Foisting Stereotypes

Editorial:-

Parochial politics never fails in delivering ugly outcomes. It is however easy to play because it makes no demands of even basic intelligence. As regards dredging the bottom where identity politics is concerned, the requirements are easy to put together - a strong dose of prejudice, grating intolerance, extant paranoia and intentional misinformation. Because this brand of politics requires people, communities and issues to be bracketed, it lends itself to stereotyping and ‘othering’ which is especially vindictive of minorities and marginalized communities. Our subcontinent appears cursed with leaders and personalities who fall easily for this style of politicking and it was disheartening to realize that Delhi’s AAP, a political collectif one earnestly hoped to be ‘different’, has emerged no better.

People from these parts have often been at the receiving end of distasteful prejudices when in the ‘mainland’, but conveniently ignore the fact that they serve out similar uncivility themselves on their turf. Clearly, one offensive gesture does not balance out the other, so it becomes important for Sikkim to look at what transpired with AAP’s misadventure in the targeting of Africans and turn the mirror on some of its own prejudices. For all the defences being forwarded on behalf of the Delhi Law Minister, his savagery cannot be glossed over. There will be many, perhaps even a majority, who stand with him in his madness of painting Africans as being involved in sex and drugs rackets, but that does not make his actions justified. He was manifesting the prejudices of an ill-informed people and while such prejudices are more of less harmless when individually held, they become dangerous when thrown about in righteous anger by elected representatives. So it’s not enough for some organizations of Khirki Extension [where the drama played out] to have complained to the police in the past, because even those were clearly born from the same racist and hyper-moralistic prejudice that convinced Somnath Bharti that he had to lead a midnight raid. He and his mob displayed the same intolerance that any violent mob marshaled often for damage in our country displays. This mob was however made up of ‘normal family type’ people, and that is what makes the whole incident more scary and should frighten anyone who does not ‘look’ like the ‘regular’ Delhite. This group was intolerant and saw enemies in everyone who disagreed with them and so paranoid that it painted villains out of everyone who wanted them to reconsider their stand. This played out in the two-day dharna in Delhi and on television studios where the only ones on the right were AAP members backing their law minister and everyone else part of the elite who have denied the Aam Aadmi for the past six and half decades. At one time, the Delhi CM, when confronted with the fact that the urine samples of the Ugandan women came back negative for drugs, quipped, “But they refused to take a blood test”. This, irrespective of the fact that even if the tests had come back positive, it would only have proven that were under the influence of drugs on that night, not that they were peddlers or prostitutes as was being alleged and being sought to be proven through these ‘tests’. The Delhi Drama unfolded like Sikkim situations where the real issue is lost within hours and events allowed to go on tangent, coasted away to ‘angles’ which suit the players better. The AAP dharna began as a demand for action against police officials who did not do the law minister [and another minister’s] bidding, but within hours it had become a demonstration for the safety and security of women [including foreign women] in Delhi. And misinformation reigned as well. A letter from the Ugandan embassy was waved around as an endorsement of the AAP vigilantism. The letter was a year old and obviously unrelated.

Few things are more dangerous than leaders who are so certain of their beliefs that they hold themselves above the law and see everyone who disagrees as ‘compromised’. Scaremongering and painting villains to defend party embarrassments or promote personal political ambitions does not bode well for anyone. This is clearly obvious, but given the embarrassments that have been abounding, the obvious needs to be reiterated more often and occasionally more forcefully.