Last year, in October, when Gwalior city SP Hina Khan raised the “Jai Shree Ram” slogan to combat an unruly crowd that was weaponising the slogan against her—in an effort to reduce her identity to barely her religion—it became a moment of reckoning. Khan had to raise the slogan to “diffuse” the situation, to deny the crowd the privilege of taking advantage of her identity. A year later, another SP, now in West Bengal, is trapped in a similar discursive trap: the burden of identity.
On 13 September, West Bengal Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Bushra Bano shared a video on how Aligarh Muslim University’s Coaching Centre helped her in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) journey.
The talk was nothing more than a motivation for UPSC aspirants. However, what was supposed to be a gesture of inspiration fractured when, a few days later, the then-additional SP of Kharagpur was abruptly transferred to deputy commandant of the WB police.
A simple talk became a matter of controversy when the Hindu Legal Fund, in their X account, said that they are filing a complaint against the officer.