The dog-whistles and complicit silences of New India

Deccan Herald

24-05-2025

As I sat down to pen my monthly column, I allowed my mind to take a brief wander. I pictured a dust-filled room with three cops huddled together staring at a screen, debating whether my use of 'articles' amounts to 'double meaning' and 'dog whistling', an egregious, unpatriotic act couched in Wren and Martin grammar. I have long argued with my copy editors over the grammatical choices of where to use an 'article'. Maybe the cops can finally resolve these tiny battles, I chuckled to myself, as I returned to reality and the task of meeting my editor's deadline. But this little diversion wasn't just an idle distraction. It is the chilling reality of New India. A consequence of the Supreme Court's failure to uphold citizens' right to free speech and set new standards for what is acceptable, as it has in Ali Khan Mahmudabad vs State of Haryana. The Court, while granting bail, has stripped Khan of his rights by issuing a gag order, confiscating his passport, and then, appointing a three-person SIT. The SIT will 'holistically understand the complexity of the phraseology employed and for proper appreciation of some of the expressions used' in the academic's online posts..Much has been written in the last few days on challenging the constitutionality of these orders. These are critical interventions and central to the fight for protecting rights and our democracy. But we must also zoom out and take a hard, unvarnished, look at ourselves and ask what have we become as a polity, as a society. No dog-whistling, just plain speaking..The entire episode around Khan's arrest is, sadly, an inevitable consequence of the path we have chosen. As a society, we have allowed jingoistic nationalism and bigotry in our polity to set the tone. Once any society becomes a blind participant in this game, it inevitably suspends all critical reasoning, essential to a pluralistic, democratic society. Fundamental rights become subservient to the demands of jingoistic nationalism. The consequences have been in full evidence in the last weeks. Any questions about the consequence of war, or challenging bigotry and violence against Muslims, all of which are legitimate acts in a democracy, were immediately labelled anti-national. Every State institution has played a shameful role in the events surrounding Khan's arrest and the broader undermining of rights. The court's reasoning or rather lack thereof should not be surprising – it is only a reflection of what we are as a society..There are many reasons why we got here but the elite custodians of our key professions are among the prime culprits. From media to academia, rather than fight for the integrity of their professions and challenge the bully by upholding the principle, these custodians have been all too quick to surrender..Political scientists and authors of How democracies die, Levitsky and Ziblatt, point out that democracy's last bastion of defence is civil society. On the eve of Trump's re-election, they wrote in The New York Times: 'When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders... must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross these red lines, society's most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them'. The only bulwark against a total authoritarian slide is societal leaders standing up to the bully. We are seeing this play out in Trumpland, most visibly in Harvard University's war with the federal government. The sad truth is that in India, elites left the battlefield. Indeed, they refused to enter..Business leaders have been mostly silent and the mainstream media became a willing partner. Prominent anchors have been essential to the authoritarian project, routinely using their bully pulpit to rouse jingoistic fervour and unleash bigotry. This reached a crescendo in the days of Operation Sindoor. Academia has done no better. In the Khan case, 200 prominent vice-chancellors and former vice-chancellors of Indian universities signed a 'statement of objection' condemning Khan's post. They were well within their rights to do so. However, conspicuously absent were any statements from academic functionaries, think tank leaders, and Ashoka University leadership itself, speaking for the principle of academic freedom and Khan's right to free speech..This abdication of responsibility should worry us deeply. Once institutions stop fighting for the core principles that define their profession, they begin to lose their purpose. As a society, we must demand more of our institutions. Fear and narrow ambition are stripping institutions of their purpose and the costs to society are heavy. On the upside, we may end up with rather erudite police officers, as they pour over a good professor's writing. Perhaps they will learn and find the courage to defend the principle, where most others have failed.