Owaisi, Raj Thackeray
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Akbaruddin Owaisi and a suave new brand of hate politics Table of contents Hate speech in a slick new avatar? Owaisi, Raj Thackeray: The suave new faces of hate politics? 04 Why we are likely to hear more Owaisi-type hate speeches 06 Owaisi hate speech: This is not the first time 08 Owaisi speech: Why the time is ripe to clamp down on hate politics 09 Faux pas or prelude to Operation Polarisation? 11 The politics of hate Owaisi arrest: How the BJP and MIM hope to gain from it 14 Owaisis mock media, divide Muslims to expand vote base 16 All over YouTube, so why is Cong not pulling up Owaisi? 18 The Owaisi saga Did the police slip up in Owaisi case? 20 Hate speech: Police arrest MIM leader Owaisi 22 Akbaruddin Owaisi sent to 14 days judicial custody 23 Owaisi hopes for HC relief, supporters damage media vans 24 Andhra HC dismisses petition to remove Owaisi’s speeches from YouTube 25 Copyright © 2012 Firstpost Hate speech in a slick new avatar? Copyright © 2012 Firstpost Owaisi, Raj Thackeray: The suave new faces of hate politics? This is a new combo of hate speech politics that we have not been used to. Raj, when he started, looked like an exception; but now, with Owaisi - although not new to politics and hate-speak - are we seeing a new trend? G Pramod Kumar, Jan 9, 2013 ith the rise of Akbaruddin Owaisi, the new icon of hate-speech in India, Raj However, as we get used to their shrill, they W Thackeray, the ‘Hindutva hottie‘, has sound interesting, however retrograde and dan- competition. But, together, they seem to have gerous they are. demolished the long-held stereotype of hate politics in the country. This is a new combo of hate politics that we have not been used to. Raj, when he started, They are among the limited edition of younger, looked like an exception; but now, with Owaisi hate-speech politicians in India: clean-shaven, – although not new to politics and hate-speak – suave, well-educated and sharply dressed. Both are we seeing a new trend? had an urban and privileged upbringing and went to schools and colleges where they mixed Are they just a random occurrence or the with cosmopolitan crowds. emerging face of extreme politics in India? But when they open their mouth, there is some- Is hate-speech undergoing an un-laboured thing shockingly misplaced: it’s pure venom make-over? that goes well – to our trained eyes and ears – with saffron, vermillion, beards and skull-caps. Probably, it’s too early to say; but that they have Copyright © 2012 Firstpost established a new look-and-feel for hate-speech In the past, when Raj spoke against the Muslims politics is significant because politics is also and migrants in Mumbai, Owaisi was certain about stereotypes and images. Just as the way to execute a fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the congress had clad itself in khadi, from which Taslima Nasreen if they ever entered Hydera- even Rajiv or Rahul Gandhi couldn’t escape, bad. hate-speech has always been comfortable being retro, scruffy, frothy and intimidating. Raj proclaims and demands all this and more without stirring out of his home turf, namely And their constituencies had been mostly rural, Mumbai, and the right for his hate-speech was old-fashioned and the city-ghettos. inherited. In India’s political iconography, which is also Owaisi’s turf is also strictly his city, and his highly deceitful, trying a new model over the legacy of hate-speech also was inherited from existing one – that too a perfectly working his father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, a six time one – is fraught with risks of rejection because MP from Hyderabad. As in the case of Raj’s perception is more important than reality. On uncle Bal Thackeray, Owaisi senior was equally the other hand, the new-age looks might be the flagrant in his communal and divisive politics. breakthrough that hate-speech politicians have While Thackeray poured hatred against minori- been looking for to create a new constituency. ties and migrants, Owaisi senior targeted the Indian State. According to him, Muslims had The stereotypical extremist was certainly repel- been abandoned by India and should stand on ling for the urban and young Indian, but a Raj their own feet instead of looking for help from or Owaisi are models that might make their the State. brand of politics look cool. Raj has already shown that it’s a working proposition, and Ow- In, India, most of the Sangh Parivar indoctrina- aisi might reinforce its replicability. tion started with their khaki and red tikka. They were the established routes to radical thinking. The duo has instant solutions that this con- stituency – the urban, young and otherwise In the sangh parivar camp, Varun Gandhi, al- apolitical – might lap up. The members of this though still kurta-clad, is another representative constituency want faster solutions and systemic of this creed. He is young, urban, well-spoken, changes overnight. They wanted Kasab to be but unabashedly inflammatory. He dresses up lynched without a trial, and the Delhi rapists to his communal vitriol in such smart oratory that be hanged in public without the courts’ inter- people are more amused than put off. vention. The designer doctrine might create a parallel They are a highly en-tropic constituency, which and fast-track process of enrollment for hate- is perhaps ashamed of the old images and ways speech politics in India. Raj and Owaisi have of the country and its people. They might be piloted a model which shows that inflammatory small in number, but the recent uprisings have speech and communal polarisation do not have shown that they have the firepower. to come with any kind of uniform. They have also shown that it is a smart thing to defy stere- Raj and Owaisi will appeal to the extreme youth otypes and reach out to new constituencies. of this constituency. Raj has an easy and instant solution for the ills of Mumbai and incidents Interestingly, the State has been quite soft on like the Delhi rapes – drive out the Bihari mi- the designer radicals. Had they been old fash- grants. Similarly, Owaisi has an easy solution ioned with no urban legacy, the story would for Muslim assertion: in 15 minutes, 250 million have been different. Muslims can show one billion Hindus who is more powerful. Anyway, as the cliche goes, let’s wait and see. Copyright © 2012 Firstpost Why we are likely to hear more Owaisi-type hate speeches The Owaisi hate speech should be seen in the larger context of Muslim parties seeking to get out of the secular umbrella. R Jagannathan, Jan 9, 2013 he Akbaruddin Owaisi “hate speech” of However, MIM is only one of several Muslim 24 December 2012 is not what everyone outfits seeking a larger Muslim vote base at the T thinks it is. Despite the incendiary na- regional or national level. ture of the speech, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Mus- limeen (MIM) leader’s poison tongue should be At the national level, the Welfare Party of India seen for what it is: an attempt to cock a snook — started two years ago — is said to have the at so-called secular parties. Muslims are keen to blessings of the Jamait e-Islami-e-Hind (JIH), move away from the umbrella provided by these though the latter denies it. The party is yet to parties. Parties such as the Congress and Sama- make its mark electorally, but it is busy open- jwadi are thus being put on notice. ing chapters in various states. Its Maharashtra chapter is to start this April. The Jamait is to While Owaisi will get his brief time in jail, it is Muslims like what the RSS is to Hindus. unlikely to achieve anything more than increase his attraction to his Muslim constituency. And the real message is here. For some time now Muslims have been the only constituency treated as a vote-bank with- out their own direct share of power (except in Kerala and Kashmir). Every caste, every group and every community has had the advantage of being represented by one of their own in India’s raucous democracy, but Muslims have had to seek compromise under secular umbrellas – often under the Congress and various regional parties in the states. Owaisi’s rabble-rousing speech should thus be In the Jangipur Lok Sabha byelection last Octo- seen as another attempt to separate the Muslim ber, where Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit (now vote bank from secular parties – and this trend infamous for his “dented, painted” quote) came can only accelerate over the coming years. close to losing the election as the Welfare Party managed to take away a chunk of Muslim votes Owaisi’s MIM, currently confined to Hyderabad, that the Congress normally takes for granted. has recently been trying to extend its constitu- ency to nearby areas of the old Hyderabad state, Nor are MIM and Welfare the only Muslim where Muslims had a larger share of political parties. In almost every state with a significant voice. Last year, MIM forayed into neighbouring Muslim population, there are Muslim parties Maharashtra, where the party suddenly in- sprouting to claim the vote. creased its tally in the Nanded Municipal Cor- poration to 11 seats from just one. Even though the Indian Union Muslim League (the oldest of the pure Muslim parties) has been Copyright © 2012 Firstpost around since independence, its presence has behalf of all Muslims, and this is unlikely to been restricted to Kerala.