Impossible is now horribly possible
Language matters; it shapes thought. In 2014, the BJP-RSS combine’s political language focused on allaying fears that it would be antagonistic towards minorities. Despite its unshakeable commitment to creating a supremacist Hindu Rashtra, millions of Indians chose to believe the government when it said that it was all about ‘ Sabka sath, sabka vikas’ and ‘ achhe din’. Perhaps they desperately wanted it to be true.
However, the Modi sarkar swiftly reverted to type, wrapping bigotry and chauvinism in hyper-nationalism. When JNU students were branded ‘anti-national’, the whole country was suddenly using the term as if it is perfectly normal to accuse people of such a thing. The Radio Rwanda-style television channel Republic made ‘ Tukde tukde gang’ household slang for dissenters, and the BJP IT Cell amplified slurs, calling uncooperative media ‘dalals’, ‘news traders’ (credit to the Prime Minister) and ‘presstitutes’ (credit to General V K Singh) and dissenting intellectuals ‘irrelevant’ or ‘intellectually corrupt’. Social media was awash with terms like ‘jihadi’, ‘dynasty slave’, ‘bootlicker’, ‘looter’, and ‘burnol’.
This language normalises the idea that criticism is not — cannot be — independent-minded, but only ever motivated by some imaginary vileness, be it slavish devotion to the opposition, or disgruntlement about lost privilege, or sedition designed to ‘break India’.
When people objected to cattle-related lynchings and anti-minority violence, they were called ‘Hindu-hating’ and ‘anti-Hindu’. That language feeds nicely into the RSS’s emotional foundation of Hindu victimhood and grievance, which the BJP leadership’s constant talk of ‘1.25 crore Indians’ seeks to project on to all Indians (read: Hindus), be it about the Ram temple or support of the armed forces.
This is the rhetorical foundation of majoritarianism: If you talk about the place as a monolithic Hindu supremacist country for long enough, it will eventually become one. Because language matters.
Today, with widespread dissatisfaction over the jobs crisis, agricultural distress, an economic slowdown, crony capitalism and lousy law and order, ‘nationalist’ language has become even more fervid and purple, turning the emotional pitch up to ear-splitting, and exterminating nuance.
A large section of the media is complicit in this Bollywoodisation of nationalism. It wraps itself in the flag instead of checking what the flag might be hiding, has normalised the word ‘martyr’ (which denotes a religious crusader killed for his/her beliefs), and snaps into Pavlovian compliance at the phrase ‘national security’. Many journalists get boyishly excited about military hardware, and treat war like a video game. Too many have been consumed by Wing Commander Abhinandan’s celebrity, and too few by the security failures that sparked an almost-war.
That is how language works: Play out enough quivering sentiment, and people feel compelled to honour it and play along.
Five years of divisive language is finally paying off. MSGol walk ar, the intellectual ‘Guruji’ of the RSS, identified India’s “internal enemies” as Muslims, Christians, and Communists (today rolled up by social media ‘nationalists’ into the magnificently crazy term ‘Chrislamocommies’). BJP-RSS supporters added ‘urban naxals’ — a term that Mr Modi has used himself. They pass around lists of ‘ gaddars’ (traitors), who supposedly embody pet peeves from Communism to terrorism to the ‘wine-andcheese’ elite. Now, anyone who doesn’t rabidly support the armed forces, or questions the government on national security, is also
an enemy of India.
The prime minister’s ‘enemies within’ dog whistle — said at a media conclave — is echoed by people like ‘ Sadhguru’ Jaggi Vasudev. Mr Modi’s dramatic “ghar mein ghus ghus kar maarenge” (we will enter each of their homes and kill them) was about terrorists, but after five years of hate speech, it’s barely any distance at all between that and what the BJP’s Ram Madhav suggested in an op-ed — that bringing traitors to justice is a public duty. Madhav wrote that it was “up to the rest of the country — its leadership and people alike” to change the narrative — if a Kashmiri “is misguided, lead him; if he is mischievous, punish him; if he is treacherous, banish him. But instill India in him.”
Five years of hate speech empowers BJP MLA Kapil Mishra to put out a video calling for people to drag ‘traitors’ out of their homes and causes the violent persecution of Kashmiri students, the assault of Kashmiri street sellers in Lucknow, and the thrashing of a Muslim student who questioned the government’s claims.
So five years down the line, the BJP-RSS has at least partly achieved what it really wants to achieve: To infect the public and the public discourse with an inchoate sense that Muslims are terrorists and traitors, and that Hindus who oppose a Hindu Rashtra too are suspect.
Do you recognise your country? We got to this point by incrementally letting the crazy become the norm. The BJP’s 2019 election slogan “Namumkin ab mumkin hai” — “The impossible is now possible” — is perfect like that, horribly so.