Wednesday 18 April 2018

VIP hate speeches rise 500%, under Modi

 

The use of hateful and divisive language by high-ranking politicians has increased almost 500% in the past four years, an NDTV data collection exercise has found.
  • A day, or a week doesn't go without some senior politician - a member of Parliament, minister, MLA or even Chief Minister making a hateful comment, be it in the language of bigotry or calling for violence. The rise in use of social media by politicians has only amplified this disturbing trend.
  • NDTV collated the data from public record, internet, as well as using their reporters, scanning nearly 1,300 articles and going through 1,000 most-recent tweets of top politicians and public figures. NDTV says that this is not a perfect record, and doesn't claim to be comprehensive. 
  • From May 2014 to the present, there have been 124 instances of VIP hate speech by 45 politicians, compared to 21 instances under UPA 2, an increase of 490%. 90% of hateful comments made during the NDA's current terms are by BJP politicians. 
  • During UPA-2, 21 political leaders made hateful comments, of which 3 instances (14 %) were from the Congress, which anchored the coalition. Politicians from the BJP took the lead, recording 7 instances of hate speech.
  • Of the 45 leaders responsible for hate speech since the Modi government came to power, in only find six cases (only 5% of all instances) of evidence of a politician being reprimanded or cautioned, or issuing a public apology. 95% of the time, the 'VIP hater' faced no consequence.
  • In at least two cases, hate speech appears to have paid off. 
  1. Yogi Adityanath, the current CM of UP, was a MP from UP when, in Nov 2015, he said "There is no difference between the language of Shah Rukh Khan and that of Hafiz Saeed". In Sep 2014, he ascribed the rise in riots in Western UP to the population growth of a minority community. "In places where there are 10 to 20% minorities, stray communal incidents take place," he said. "Where there are 20 to 35% of them, serious communal riots take place and where they are more than 35%, there is no place for non-Muslims." In all, there are 6 instances of hate speech by the UP CM. All were made before he was promoted to his current office.
  2. Anant Kumar Hegde was a BJP MP from Karnataka when, in Mar 2016, he said, "As long as we have Islam in the world, there will be no end to terrorism. If we are unable to end Islam, we won't be able to end terrorism." In Sep 2017, he was promoted as Union Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. Since 2014, Mr Hegde has made seven such hate speeches. Three months after being made union minister, in Dec 2017, Mr Hegde declared that the party would remove the term "secular" from the Constitution, saying "These people who call themselves secularists are like people without parentage or who don't know their bloodline."
  • Mr Hegde is one of three serial 'VIP haters' in poll-bound Karnataka. Shobha Karandlaje, a  MP from Karnataka and the general secretary of the Karnataka BJP, has posted at least nine hateful tweets since June last year. Pratap Simha, another MP from Karnataka, has also posted four hateful tweets since September last year. 
  • In further proof that hate has no consequence on the careers of political leaders, at least 21 political leaders (or 48%) had recorded more than one instance of hate speech. They were not reprimanded for their hateful comments, nor did they issue apologies. Prominent amongst them is T Raja Singh, a BJP MLA from Telangana, who has repeatedly made public speeches inciting violence. In Nov 2017, he threatened to burn down theatres screening "Padmavat." Since Dec 2015, Mr Singh has made at least ten hateful comments.
  • BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has written hateful tweets against Muslims, posting at least 17 of these since Sep 2017.
  • The reluctance of BJP to crack down on its hate speech 'offenders' is due to the fact that the its top leadership does not seem averse to playing the communal card, albeit using veiled language. Prominent amongst such instances are speeches by BJP party president Amit Shah, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.
"If there is a cemetery in the village, there should be a crematorium as well; If there is electricity on Ramzan, it should be there on Diwali as well; there shouldn't be any discrimination," Mr Modi had said in Feb 2017, during an election rally in Fatehpur, UP, in the run-up to the assembly elections that his party swept. 
  • During the same campaign, Amit Shah sparked controversy with this comment: "If by any mistake, BJP loses, the victory and defeat may be in Bihar but fire crackers will go off in Pakistan."
  • Read the source article for complete list of hate speeches by BJP and UPA leaders.


Hate speeches are the hall mark of BJP's propaganda, especially during elections and during parliamentary debates. Modi goes way beyond others with deep desire to eliminate all national parties and establish monopoly of Hindutva forces paving the way for Hindu Rashtra. He fails to understand federal cooperation with states, diversity of the nation and the need to have balanced approach for unity & integrity of the nation. His facial expressions and body language evidently expresses his thoughts, intentions and actions. With his intolerance, arrogance coupled with lack of skills required for administering a large nation, and India was so much divided today like never before. For the first time since liberalisation in 1992, Indian economic outlook was so much distressed. Modi must be credited with shooting at the Tyres of the racing car (Indian Economy) without having an iota of what he was doing with his hare brained demonetisation and senselessly designed & hurried roll out of mangled GST.


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