On the 27th of June 2022, Mohammad Zubair, the co-founder of AltNews was arrested by the Delhi Police was his tweets that incited hate. One of the sections applied against him was 295A of the IPC, besides Section 153. Soon, the “right-wing” (for the lack of a better defining phrase) celebrated the arrest of this hate monger who had painted a target on the backs of Hindus for as long as one could remember. The Left, of course, bemoaned the death of everything – from democracy to freedom of speech, expression, press and liberty.
Amidst the cacophony, an old argument was rekindled. Professor Anand Ranganathan tweeted that he supported Zubair against his arrest because he believes that 295A is a draconian law that has no place in a moral, just and civilised society. Moreover, he is a strong proponent of absolute freedom of speech and expression, which essentially means that he might not like what Zubair said, but he will defend his right to say it.
Prof Ranganathan received substantial backlash from the ‘right wing’ for his absolutist stand. The general tone of the responses ranged from mocking the tweet to asking him to not support someone who has habitually dog-whistled against Hindus, lied, tried to whitewash Islamist terrorists and terrorism and overall, has been a termite that has been gnawing at the existence of Hindus.
To be fair to Anand Ranganathan, he did clarify, multiple times during his Twitter Spaces that he detested what Zubair stands for as much as any of us. His argument was limited to the application of 295A and how, it was a redundant law that should not be used against the critics of any religion – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Scientology or the Church of Satan – I don’t believe Anand cares which religion is being criticised per se.
During his Twitter Spaces, one has to admit that he made some compelling points. First and foremost, he spoke about the morality of having different standards for different folks, depending on where on the ideological spectrum the “victim” of this law lies.
Anand Ranganathan says (and I am paraphrasing) that society must strive for absolute freedom of speech and until a few years ago, I would have agreed with him not just partially but wholly. Ranganathan essentially says that as far as personal liberty goes, nobody can be locked up merely for hurt feelings because the extent and context of that hurt can hardly be controlled. A Hindu can be offended if you by an innocuous comment about his deities while a Muslim can be offended if you merely quote his texts. Where a Salman Rushdie exists, an MF Hussain exists as well. According to Ranganathan, we will see a time when the misuse of 295A would reach a position where nobody would be able to say anything about any religion because it would attract a prison sentence. He has also claimed that those of us who are not firmly against 295A are accepting that we are ok with collateral damage when thousands of Hindus are arrested for saying something remotely offensive. Further, we also seem to be ok with giving up our right to criticise a predatory religion (given that he believes the law itself is a slide to that eventuality).
The foundation of the arguments made by Prof Ranganathan can be divided into the following points:
- Nobody should be jailed for their speech. Freedom of speech must be absolute.
- If you are ok with Zubair’s arrest, you have to be ok with Nupur Sharma being arrested – otherwise – you are a raging hypocrite.
- The law itself is colonial and draconian, open to misuse, and criminalises what should otherwise be acceptable in a civilised society.
- Sooner or later, the law will come back to bite Hindus since what it would do is outlaw all criticism of religion, therefore, you would lose your right to criticise a traditionally predatory religion such as Islam.
In principle, to a limited extent, I agree with Anand. The fact that I am ok with Islam being mocked and not Hinduism does make me seem like a raging hypocrite and that society must strive for absolute freedom of expression is also a principle I cannot disagree with. In an ideal world, should we be able to get along without any punitive action against those who offend religious sensibilities? Perhaps. Do we live in an ideal world where moral absolutism, essentially saying that certain moral values have universal applicability and the context of that value has no relevance, is a functional model? I think not.
But let us address each point of contention that Prof Ranganathan brings up often (one has to give it to him – he has long held his position on 295A).
Nobody should be jailed for their speech. Freedom of speech must be absolute.
In my headline, I categorically say that I partially agree with Prof Ranganathan. Up until a few years ago, and maybe somewhere deep down in my heart today, I do believe that nobody should be jailed for their speech. Not just me, I think every Hindu who today argues with the good professor at some point in time believed that freedom of speech and expression should be absolute. But what changed? First and foremost, one has to acknowledge that freedom of speech is not truly free anywhere in the world. During his Twitter Space last night, Ranganathan mentioned the United States of America and claimed that the criticism of Islam is perhaps the highest there, however, they don’t have laws like 295A, given that they value freedom of expression, however, that notion is misplaced.
Nowhere in the world is freedom of speech an absolute right. Maybe in law, but the reality is far from it. In the USA today, you can get fired for merely saying that an individual who has a penis, hormones and the physical attributes of a man cannot claim to be a woman and compete in a women’s sports event. You can be cancelled, and lose your job, your reputation and your life. It is a reality of our times that certain sections, even in the USA, have a greater right to freedom of speech and expression than some others – the only difference is that perhaps their dual standards come from different societal aspects like race and gender, while ours come from religion and culture. In France, a nation hailed as a haven for absolute free speech, Eric Zemmour was convicted for hate speech against migrants. Several “dissidents” have been jailed for glorifying terrorism and even abusing the police force – this included the questioning of an 8-year-old boy who said he “supported terrorism”, later admitting that he did not really know what terrorism meant.
The two most liberal nations as far as freedom of speech is concerned are jailing, beating down, hounding, and setting strict standards for speech – legally or otherwise – whether we agree with it or not. Therefore, to live under the illusion that speech is free anywhere is just that – a convenient illusion.
As far as India is concerned, one has to wonder how far can the absolutism of free speech go. In a multi-cultural, diverse nation, with a high concentration of radicals, one has to admit that Hindus are not particularly playing on a level playing field. We can certainly idealistically demand that free speech must be absolute, however, the ramifications for one kind of speech and the ramifications for another kind of speech are not equal and have never been. In short, when Teesta Setalvad tweeted an image equating Maa Kali with an ISIS terrorist, she deleted her tweet after Hindus tweeted angrily at her and apologised – the matter ended. Most of you would not even remember that she had tweeted an image like that. But when Kamlesh Tiwari made a statement, he was beheaded 4 years after he came out of jail on bail.
But the truth remains that the rules of the game do not place Hindus at the same level, forget giving them an advantage in the only land they can possibly call their own. Under those circumstances, the demand for absolute freedom of speech for everyone becomes redundant. We could, principally, demand absolute freedom of speech or want to strive for it, however, with or without the law, Hindus would get the short end of the stick because Islamists don’t need a law to avenge the hurt caused to them. They need a sword. A sharp one. They have plenty of those and are certainly not morally adverse to using them.
If you are ok with Zubair’s arrest, you have to be ok with Nupur Sharma being arrested – otherwise – you are a raging hypocrite.
There are multiple problems with this statement. Firstly, let’s focus on facts. Nupur Sharma responded to her faith being mocked relentlessly, by Islamists, after the Shivling was discovered at the disputed Gyanvapi structure and therefore, it is safe to assume that she did not set out to mock Islam or Prophet Muhammad. In fact, even as a response, she said “what if she were to mock Islam” – she did not actually mock them and whatever she said are “facts” mentioned in the Islamic Hadiths. Zubair on the other hand has harboured hatred for Hindus, painted a target on their back, cost them their jobs, sent a bloodthirsty mob against Hindus and has a long history of doing just this – mocking Hindus, justifying their murder, inciting hate and shielding Islamists. The two individuals, by no stretch of the imagination, are the same.
But this argument is moot since Prof Ranganathan would say that these are emotional arguments and according to the law, they both hurt religious sentiments and therefore, they should both be arrested – either that or 295A should be scrapped.
Two fundamental questions form the basis of Ranganathan’s argument. Firstly, all religious offence is the same and by extension, all religions are the same (Ranganathan does not claim all religions are the same but if we consider all offence to be the same, then we must consider all religions to be the same as well). And secondly, we must all be moral absolutists and any form of relativism in this case is hypocritical.
Those who believe in moral absolutism and universal principles do so at the cost of realism and pragmatism.
Personally, I have no problem acknowledging the fact that Metaethical Moral Relativism is far more appropriate for the day and age we live in. The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons. I concede that this might be a rather Liberal prism to look at the world, but when playing by their rules, one has to learn and use their tools to fight for our own survival. Therefore, in a civilisational state where Hinduism forms the very basis of the nation’s existence, one should have no qualms in admitting that an insult to Hinduism is far more problematic than an insult to Islam.
As a Hindu, the need for survival cannot possibly be termed as collective hypocrisy when it comes to insulting faith. One can say that being ok with Islam being desecrated/mocked cannot be accepted if Hindus start getting offended when their faith meets the same fate, however, realistically, the cultural context of why Hindus are ok with Islam being mocked and their own faith has to be considered.
For thousands of years, Hindus have been subjugated by the Islamist invaders who have raped Hindu women, beheaded our kings, and murdered our children all for the ultimate goal of the establishment of the Caliphate. There are countless tales of how the Islamic invaders murdered Hindus and kept their wives, mothers and daughters as slaves – the spoils of war.
The barbarity was so perverse, that Hindu women often chose to jump into the fire and give up their lives after Hindus were defeated in war, lest they were taken slaves by Islamic invaders. You might wonder why they didn’t simply slit their wrists instead of stepping into the burning fire – well – they did not want their corpse to be desecrated by the followers of Islam who had laid siege on their land.
The brutality is not just limited to Islamic invaders. In the modern political landscape of India, Hindus were humiliated during the partition as well. One recalls how the Khilafat movement claimed the lives of countless Hindus during the Moplah massacres by Islamists and even the Direct Action Day, spearheaded by Jinnah. After the countless deaths of Hindus, our own, MK Gandhi, asked Hindus to simply lay down their lives if the Islamists chose to claim it.
During the partition, Hindus were mutilated and their women raped. At the altar of ‘secularism’, which the Atheists love to espouse, India decided to not conduct a full exchange of population, a suggestion that was made by various luminaries at the time including Dr B.R. Ambedkar, and thus, began another cycle of subjugation in modern India. This year itself, we saw riots by sections of the Muslim community and aided by the Left against the Hindus.
The saga of brutality continues to this day not just in India, but also, against the minority Hindus of Pakistan and when India decided that the minority Hindus could take refuge in India, their natural home post-partition, the Islamists ran riots yet again. They stabbed a Hindu over 50 times simply because he was Hindu and chopped off the arms and legs of another before burning him alive.
Given this context, it would be naive to expect Hindus to take offence to Islam being mocked with the same intensity that they may take offence to their own faith being mocked. It is akin to wondering why the Jews are ok with Nazis being mocked and not their own persecution being made light of.
Further, the fact that Ranganathan believes in moral absolutism and that all offence is the same, he will have to then concede that he also believes that all religions are equal – he said he did not, but that is again a logical fallacy that he will have to reconcile in his argument.
When we say that all religions need to coexist without taking offence to each other, we are essentially saying that one of the most important tenets of survival in a multi-cultural nation like India is religious pluralism.
Religious Pluralism essentially says that firstly, all religions must acknowledge that certain truths exist in other religions as well, thereby declaring that it is not only their own religion that is the ‘only truth’. Further, it says that all religions must acknowledge that every religion teaches basic universal truths that have been taught since before the advent of religion itself.
When one delves into the principles of religious pluralism as a construct that can enable religions to co-exist without sectarian violence, it becomes important to ensure that all religions are brought down to the same surface level and hence, the claim that all religions are the same takes a beastly proportion where cultural context is often lost. When one tries to do that, it becomes remarkably clear that Islam and Hinduism are not the same. While Islam wants to annihilate Hinduism, Hinduism prescribes no such thing. Islam wants to convert or murder the Kafir, subjugate heathens and establish their Dar-ul-Islam because the Dar-ul-Harb is haraam. When dealing with a traditionally hostile faith, one cannot say that the faith that they are hostile and violent towards is the same as the said faith. Islam, if allowed, sanctions taking offence to the very existence of Kafirs and submits to no law of the land other than that of the God they believe in. It is true that Islam has a strict legal and political foundation to it. Hence, to essentially say that all religions are equal and aspire toward the same universal truths is a fallacious statement that is made by the people who either harbour malice, or ignorance.
It is also pertinent to mention here that the higher the intolerance of a community, the more important it is for that community to be mocked, so the intolerance threshold is breached and that offence is normalised. Islamists have to be desensitised to criticism of their faith to a large extent because no other community is today taking to the streets demanding ‘sar tan se juda’ at the slightest ‘provocation’. Hindus, on the other hand, would have traditionally been more than happy to agree with Professor Ranganathan, had they not been beaten, mocked, insulted and humiliated by the very Islamists who are crying victims today.
When the two religions are not the same (one being hostile and the other being the victim of that hostility), they don’t aspire towards the same universal truths, and when one religion is theologically opposed to the other’s very existence, to say that Hindus must be equally offended when Islam is mocked is an expectation that far divorced from reality. One has to acknowledge that Hindus are powerless globally. While Islam has the support of the Ummah, Hindus are usually the recipient of hostility not just from the Ummah, but the global Christian cabal, the Leftist, the Communists, and so on and so forth. The powerless community needs a law that they can turn to when they are repeatedly mocked and harassed. Take that away from them and you essentially tell them that the only recourse they have is to become as intolerant as the “sar tan se juda” gang. Would that be better than a legal provision? One would think not.
The law itself is colonial and draconian, open to misuse
295A is not a very complicated law. It simply says that any deliberate and malicious attempt to hurt religious feelings shall be prosecuted by the law. One can argue that it does not particularly define what religious hurt is, the extent of hurt caused and what words should be considered offensive, however, the law, on its own, is as open to misuse as any other law.
This situation could perhaps be compared to the SC/ST law, given that Hindus are a powerless lot globally, underprivileged and the target of predatory proselytisation. Hindus need laws to protect them, much like Scheduled Castes and Tribes need a law to protect their rights. Being a global minority and dealing with predatory faiths, Hindus universally need to be protected and the only way you can possibly disagree with this argument is if you also disagree with SCs and STs don’t particularly need a separate law for protection after they have been historically persecuted.
The SC/ST Act, while necessary, also has a propensity to be misused. Several cases have been documented where individuals belonging to these communities have misused the law to settle personal scores. One can safely argue that just as in the case of the SC/ST Act, in the case of 295A also, there have to be special provisions made against misuse, in the former, against Brahmins and “upper castes” and in the latter, against Hindus overall. However, demanding that the law itself be scrapped is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
One has to consider that laws are formulated to bring order and peace to society and are subject to the ever-changing reality of a nation. The reality of our nation today is that Hindus are liable to be beheaded, much like Kamlesh Tiwari, when they comment on Islam while Islamists get the support of their global cabal when they insult Hinduism. In an unequal battle, this law is the only recourse that Hindus have and Hindus need protection from this law being misused to persecute them further.
Sooner or later, the law will come back to bite Hindus since what it would do is outlaw all criticism of religion, therefore, you would lose your right to criticise a traditionally predatory religion such as Islam.
To answer this, we need to delve into how 295A came into existence. It all started with the case of Mahashay Rajpal, who published Rangeela Rasool and was ultimately assassinated for it. We mostly hear that Mahashay Rajpal was assassinated for publishing satirical work on Prophet Muhammad called Rangeela Rasool, but we seldom hear why he chose to publish the book. In 1923, Muslims published two particularly offensive books to Hindus. “Krishna teri geeta jalani padegi” used derogatory and vulgar language against Shri Krishna and other Hindu deities and “Uniseevi sadi ka maharshi” which contained derogatory remarks on Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati (incidentally written by an Ahmadi).
In response to this provocation by Islamists, Pandit Chamupati Lal, a close friend of Mahashay Rajpal, wrote a short biography of the Islamic Prophet, Mohammed. “Rangeela Rasool” was a short pamphlet which satirised the life of the Prophet of Islam. Pandit Chamupati made Mahashay Rajpal promise that he would never reveal the name of the author – he knew the consequences of it. Anonymously published under the name “doodh ka doodh aur panee ka panee”, the book enraged Muslims.
Staying true to the values of one-way brotherhood, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wrote in his pamphlet “Young India”, condemning Rangeela Rasool. While Gandhi ignored the provocation by Muslims, by the end of June 1924, the colonial government banned the book. The Muslim community, partly emboldened by MK Gandhi’s endorsement of their hurt sentiments and whitewashing of the provocation against Hindus, filed multiple cases against the book under 153A. In May 1927, Mahashay Rajpal, who published the book, was acquitted of all charges with the court observing that commentary based on facts on historical figures, including the prophet of Islam, cannot be said to promote enmity between groups. As soon as the verdict was delivered, Muslim mobs went into a frenzy. They rioted and demanded the head of Mahashay Rajpal. They were chants about how the murder of Rajpal was acceptable because, under Sharia, the punishment for blasphemy is death.
With the Muslim mobs going on a rampage, 295A was passed to assuage the feelings of the mobs and in the same year, there were two unsuccessful attempts at Mahashay Rajpal’s life.
On April 6th, 1929 a 19-year-old carpenter named Ilm ud din stabbed Mahashay Rajpal on his chest eight times while he was seated in the outer verandah of his shop.
Now, one has to bear in mind that when Rangeela Rasool was published, 295A did not exist. However, the Muslim community back then went on a rampage demanding that Mahashay Rajpal be taught a lesson. Even in the absence of the law, there were two attempts on his life and ultimately, the third attempt was successful.
Given what we know about history, we have to ask ourselves – what would change for Hindus if 295A was indeed scrapped?
As we have seen in the case of Mahashay Rajpal, Kishan Bharwad, Kamlesh Tiwari, Samuel Patty and hundreds across the world and specifically in India, the Islamists don’t need a law to extract their pound of flesh when they are offended and their religious sentiments are hurt. They have, ever so often, taken matters into their own hands and exercised their street veto liberally across the world. Hindus on the other hand, have been left powerless to deal with the onslaught of global Hinduphobia. With 295A gone, the only community that would be left with no tools to address insults to their faith would be Hindus and the message that would be sent to Hindus is that they can only be respected if they become as violent and intolerant as those who take to the streets and execute those whose words they don’t like.
The ground reality for Hindus, as far as the treatment they get at the hand of Islamists would not change. “Blasphemy” would still exist since the threat of getting beheaded for criticism of Islam would certainly not be tackled by the scrapping of 295A.
Therefore, with the law gone, we would see Hindus left with no recourse when they are insulted while Islamists would still enforce their street veto against Hindus whenever their feelings are hurt.
The truth of the matter is that the law itself is not particularly unjust. It is its application that leaves a lot to be desired and that is where the Judiciary and the society come into play. More than the existence of the law, we should be offended at the normalisation of its unjust application – where DU professor Ratan Lal gets bail for insulting Hinduism and Hindus are arrested regularly, left to rot in jail, when they make comments against Islam. We should be offended that the myopic judiciary, the malicious academia and the deracinated, blinded society have normalised Hindus being hunted while others getting a free pass.
In the quest for empty, unrealistic, pedantic principles, Hindus cannot be made sacrificial lambs.
