Hate speech, especially by elected authorities and targeting a specific community, has been repeatedly flagged as a possible trigger for ethnic conflagrations and atrocities that could have catastrophic consequences. Politicians in India are well aware of this but this does not deter the most cynical among them from using hate speech to further a polarising agenda. A case in point is the Chief Minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma. The BJP leader continues to revel in making communally sensitive remarks, targeting the State’s minority communities. On Tuesday, he explicitly said that he would take sides against “Miya Muslims” — a discriminatory euphemism for the minority Bengali Muslim community — and would not let them “go to Upper Assam”. These remarks were in the context of a debate on the law and order situation after a gangrape of a minor in Dhing. During the 2024 general election, Mr. Sarma, in speech after speech, had used rabidly communal language to target Muslims, with nary a response from the Election Commission of India. He even said, “Islamophobia is real for many of us [Hindus]”.
By making these statements repeatedly, Mr. Sarma is going against the oath he took as the Chief Minister — that he will bear true faith and allegiance to India’s secular Constitution. He should be condemned for explicitly saying that he will side against a particular community. Second, by amplifying demands by groups that have threatened an entire community to leave “Upper Assam” and suggesting that the minority community does not have the right to free movement, he is furthering hate in a State which has been affected by ethnic violence. From violent anti-immigrant agitations to militancy and a flawed process of identifying “foreigners” that has brought misery to the poor, Assam has been through crises; some of those issues continue to fester. Instead of finding ways of reconciliation, all-round harmony and peace, he uses the cynical ploy of fostering division in order to reap the benefits out of the politics of hate. As actions in nearby Myanmar and the plight of the Rohingya show, repeated use of hate speech to characterise a minority community and the amplification of communalism have disastrous consequences. The Union government and the BJP leadership have shown no inclination to rein in the errant Chief Minister. Unlike party leaders who have been reprimanded for utterances targeting sections such as farmers, Mr. Sarma uses hate speech against Muslims. But if the government is serious about improving the lot of the Assamese people — the State has among the poorest HDI indicators in the country — it has to put an end to hate speech as a communally charged environment militates against all-round development.
