Why did Nixon’s campaign team burgle the Watergate building when he would have won the election so easily, and yet ended up having to resign from office? As UK’s Foreign Secretary said to Israel, ‘accept the win’. Sometimes it’s difficult for us to accept the win, and that our job is not to mess things up. Keir Starmer gets it.
The statements made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an election rally, where he suggested that the opposition Congress party would distribute national wealth to "infiltrators" and those with "many children" — widely interpreted as a reference to India’s Muslim minority — have handed his global oppononents (Guardian, New York Times, Washington Post, Al Jazeera) ammunition needlessly.
We’re very used to seeing this among Western politicians – think of comments in France around the Hijab, or post Islamist terror attacks, or in the Nordic countries and Koran burning, or in the UK, or Trump banning people from Muslim countries from entering the country.
Of course, in the UK a Parliamentary debate on limiting benefits to two children was also seen as Islamaphobic. Indeed some Peers had no issue with that.
These remarks are seen by many as Islamophobic, targeting a community often stereotyped in such terms. The opposition and rights groups have criticized these comments as discriminatory and indicative of a broader pattern of rhetoric aimed at marginalizing Muslim citizens under PM Modi's administration.
Just accept you’re going to win. Win big. Don’t mess it up.
In determining whether these comments constitute hate speech or are just a part of election campaigning, (remember during Brexit debates on Turkey joining the EU and open borders with Islamists from Syria as a result?) it's essential to consider the broader context of Modi's political messaging and the history of communal relations in India.
India led the West in limited free speech if it could harm community relations. Calling it hate speech is a Western term for what India has long legislated against.
The legal and ethical definitions of hate speech typically include communications that spread, incite, promote, or justify hatred, violence, and discrimination against a person or group based on aspects like religion, ethnicity, or nationality. PM Modi’s speech had no consequences, other than for the Washington Post.
Furthermore, the response from opposition leaders, who have labeled the comments as "hate speech" and an attempt to distract from political failures, suggests a significant concern about the impact of such statements on communal harmony and electoral integrity. No disharmony followed, no riots, no lynchings, none of the things we’d been promised for over a decade by the anti-Modi shrill shouting brigade.
The criticism reflects fears that such rhetoric could not only influence the election's outcome but also deepen social cleavages. But do the critics care about that? Or do they actually care about hating PM Modi.
The hate speech, in trying to divide global and Western opinion about PM Modi, come from the papers trying to make more of it.
The potential for lasting harm from divisive rhetoric, in the international left-wing media, makes it a matter of serious ethical and political scrutiny. This episode serves as a critical reflection point on the state of political discourse in the media and its implications for democratic values of press freedoms.
The UK has for one, long battled with press freedoms and the negative impact of power without responsibility.
India should not be more like the West with its rife Islamaphobia. Just ask the Mayor of London this past week.
