Shekhar Gupta’s recent National Interest column on AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair is a disturbing read. He chose to frame the issue of outrage over former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s comments on Times Now and subsequent arrest of Zubair around the notion of ‘blasphemy’. In the process, he engages in an unhealthy dose of victim-blaming. When not making sweeping generalisations about various faiths and their followers, Gupta is finding false equivalence in various instances of ‘blasphemy’. The article is so bereft of any context, one wonders whether the last eight years even took place.
To begin with, he paints blasphemy as a ‘Muslim’ or ‘Abrahamic’ problem, going so far as to claim that it was “almost non-existent for the vast Hindu majority”. He says that while Hindus have been bothered about insults to their gods, there were “no consequences” (read killings). Even if one is to ignore all the censorship (voluntary and forced), vandalism and threats of beheadings in response to perceived insults to Hindus, Hinduism and its symbols, as Shekhar Gupta appears to imply, is it his case that all the killings in the name of gaumata (cow) are in fact not the examples of blasphemy? Does he believe that the recent spate of ‘beadbi‘ (sacrilege) killings in Punjab are part of a different issue altogether?
Even if Gupta has a very specific definition of ‘blasphemy’, one that excludes every form of sacrilegious act other than speech and writing, what’s the justification for singling it out and treating it as some special kind of offence if not to use it as a stick to beat adherents of ‘Abrahamic’ religions with and claim a sort of moral superiority for Hindus? Violence in response to blasphemy surely isn’t any worse than other types of communal violence. In a country where Muslims have been the primary victim of numerous instances of majoritarian violence, including killings, it’s nothing but a malicious attempt to gaslight a community under siege.
Also read: Do I have a complaint with Mohd Zubair of Alt News? Here’s why I have 3 answers, No, No & Yes
Nupur wasn’t just blasphemous
While discussing the genesis of section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which penalises insulting religion, Shekhar Gupta rakes up the murder of publisher Mahashay Rajpal by Ilm-ud-Din in 1929. Ever since, there has hardly been any notable incident of ‘blasphemy’ killing in India in the last 95-odd years by Muslims, even though their faith and its symbols are routinely lampooned by all kinds of fringe as well as mainstream elements.
On the other hand, the Muslim and other minority communities in India have faced numerous communal pogroms, targetted killings, destruction of places of worship and other properties at the hands of the Hindu majority, all while enduring the State’s apathy. The situation has become particularly vicious during the past eight years under the Narendra Modi government. Without this important background, problematising blasphemy is at best a vain academic exercise and at worst an excuse to shift some of the blame towards the victim.
However, what Nupur said wasn’t just blasphemous, it was hateful. While Gupta does say that context matters in the case of Nupur’s comments, he largely views her comments in isolation, even though it’s evident that they are part of the avalanche of vitriol that is passed through primetime debates on TV screens night after night. The spokespersons and talking heads allied with the ruling dispensation participating in these ‘debates’ deploy everything from dog-whistle to outright hate speech, targeting some of the most vulnerable groups of people living in India.
Nupur’s comments weren’t a polemic criticism of Islam, à la Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris, nor were they deliberately irreverent take on Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) like The Satanic Verses or Charlie Hebdo cartoons. As legal scholar Gautam Bhatia points out, here the Prophet is used as a stand-in to bait the larger Muslim community. Anyone who follows Nupur on primetime can testify to her obnoxious behaviour. The statements in question were simply the surface of a stinky heap of hateful bile.
Also read: Shekhar Gupta ko gussa kyun aata hai? He is a victim of Communism and Cold War anxieties
Ignoring the witch-hunt on Zubair
Shekhar Gupta’s most perplexing and potentially dangerous commentary is reserved for Mohammad Zubair. If one has to hazard a summary, it goes something like this: Since Zubair and his organisation owe their fame to their ‘secular-liberal-left’ credentials, he can’t be outraging over ‘blasphemy’. The outrage can only be justified if he were speaking as a devout Muslim. And if he were, he can’t be “taking liberties with other people’s gods”.
There’s so much to unpack here. First there’s the patronising and sanctimonious tone by a journalist in a position of privilege for a fellow journalist from a minority community who has to risk so much simply for doing his job. At this moment, when Zubair is being dragged from one jurisdiction to another by a vindictive State, he is the last person in need of a righteous sermon, especially when Gupta has nothing to say about this witch-hunt or the TV hate-fest. On the contrary, he chides Zubair for posting the video of Nupur’s statements and causing an international “kerfuffle” and embarrassing “the Modi government”. If this isn’t shooting the messenger, what is?
Then, there’s the unnecessary conflation of liberal, secular and left values — something you would expect from a right-wing hack, not a seasoned political reporter like Shekhar Gupta. It doesn’t serve any purpose but to pigeonhole Zubair and his work. Interestingly, Zubair has never claimed these labels for himself. But that doesn’t stop Gupta from asserting that these are Zubair’s primary identities. After ascribing these identities to Zubair, Gupta has the audacity of challenging him to “say that isn’t so”.
And then there’s the puzzling declaration that one can only be outraged by insult to the Prophet as a devout Muslim and not as a ‘secular-liberal’. First of all, the two identities are not mutually exclusive. Those who believe in secularism can very much be religious in their personal lives, but they don’t want the State to take sides between different religions. Ironically, this line of argument runs contrary to the rest of the article where Shekhar Gupta speaks both as a believing Hindu and someone who believes in liberty and democracy against criminalising blasphemy.
Secondly, Zubair and Muslims weren’t the only ones outraged by Nupur’s comments. Many non-Muslims who would describe themselves as liberals were offended by her obnoxious remarks. Will Gupta question their ‘secular-liberal’ credentials too?
Finally, there’s the diktat of not taking liberty with others’ gods. Is Gupta alluding to Zubair’s post on Honeymoon-Hanuman hotel here? If it’s so, it’s most unfortunate. While I agree that we should equally treat all faiths and their symbols with respect, and perhaps Zubair could have avoided the post, does Gupta think that there’s even remotely any moral equivalence between Zubair’s sarcasm and Nupur’s diatribe? Nobody has any misgivings about why Zubair is being persecuted — definitely not for a 2018 tweet having a screenshot from a 1983 movie that no one seems to have taken offence to all these years.
I had really wished that a journalist of Shekhar Gupta’s stature and clout stood unequivocally in support of Zubair and the remarkable work he was doing and called out the entire hate ecosystem as well as the vindictiveness of his persecution. Instead, he chose to get into a gratuitous and misguided debate on ‘blasphemy’, only to throw Zubair under the bus and give fresh fodder to those who have unleashed this cruelty on him.
Musab Qazi is the national secretary, Students Islamic Organisation of India. He tweets @musab1. Views are personal.
This article is a response to ThePrint’s Editor-In-Chief Shekhar Gupta’s National Interest column published on 9 July 2022. Read the article here.
(Edited by Prashant)