The Paradox of Our Times: What You Can Say and Get Away With

Will you get arrested for saying horrible things about Muslims or have a rich political career ahead of you?

I often write satire, but I am not being satirical or sarcastic, when I ask: do you blame Vijay Shah for thinking he can say something like this and get away with it?

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

“Can I get arrested for saying or writing xyz?” — is a question lawyers are asked with rapidly increasing frequency since 2014.

It has become impossible to answer.  

Will you get arrested for saying horrible things about Muslims? For murdering them? For calling for Muslim women to be auctioned? For garlanding their rapists?

If empirical evidence holds the answer, it is a near certainty that you will have a rich political career ahead of you. 

Foreign Secretary Vikram Mistri, speaking for the Government of India at a briefing about Operation Sindoor, said, “The manner of the (Pahalgam terror) attack was also driven by an objective of provoking communal discord, both in Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the nation. It is to the credit of the government and the people of India that these designs were foiled.” 

So Pakistan and terrorists want communal discord in India. Could you get arrested for saying the opposite, that there should not be communal discord in India?

What about for slamming the Pakistan Army? For saying war disproportionately targets the poor?

You would think no, but ask Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, he has been arrested for the posts he made on Facebook, the full text of which is here. The FIR against him has been lodged at the complaint of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker and also the chairperson for the National Commission for Women.

Hate Speech Has a Career Ladder

Will you get arrested for saying horrible things about the Indian Army? If you think the answer is a resounding yes, think again.

Yati Narsinghanand said that those who believe in the Indian Army and the Supreme Court will "die a dog’s death." A contempt case against him is pending and is rarely heard in the Supreme Court. He remains free. 

BJP Member of Parliament Vijay Shah called Colonel Sofiya Qureshi—a decorated Army officer—a sister of terrorists. He also said far more in obscene language, which is unprintable.

The state police did nothing. The National Commission for Women and the State Commission for Women did nothing. The Madhya Pradesh High Court had to step in suo-moto, instructing that an FIR be filed against him. The state government filed a toothless version, omitting his actual statements.

When Shah tried to appeal to the Supreme Court, the court expressed shock at the state's apathy, called his apology “crocodile tears”, and ordered an SIT probe, transferring the case out of Madhya Pradesh. The court also expressed surprise that the government hadn’t taken suo moto action.

And yet, no BJP leader condemned Shah. Not one.

I often write satire, but I am not being satirical or sarcastic, when I ask: do you blame Vijay Shah for thinking he can say something like this and get away with it? Thousands of BJP-aligned trolls attacked Vikram Misri and even his daughter.

I have already mentioned Yati Narsinghanand fate. Senior politicians from the BJP say the vilest things about Muslims every other day. Shah was just taking a cue from them.

The BJP even tried its best to save him, and frankly he remains free. He’s just unlucky to have been singled out. 

When Peace Is Provocation

As for professor Mahmudabad: he is on one side of a contest which keeps playing out across Indian society. He seems to be one of those people who thinks that the rights guaranteed in India’s Constitution actually mean something, and are not at the mercy of a BJP worker’s whims.

But the origin of this contestation, this friction, this pattern I speak of, is not the Constitution. It is not the partition. It is a short story with three groups: the Hindu Mahasabha, the Muslim League/Jinnah, and Gandhi-Nehru. 

The Mahasabha and the Muslim League both believed that Hindus and Muslims are entirely different civilisations, which can never be one. This claim was most recently expressed by Pakistan’s General Asim Munir. Gandhi and Nehru believed otherwise. They believed that Indians are one, regardless of religion. They rejected the logic of the two-state theory. They said that Muslims are ours, and therefore, Kashmir is also ours; not the other way round. The pattern starts here.

It manifests in the Constitution of India and those who take it seriously, and the constitution of social norms and majoritarianism, where the will of a Twitter mob and religious majority run supreme—just like in Pakistan.

It manifests in the contradiction between what is usually allowed, approved, and rewarded, but suddenly becomes a crime, like in the case of Shah. The action against him—the court has said that harming communal harmony is a crime, and a crime so severe that it endangers India’s sovereignty—is an exception, the action against Mahmudabad is closer to the norm.

You can be forgiven for looking at Shah and feeling surprised at the action, and looking at Mahmudabad and going “Courageous man, but he should have expected this, the rest of us should also be careful”. 

Women in Uniform: From Dismissal to Performance

It manifests in the ruling BJP government opposing the induction of women in combat, by arguing the following before the Supreme Court in 2020:

• “Women officers must deal with pregnancy, motherhood, and domestic obligations towards their children and families, and may not be well suited to the life of a soldier in the armed forces"

• "A soldier must have the physical capability to engage in combat and inherent in the physiological differences between men and women is the lowering of standards applicable to women"

• An all-male environment in a unit would require "moderated" behavior in the presence of women officers

• The "physiological limitations" of women officers are accentuated by challenges of confinement, motherhood and child care

• "The deployment of women officers is not advisable in areas where members of the armed forces are confronted with minimal facility for habitat and hygiene"

These arguments met with disapproval from the court, which highlighted the exceptional record of Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, even in 2020. 

During the recent military conflict with Pakistan, India had Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh leading the press briefings. This was hailed as a masterstroke, a declaration: women are equal citizens in India, unlike Pakistan. That Muslims are equal citizens in India, unlike Pakistan, which persecutes Ahmediyas and Hindus.

We are a modern, civilised democracy, with freedom of press, communal harmony, and the rule of law. Pakistan is not.  

But have the last 12 years consistently delivered this message? The question is not whether we have been perfect. No one is. The question is, have we aspired to achieve and live by these ideals? Have we domestically paid lip service to these ideals? Or have we argued that our aspiration is to take the two-nation logic to its conclusion?

Consider Asaduddin Owaisi, who is now being sent abroad to represent India’s inclusive image. But how has he been treated in India over the 12 years? How was he greeted when he took his oath in Parliament?

Vijay Shah, professor Mahmudabad, and a billion other Indians need clarity, and India needs to pick one path. Chaos is not healthy for long, and the world is beginning to believe that India is not the face it presents globally, but the one it lives with domestically.

There is only one question for all Indians to answer: was Jinnah right? And another, for those reading this piece: Could you get arrested for reading this? I don't know.

(The author is a lawyer and research consultant based in Mumbai. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)