Call out bigotry, without polarising

Mahant Ram Sunder Das is as easily recognisable - or not - as Kalicharan Maharaj for most. Both addressed gatherings at a Dharam Sansad in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, on Sunday. And, yet, the two are very different, even as they both fall under the rubric of Hindu community leaders. For, Das walked off the stage, boycotting the rest of the religious event, after asking the audience why on earth they had applauded when Kalicharan had, in a diatribe against India's Muslims and their perceived 'appeasers', described Mohandas Gandhi as a 'maha harami [who] destroyed everything', adding his 'salutations to Nathuram Godse-ji for killing him', and, for good measure, urging that Muslims need to be 'controlled' lest they become 'cancer'. For Sunder Das, mahant of Chhattisgarh's Dudhadhari temple, not only had Kalicharan desecrated a religious event but '[his diatribe] is not sanatan dharma'. This was calling out bigotry from within the fold.

Over the last few weeks, the spigot of hate speech had been turned on with impunity, in Haridwar, Delhi and Raipur. On the face of it, these voices can be deemed as being 'fringe' in the run-up to key state elections. But these voices have been speaking in an atmosphere where it is becoming easier to get away with hate speech, even genocidal speech, aimed at members of the Muslim community. One way to not address this blight is to fall for the bait of polarisation and react with 'counter-polarisation'. Raising the pitch so as to have Muslim (or other) hotheads or other understandably horrified voices come up with their own 'reactionary action' is one of the oldest tricks in the communal playbook.

Instead, let the law deal with such 'infringements' that seek inter-communal enmities. And more Hindu leaders - religious and secular - should follow the Dudhadhari mahant's example and call out unholy, inciteful usurpers using Hinduism as a bully pulpit. To give such bigots more importance would be to add fuel to the very flames of manufactured 'khatra' they seek to crackle for 15 minutes of infamy.