Recently, I came across a video on a Twitter page named HindutvaWatch. The video was of an event organized by the far-right group Antar Rashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP) at Ghagwal in the Samba district of Jammu. In this 7:30-minute video, the AHP leader can be seen addressing people in a hall and asking them if the “DNA of Hindus and Muslims can be the same”. The audience replied with a resounding “no”. Then he says, “Those who are saying that our DNA is the same, will they have to be explained or not? Who will explain?” The people present in the hall respond, “We will explain.” Then the speaker proceeded to incite violence, “Brace yourself up, wear the shroud, pick up the sword… Now the time is about to come. Now, there will be war. And wars have happened before. This is not a new thing. The brave one will survive. The one who is not brave will be killed.”
The AHP leader also preaches that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians cannot be brothers. He even goes so far as to say that on one side there are deities and on the other side there are demons, with ‘Ravana’ representing Muslims.
This video surfaced like the rest of the hate videos and initially went unnoticed, but three days later, a tweet on the same Twitter page named HindutvaWatch revealed that the Samba police had taken cognizance of the video and were investigating the event.
The Kashmir Observer has published a report on this cognizance by the police. According to this report, the person giving the speech is an “unidentified leader” of the Antar Rashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), whereas Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Samba Benam Tosh, told Kashmir Observer that the police were verifying the details of the alleged hate speech and that necessary action would be taken as per law. “We are checking the details and are in touch with top officials. We will take legal action once things get clear,” Tosh said.
After this news, I kept thinking about such news that I had read many times in the last few years. Our police are registering complaints through concerned citizens or other pages complaining on social media, and because of the Supreme Court, it begs the question of why the police are unable to take action against those spreading hatred. Is it extremely difficult to investigate such incidents? Are the police not familiar with the people who are spreading hatred?
In an attempt to learn more about this specific incident, I searched for the full video of the event and found a 1-hour, 17-minute video on a Facebook page. The video reveals that the person giving the speech is Sushil Kumar Sudan, who is the Secretary General of the AHP in J&K.
In addition to spreading hate, hot-headed Sudan also curses Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech and says that the one who does not stay loyal to Mother Cow cannot be ours. Then later, he informs that he has been in the BJP and has also contested elections. But he left the BJP. I left the BJP because the BJP left the mother cow. He left BJP “when PM Modi said from the ancient fort of the country that cow protectors are goons”.
The video also shows that some cow protectors are sharing their experiences. They can be heard thanking the police administration. They are clearly saying that they get full cooperation from the administration in this work. In this video, Sushil Kumar Sudan also praises many police officers by taking their names and saying that such police officers are not found everywhere. He also says how the police support them in their work of cow protection. He also narrates their stories. Along with this, he says that he kept talking to the police officers. Furthermore, he even boasts, “We have got hundreds of militants killed.”
The event also features a song in which the audience sings about violence. “Throw the flute and pick up the sword in your hands. Sword in your hands… friends… sword in your hands.”
In this program, a person sitting on the stage is dressed like a policeman. On the other hand, looking at some pictures of this program, one can tell that many police personnel were present there. In such a situation, it will be very interesting to see what action the police take in this matter of hate speech. It is crucial that the police take appropriate action against those spreading hatred and inciting violence to prevent further harm to society.
Now, many questions come to my mind: what kind of investigation is going on? When the policemen are present at such venues, it is their bounden duty to stop hate and incitement. The policemen are not there to provide protection to the extremists when they are spilling communal venom in their speeches. It is similar to the police watching a murder and not trying to stop it.
It may be recalled that only last week the Supreme Court wanted suo moto action in hate speech cases and ordered that action must be taken against those who don’t register cases on their own without waiting for complaints to be received. If there is collusion between the sword-wielding extremists and the policemen, it depicts terrifying times with dangerous consequences for our society.
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