Imagine World Cup 2023. Ahmedabad. Narendra Modi stadium. The big match. India vs Pakistan. Well over 1,00,000 spectators. A sea of blue, totally rooting for India.
The Pakistan innings are in disarray. After a good 3rd wicket partnership between Pakistan’s captain Babar Azam and vice captain Mohammad Rizwan, which saw Pakistan comfortable at 155/2, things were falling apart. India’s bowlers – Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, and Mohammad Siraj – were wrecking Pakistan’s middle order.
It was 168 for 6 when Bumrah clean bowled Mohammad Rizwan for 49. India would surely go 8-0 up in its amazing clean sheet in ODI World Cup matches against Pakistan.
With so much going our way, what was the need for spectators to jeer, taunt, and insult Mohammad Rizwan with chants of 'Jai Sri Ram’ as he walked up the steps, through the spectators, back to the Pakistan changing room?
Yeh Jo India Hai Na, here what does ‘Jai Sri Ram’ mean to us? Was it right for the spectators at Narendra Modi stadium to use 'Jai Sri Ram’ to humiliate Rizwan?
Religious Chanting as a Call for Hate
Should ‘JAI. SRI. RAM’, three simple words that we use to remember Lord Ram be used as an insult.. as a taunt?
Across India, we say 'Jai Ram Ji Ki', we say 'Ram, Ram', ‘Jai Siya Ram’, and ‘Jai Sri Ram’, as polite greetings as we go past each other. It is such a familiar dialogue in our movies. We hear the same in our temples and in our religious ceremonies. Shouldn’t we keep it that way?
Instead, we see Muslims being assaulted in public, being forced to say ‘Jai Sri Ram’. Take a look at this video from June 2023 – a Muslim man who was beaten up, tied to a tree, being forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” by three men.
They suspected him of stealing a mobile phone in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr. The video was recorded and shared by the attackers; clearly, they had no fear of the law. It took the survivor’s family four days to get the police to file a First Information Report (FIR) against the attackers.
1. In August 2021, at Ujjain’s Sekli village, a Muslim scrap dealer was forced to say ‘Jai Sri Ram’ by two men if he wanted ‘to be allowed’ to do business in the village. The two men were arrested.
2. In September 2022, two men assaulted a Muslim youth in Modinagar, UP, forcing him to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’. An FIR was filed. In July 2023, in UP's Baghpat, an imam was allegedly forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ at gunpoint. A complaint was filed.
3. In December 2022, in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, a 10-year-old class five Muslim student was allegedly forced to chant Jai Shri Ram and then thrashed by a Hindu neighbour while on his way to his tuition classes. An FIR was registered.
How many incidents should we list to establish this clear and shameful pattern? This is a complete abuse of the phrase, ‘Jai Sri Ram’. This is abuse in the name of religion. And it happens with zero fear of the law.
A Means to Other Minorities
In most cases, police complaints and FIRs are filed, but they don’t seem to deter the offenders. Why? The offenders are often confident that they will get off lightly.
They also use these viral videos to build their reputations as 'defenders of the Hindu faith’ in the radical fringe of the right-wing Hindu eco-system.
There are other incidents where again, ‘Jai Sri Ram’ is misused.
1. In December 2020, at a village in Indore district, MP, members of Right-wing Hindu groups taking part in a rally to collect money for a Ram temple, stopped in front of a mosque and chanted ‘Jai Sri Ram’ and other slogans. The incident led to Hindu-Muslim clashes.
2. In April 2022, at a village in Ghazipur, UP, a ‘Ram Kalash’ procession stopped at a mosque in the village, after which some youth climbed onto the mosque and raised slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’.
3. In early October 2023, yet another religious procession turned violent in Gopalganj, Bihar, as a mosque was vandalised even as chants of ‘Jai Sri Ram’ were raised. The vandalism and sloganeering were followed by a few clashes between members of the two communities.
So, this is yet another ugly, emerging pattern, where ‘Jai Sri Ram’ is misused to cheer on vandalism, jeer at and humiliate the minority community. It is a clear message to India’s minorities – We outnumber you. We can taunt and humiliate you at will. We can vandalise your places of worship.
Yeh Jo India Hai Na, here some people are twisting the meaning of ‘Jai Sri Ram’. This is not devotion, or ‘shraddha’ or ‘bhakti’. It is simply wrong.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)