Dalit leader and former BJP MP Hari Manjhi recently asserted that Dalits are also Hindus and slammed the media for weaving an insidious narrative where Dalits are differentiated from their Hindu brethren.
“We Dalits are also Hindus. Why is the media making such a stupid narrative,” Manjhi tweeted in response to a tweet by news portal ANI wherein it made a distinction between a Dalit and a Hindu while informing about the appointment of two deputy chief ministers in Punjab.
हम दलित भी हिंदू है । क्यूँ मीडिया ऐसा बेहूदा नैरटिव बना रही है। @smitaprakash @IamNaveenKapoor https://t.co/wY19EOfxDl
— हरि मांझी (@HariManjhi) September 19, 2021
The ANI tweet that drew the ire of Manjhi said, “Two deputy CMs will be appointed along with CM in Punjab. 1 Hindu and 1 Dalit MLA to be appointed for the post.”
Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra also expressed his stern disapproval over the tweet saying, “In my opinion, doing so is not appropriate in terms of unity and social harmony of the majority Hindu society. ANI is widely regarded as an authoritative source of news in the media firmament.”
The Home Minister also sought action and asked the news agency to punish the culprits in case exclusion of Dalits from the larger Hindu community was done intentionally. “I request the management of the news agency that this mistake should be rectified immediately. If anyone has done this intentionally, then strict action should be taken against him,” he said.
The tweet by ANI had gone viral soon after it was posted, with a raft of social media users taking strong objection over the blatant segregation of Dalits from Hindus. They alleged that Dalits are an integral part of the Hindu community and to pitch them as a separate community is akin to promoting the pernicious agenda of the left that seeks to undermine the Hindu majority by sowing seeds of discord within its various sects.
Media’s skulduggery in segregating Dalits from the larger Hindu community
Segregation of Dalits from Hindus is a distinction without a difference but something that has been studiously projected by the left intelligentsia and their collaborators in the media industry for the last several decades. The left “intellectuals” have assiduously asserted that Dalits and Hindus are too disparate communities. This narrative is then promoted ad nauseam by pliant media organisations to normalise the notion that Dalits and Hindus do not belong to the same larger group.
As a part of this effort, the left-leaning media enthusiastically highlights the Dalit identity of a victim of an atrocity or a leader elevated to a prominent position, without identifying them as Hindus. Their Hindu identity is intentionally swept under the rug lest it would undercut their meticulous effort of deracinating Dalits from their Hindu roots.
Additionally, the left-leaning media organisations indulge in fear-mongering and paranoia to fuel dissension between Dalits and Hindus. Seemingly ordinary incidents are twisted by giving a caste spin to them so that the narrative of Dalits living under a constant threat of persecution at the hands of “upper caste” Hindus could be reinforced.
For instance, the media organisations would rush to identify a victim of an assault as a Dalit, without obviously highlighting his Hindu roots. They would then point out the “upper caste” of the assailant to paint the incident as an act of caste discrimination, even though the motive of the said crime had got nothing to do with the victim’s caste. This is done with the ulterior aim of widening the social fissures and peddling a false narrative.
Intersectionality: The significance of mentioning the identities of victims and perpetrators
While several media houses and Left intelligentsia are driven by their motive to break the Indian society, the rationale behind highlighting the caste identity of Dalit victims has a separate origin altogether. The theory essentially believes that the victim would have been at a lower risk had her identity not been that of a Dalit and hence, mentioning the caste identity is essential as even if the crime is not motivated by caste animosity, the victim was at a higher risk by virtue of her caste. This sociological concept is called as ‘Intersectionality’, the point where multiple identities of an individual meet.
Intersectionality is thus a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of one’s social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, etc.) might combine to create unique modes of discrimination. So when a Dalit victim is identified by his/her caste identity, it is an acknowledgement of the fact that his/her caste has played a role in the discrimination or atrocities meted out on him/her. In addition to this, in such cases, the identity of the perpetrators also holds significance since the crime is committed on the premise of existing caste inequities. The media houses, therefore, fall over themselves in case the perpetrator of such atrocities happen to be Hindus.
The duplicity of media when victims are Hindu Dalits and perpetrators are Muslims
By contrast, they refrain from placing emphasis on identities when the victim is a Hindu Dalit and the perpetrator of the crime is a Muslim. When the non-left highlights the identities in such cases, the allegation that is often levelled by left ideologues and media organisations is that non-left is blatantly ‘communalising’ an incident.
Apparently, as per the Indian left’s understanding, incidents are communalised only when the perpetrators happen to be Muslims and victims Dalit Hindus. When it is the other way around, the media organisations feel no compunction in harping on the religious and caste identities of the victims and assailants, to insinuate that the crime had religious or caste motivations even when none exist.
Behind this transparent hypocrisy, lies the imaginary and farcical construct of Jai Bhim Jai Meem, which the opposition parties in connivance with their supporters in the media have fabricated to persuade Dalits to ally with Muslims and chip away at the unity of the Hindu community. To prevent the trope of Jai Bhim Jai Meem from falling apart, the media organisations consciously refrain from invoking religious and caste identities when a Muslim perpetrator is found to have committed an act of brutality against a Dalit Hindu because of his caste and religion.
The political agenda behind conjuring up artificial distinction between Dalits and Hindus
All these shenanigans are a part of a larger political agenda that aims to prevent the consolidation of the Hindu majority and thereby undermine their outsize influence on the country’s electoral politics. The goal is to exploit the heterogeneity of the Hindu community and divide the various sub-groups on account of their diversity. So Dalits are pitched against Hindus, Jats against Gujjars, Dravidians against the Hindi-speaking, so on and so forth, so that their allegiance to the larger Hindu community could be diluted and they could be perpetually enmeshed into petty sectarian conflicts.
Political parties who have survived on minority appeasement for decades are also party to this insidious propaganda. They have enthusiastically partaken in the segregation of the Hindu community so that their opposition could be weakened while unabashedly continuing with their brazen pandering of the minorities.
The efforts to cast Dalits as a distinct community, radically different from Hindus, intensified after PM Modi was elected as the Prime Minister of the country. After his ascension to the country’s highest post, PM Modi has managed to bind disparate Hindu groups into a single cohesive unit and exposed the vile propaganda of the left and its collaborators in the media. It was the first time in decades that an overwhelming section of Dalits consistently voted in favour of the BJP in the 2014 elections and other polls since then.
This development and changing political dynamic has spooked the opposition political parties and their sympathisers in the media and the left ecosystem, who had gotten used to enjoying the privileges that came with having a favourable government at the centre—such as brokering ministries and landing plum positions in government-appointed committees or even better—be the recipients of prestigious government awards.
With the advent of PM Modi at the Centre, these media organisations and “intellectuals” were veritably stripped off of their privileges. They could no longer influence decisions taken by the government or have a say in policies formulated by them. In addition to this, the centre’s unapologetic move to do away with minority appeasement also gnawed away at the left’s “secular” sensitivities.
As they saw themselves being relegated to the fringes of the Indian political arena and found their convictions regarding “secularism” being fiercely challenged, the left-leaning “ideologues” and the conniving media took to fomenting internecine conflicts within the Hindu community so that their electoral supremacy could be subverted and a more pliant and heedful government could be installed at the Centre.
