Shikha Mukerjee | Tombs, melas, mosque rows: Grok adds to Modi’s troubles
In this emotionally charged space, the RSS has stepped in with a point of view that is just as irrational
Once upon a time, it would be shameful for any government to fail to contain communal tensions when there were apprehensions that a riot may break out. That was another era, a different world, when rioting, violence, arson and breaches of law and order were deemed to be anti-State activity, regardless of who was involved and why. It is no longer so. A rules-based order, albeit always modified by interpretations, is giving way to something less definitive.
On a matter that doesn’t immediately concern the Uttar Pradesh government, its chief minister Yogi Adityanath declared: “No invader should be glorified. Glorifying the invader means strengthening the foundation of treason and Independent India cannot accept any such traitor who insults the great men of India, glorifies those invaders.” He said this about events in Nagpur, where riots broke out over a demand for the erasure of the tomb of Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughals.
Since he did not mince words, it is best to assume he wanted his audience and the larger public that consumes social media output as avidly as it gorges on pakoras, chaat and other spicy titbits to make note of his decree, amplify it to his target constituency and keep the pot boiling. The argument of those demanding the removal-demolition of the tomb is sentiment, not reason. Maintaining law and order, that is running the government, therefore has become a fraught exercise as much for the BJP, which heads a coalition in Maharashtra, and in Uttar Pradesh, where it reigns with an absolute majority, as it has become for parties in the Opposition.
In this emotionally charged space, the RSS has stepped in with a point of view that is just as irrational. It has not raised its voice against the demand for the demolition and removal of Aurangzeb’s tomb, erected after his death in 1707 from Khuldabad by outfits that once upon a time spearheaded the Babri Masjid-Ram Temple confrontation, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. On the contrary, RSS prachar pramukh (or spokesperson) Sunil Ambekar has lobbed a riddle into the volatile situation, arguing that Aurangzeb “was not relevant”. The question is that if Aurangzeb is irrelevant, then why should his nondescript tomb matter? Why, in the view of the RSS, should a decrepit structure be removed, if the man it entombs is irrelevant?
The RSS says one thing. Union minister Nitin Gadkari, who was earlier the boss of the BJP and is a staunch RSS man, says something different; he has called for peace and harmony in Nagpur, while the BJP rank and file, often with dual membership of the political party and the parent century-old social service organisation, have either defied the RSS injunction to maintain law and order or dismissed the Devendra Fadnavis-Nitin Gadkari call to maintain peace and harmony. If this is a carefully crafted move to distance the RSS from the violence in Nagpur, where the headquarters of the organisation are located, it has not stopped the emotional churn as Yogi Adityanath’s salvo proves.
Since the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the staging of its consecration, Babur, the first of the Mughals, is passé. The new spectre that is haunting the champions of the dominant political dispensation is the last of the great Mughals, Aurangzeb. For in the “New India” that leaders like Yogi Adityanath are remaking in the image of whatever mythical kingdom catches their fancy, everything in the past is symbiotically connected, from events in faraway Khuldabad in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, to a mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal and a local fair, the Neja Mela in the same place, to the dispute and litigation over the status of the Gyanvapi Masjid and sundry other such places, be they places of worship of ancient and historical monuments.
Read along with the Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ statement “my government won’t allow attempts to glorify Aurangzeb’s legacy through his mahima mandan”, that he followed up by adding: “It is unfortunate that the government has to take responsibility for the protection of Aurangzeb’s grave”, and his admission that the row was triggered by the release of a Marathi film Chhaava, that in his view “brought out the real history of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj and the emotions of people are overflowing”, the Aurangzeb issue is perhaps the most transparent example of how fiction, history, masala and mobilisation is stirred together to produce a potentially lethal mocktail.
Not to be missed in all this concatenation of emotionally fuelled eruptions is the place of a humble local mela — the Neja Mela of Sambhal. The bureaucracy, or rather the state’s law and order machinery, has stepped in to hold the line: Sambhal’s assistant superintendent of police, one Shreesh Chandra, accounted for cancellation of permission to hold the local mela in the name of Syed Salar Masood Ghazi, on the plea — “It is not possible to permit a fair commemorating someone who plundered Somnath and massacred people in the country.” When a police functionary explains his decision based on events in the 12th century, the rules-based order to which he belongs seems to have become irrelevant.
If the police paid to maintain law and order and a chief minister holding office to ensure that peace and harmony are not disturbed choose to turn emotional along with a section of the masses, then the outcome is exactly what is popping up to allegedly “provocative questions” on Grok, the “most fun AI chatbot” owned by Elon Musk, questioning the credentials of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Unfiltered because it is not taught to exclude awkward-sensitive political pain points, because Musk upholds his interpretation of what is free speech, Grok is just the sort of freely available information provider of which the BJP-RSS and associated outfits like the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad should be wary.
If Grok is how the new world works, then accountability has become a whole new ballgame. At the end of the day, the buck stops with the helmsman of the BJP and a RSS man, the Prime Minister. Rioting and wrangling over irrelevant matters tarnishes the reputation of the leader who is committed to hoisting India up on the world stage as a “Vishwa Guru”, a seer that shines a light. It also encourages cynical speculation that the riots and rows are a diversionary tactic to keep the Hindu vote bank emotionally roiled and therefore distracted from the harrowing or frustrating everyday experiences of unemployment, joblessness, stagnant wages, inflation, rising prices, economic slowdown and rising costs.
Shikha Mukerjee is a senior journalist based in Kolkata
