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Thursday March 28, 2024

Hashtagging genocide

By Murtaza Shibli
April 22, 2017

Fifth column

There is a creepy rush among Indian public figures – cricketers, films stars, writers, journalists and politicians – to validate and justify war crimes in Jammu and Kashmir. They are increasingly using social media to normalise the anti-Kashmiri hatred.

The narrative of aversion that has been weaved across low-key public domains, such as Hindu religious gatherings, for several years has suddenly turned posh as public figures of high achievement are throwing their lot in support of the Indian Army in its war against Kashmiris. Despite possessing a plethora of deadly arsenal and legal and political cover for its continued massacre, the army is very low on morale and, therefore, desperately in need of public support and approval for the murderous campaigns.

This new trend has at least three broad objectives. First, to dehumanise Kashmiris and strip them from any human attributes, including an autonomous political agency. In the Indian Twittersphere, the adjectives that unanimously slide up with pro-freedom Kashmiris tend to be: stone pelter,      aatanki (terrorist) and ISI/Pakistan-sponsored. This is deliberately employed to deny India’s culpability as an aggressive and occupying power.

Second, to incite the Indian military forces to commit more murders of Kashmiris while at the same time demand a ‘free hand’ for them to deal with the civilian protesters. And third, to mobilise the gullible and hate-filled Indian public to openly support the ongoing war crimes to neutralise any sceptic remnants of the republic who question the moral basis of the occupation and its ensuing brutality and inhumanity.

The trail for this ‘murder the Kashmiris’ trend was blazed last year by the Narendra Modi government at the height of the ongoing pro-freedom Intifada. When the wide-scale murders and destruction of houses and crops by the Indian Army failed to subdue the Kashmiri spirit for freedom, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology publicly endorsed the mass murder of Kashmiris as the prescription to control the rebellious population. In September 2016, the ministry that runs the official Twitter handle of Digital India – a flagship Indian government initiative to create a knowledge economy – tweeted a poem to promote the killing of Kashmiris by the army.

With more than half a million followers, the lyrics asked the army not to stop firing on people until they come to the city square and sing the national anthem. Earlier, in July 2016, the official Twitter handle of Start-UP India – a pet Modi project under the Commerce and Industry Ministry – retweeted posts inciting violence against a handful of journalists who were feebly questioning the brutality of the Indian armed personnel in Kashmir. The tweets alleged that they were pro-Pakistani – a recipe to legitimise and provoke vigilante violence against them.

The recent failed elections in Srinagar have renewed this hate campaign with vigour and brazen official endorsement. Gautam Gambhir, an Indian cricketer and the Kolkata Knight Riders captain, beckoned the Indian Army to “kill 100 jihadists for every slap”. Gambhir’s open call for genocide was in reaction to a video showing a group of angry pro-freedom Kashmiri youth assaulting a bunch of Indian paramilitary forces in reaction to their day-long campaign of murder that had killed a dozen Kashmiris and injured hundreds on the polling day. Another ace cricketer,         Virender Sehwag, called the youth’s behaviour as “unacceptable” and demanded a stop to such behaviour while conveniently ignoring the mass murder committed by the troops.

These calls for genocide were widely supported by other Indians who voluntarily came forward to profess their hate for Kashmiris. Minhaz Merchant, an Indian media baron and author, openly welcomed Gambhir’s call to “slam cowardly Kashmiri youth”. Several Indian legionnaires were also supportive of this call for murder     en masse. Retired Air Marshal Anil Chopra, who is also a serving member of an Armed Forces Tribunal, backed the call – a first for a serving judicial official to endorse illegal murder. He tweeted: “Any self-respecting nation should have shot 100 stone pelters by now”.

The public campaign for Kashmiri genocide turned voluble after a leaked video showed that the Indian Army had tied a Kashmiri man – a 26-year-old shawl-maker Farooq Dar – to the front of their vehicle as a way to stop protesters from throwing stones at the military convoy. The video exposed, for the first time, the Indian Army’s use of civilians as human shields – a practice as old as the Indian occupation but now on display with incontrovertible evidence. The graphic testimony should have rattled the Indian intelligentsia, who usually dismiss such claims as “ISI-sponsored propaganda”. Instead, a large number of them – from legal officials to politicians and journalists – justified and endorsed it.

The justification even ignored the fact that Dar was a supporter of a pro-India party and was returning home after voting and, therefore, could have safely been described as an Indian. This revealed, once again, the deeper Indian mindset where the Kashmiri Muslim, regardless of political affiliation, remains a fair game in the calculus of occupation.

Leetul Gogoi, the army major who tied Dar to the army vehicle, earned the nation’s praise and support. While the Indian government went public in its decision to “stand by” him, BJP parliamentarian Pratap Simha called for a nation-wide campaign to shore-up support for the major. In his tweet, he described Gogoi as “brave”. The irony of the    Indian war crimes was lost even on the country’s top law officer. Mukul Rohatgi, the attorney-general of India, brushed aside the criticism, calling for Gogoi to be praised and not criticised as his move to employ a human shield was the best move to defuse the situation.

R Jagannathan, a senior journalist and former editor at Firstpost and Forbes India, also came out in full support. His tweet best describes the hatred among Indians against Kashmiris. Justifying the army action, he likened Farooq Dar, the human shield, as a mosquito repellent. He tweeted: “You can use a mosquito repellent. This is what the army man who tied a local to his jeep did”.

Twitter: @murtaza_shibli