 'other' -- Muslim, Christian, Dalit, women, take your pick.

Secondly, we have to ask what these attempts to "auction" Muslim women in India tell us about Indian society?

While not all the targeted women are necessarily political, they project themselves on social media as confident and independent professionals with strong opinion. Social media has opened up a space for women, albeit with its attendant risks if they express opinions contrary to the dominant narrative. Most outspoken women on social media, irrespective of the community to which they belong, and including many women politicians, suffer vicious and dangerous trolling that includes rape and death threats.

Although this attack on Muslim women is part of a deeper woman-hating strain that is so integral to Indian public life, where women who are confident, who speak out, must be demonised, in this instance we cannot use that generalisation. Because this is specific to Muslim women, and part of the larger agenda of demonising and dehumanising all Muslims. The attacks represent the dominant ideology in this country that essentially tells all Muslims to either behave, or face the consequences.

Think about it. When the men spewing hate and openly calling for a genocide of Muslims in India at the recent "Dharam Sansad" in Haridwar escape virtually unscathed; when the scores of lynchings of poor Muslim men just going about their lives are written off as acts by a fringe; when Muslim journalists like Siddique Kappan are in jail for months for no reason except for doing their jobs; when those disrupting Friday prayers not just in open spaces but now even in mosques are not punished; then why would anyone be afraid to "auction" Muslim women as an extension of this growing Islamophobia? They did this because they were confident they would get away with it.

And finally, what stands out is the deafening silence from a government at the Centre that constantly speaks of "women's empowerment". Is "empowerment" only for some women? Are women "empowered" if they are auctioned and demeaned in this manner? Do Muslim women not matter because Muslim votes make no difference to the party in power?

Those of us born into privilege by way of caste, class or religion, cannot even imagine what it must feel to be a Muslim woman in this so-called "new India' under construction. If despite the hurdles that so many of them would have encountered, if some Muslim women are confident enough to speak out and express themselves freely on social media, we should celebrate and salute them for their courage.

I believe it is imperative that we do not forget, or allow this particular attack on Muslim women to be forgotten. Today these attacks are on social media and directed towards women identified as Muslim. If unchecked, this will pave the way for far greater violence on all women, and not just on social media.