UGC Equity Regulation 2026 has Stirred a Hornet’s Nest

 UGC Equity Regulation2026 has stirred a Hornet’s Nest

Syed Ali Mujtaba

The University Grants Commission (UGC) Equity Regulations 2026 have ripped open the underbelly of Hindutva politics in India. Protests are out in the open by the upper caste Hindus against the UGC equity regulation that acknowledges the victimization of the marginalized sections of the Indian communities in the campuses of higher learning

The UGC has recognized that caste-based discrimination is taking place within educational campuses, particularly against Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Communities.

Data tabled in the Lok Sabha reveals that complaints of caste discrimination in university campuses have increased from about 173 cases in 2016–17 to over 350 in the 2023–24 academic year.  Another data says that more than 13,500 SC, ST, and OBC students have dropped out of the IITs and IIMs, and other central university campuses over the past five years. 

Another data point the chronic underrepresentation of marginalized communities in faculty positions at central universities. In the Scheduled Castes category, nearly two-thirds of the sanctioned professor posts are vacant. In the Scheduled Tribes category, 83% of the sanctioned posts remain vacant. In the OBC category, of the 423 professor posts, only 84 have been filled. These are not marginal gaps but structural absences that shape everyday academic life in the Indian university campuses.

Rohith Vemula Case

Rohith Chakravarthi Vemula was a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad who committed suicide on January 17, 2016. His death drew national attention and pointed to the alleged systemic discrimination imposed by the caste Hindus against the marginalized communities in India. His parents, Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, filed a petition in the court complaining about the atrocities committed against their groups in the university campuses. Later, both committed suicide after allegedly facing sustained caste-based harassment in separate institutions. This prompted the Supreme Court to direct the UGC to implement the 2012 anti-discrimination rules.

What is UGC's Equity Regulation 2026?  

The UGC has introduced the Equity Regulations 2026 to address caste-based discrimination faced by students from reserved categories in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). The UGC’s new rules mandate that all universities and colleges should establish an Equal Opportunity Centre (EOC) along with campus-level equity committees tasked with inquiring into complaints of discrimination and prompt remedial measures. These committees must include representatives from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), persons with disabilities, and women.

The objective of the UGC equity regulation was to move beyond the 2012 guidelines and create a binding, institutional mechanism for grievance redressal and control the growing incidence of discrimination against the marginalized section of society.  

In response, the upper-caste Hindu groups went for widespread protests against the UGCs’ move to introduce ‘equity in higher education.' The protesters argue that the regulations fail to provide an explicit grievance mechanism for the students belonging to the upper caste who are in the general category, and say this may deepen inequality in the university campuses.

Sensing the growing anger among the upper caste youth, the BJP government indulged in a firefighting exercise.  It made Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan clarify that the UGC regulations are court-mandated, constitutionally sound, and subject to judicial oversight—seeking safety in legality rather than political conviction.

The other thing that the BJP government did was to prompt the Supreme Court to issue an order to the UGC to keep its Equity Regulation 2026 in abeyance. The Apex Court reasoned that the regulation was sweeping in nature.  This is yet another instance where the Supreme Court went back on its own ruling and changed its tone to support the sentiments of the few at the expense of further marginalization of the downtrodden communities of India.

How the BJP has put its foot in its Mouth? 

The UGC's Equity Regulations have left the BJP government with no other option than to put its foot in its mouth. It can't afford to alienate upper-caste that’s pushing the Hindutva cart with fire and zeal to make a Hindu Rashtra. Neither can the BJP retract from the constitutional protections of the marginalized communities that have been historically wronged. 

The vengeance with which the upper caste opposed the UGC regulations far exceeds the actual scope and purposes of the regulation for which it was meant. The upper-caste Hindu called it a civilizational threat to the Santam Dharma. They raised an alarm that deeply remains entrenched in their superiority of the upper cate as enshrined in the Manusmriti. This unofficial constitution of Hindu Rastra bestows special power and privileges to a section of the caste group, keeping other specificities in the Indian social system below its feet.  

The UGC equity regulation controversy has put the BJP in a bind.  It has swallowed a dead rat that it cannot vomit up.   The option before it was to do a tightrope walking and it did somehow. The party has spent years courting OBCs and Dalits to show the solidarity of the Hindus against the Muslims. It cannot antagonize their sentiments, a cry for equity. At the same time, the BJP remains glued to its upper caste, which remains the vanguard of its Hindutva project.  

The Equity Regulations of the UGC have left the BJP to make a hard choice. Ultimately, the saffron party tilted the balance in favor of upper-caste even if that means denying equity to the marginalized sections of society.

What the UGCs’ equity controversy tries to communicate is that the upper caste superiority remains paramount in the Indian society.  The government of the day never wants to create a playing field for all the communities in India. It continues to deny the equity quotient, hook or crook, to some 85% of society. The irony is that this 15% of the social group has been successful in their diabolical design.

One of the recent examples of upper caste domination was seen when they objected to Muslim’s admission in a medical college based on their merit. The medical college in Jammu, run by the Vashino Devi Trust, has admitted Kashmiri students who scored highly in the NEET exam. This was not tolerated by the upper caste group, and they saw to it that the college is permanently closed and no Muslim student could ever become a doctor.

The message from the UGC controversy is that the Hindutva group wants to maintain its power, privileges, and superiority in India. It wants to discriminate against the marginalized communities and continue with the system that has been operational in India since time immemorial.

We like it or not, this is a new normal in India where a section of Indians do not want the equity rule to be applied, particularly in the campuses of higher learning, and also in the Indian social structure.   

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com

 

 

Girls Intimidated at Fresher’s Event in JNU

Syed Ali Mujtaba

New Delhi - The fresher’s welcome event in the Department of Sociology at Jawaharlal University was marred by an exchange of hot words, physical abuse, intimidation, lewd comments made by female students, and much more.  

MA Sociology students organized a welcome party for the freshers on October 22, 2024, as per the tradition on the campus. It was an exclusively internal affair between the MA second-year and freshers who had just joined the course. Normally, in such events, there is singing, dancing, fun, and frolic all in a joyous mood.

The event took an ugly turn when a group of uninvited students from other departments barged into this celebration and behaved like goons, harassing the girls and attacking the boys.

“The function was abruptly abandoned due to the atmosphere of insecurity being developed due to ensuing intimidation and violence by the outside elements,” said Nisha, (name changed) a second-year MA sociology student.  

“The perpetrators of the violence were mostly from the ABVP who caused a disturbance in the peaceful conduct of the event, she added.”

“We guess that this was a planned systematic attack on the students by right-wing elements flourishing in the campus and nurturing a violent culture in the university,” she said.  

“A complaint to the JNU Administration and authorities concerned had already been made but no action against the perpetrators of the crime has been taken so far. The University’s Internal Complaint Committee is sleeping over the complaint and that is the reason to approach the press,” told a female student to this reporter whose mother is also a JNU Alumni.

“The safety of the female students who come from all over the country to study at JNU is at stake,” the female student said, requesting this event be brought into the public domain.

“We, the JNU alumni, are dismayed and aggrieved by the violence and harassment to the CSSS students and protest against such kinds of violent activities that are growing inside the campus,” said a press release issued for this purpose.

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist. He was in JNU from 1987 to 1984. He did his M.Phil & Ph.D from SIS/JNU. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com   

 

 New Book

        "Jinnah,Shahabuddin & Owsaii"

Tackling Muslim’s Problems in India

 

By SYED ALI MUJTABA

When the winds of democracy started blowing in 20th-century India, it became certain that power is going to be shifted to the people of the country. Since then a flurry of activity has been witnessed among numerous groups how to grab political power and become the new masters and rulers of India.

With the game of numbers and the ballot box being the arbitrator of political power, many groups and specificities kindled hope that in the changed equations they can lord over India and guide the destiny of the teeming millions but at the same time some groups got ruffled by the change and the new game of electoral politics may drown their identity and they will be reduced to non-entity in such power play.

Muslims were the first to fathom the depth of such development.  Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman (1889–1973) the leader of the Muslim League from UP who went to London in 1930 to coax Jinnah to return to India and take up the cause of the Indian Muslims was candid when he told Jinnah ‘You care two hoots of the brass button of your black coat….. Are you going to throw the Muslims of India to the wolves’…?      

How prophetic were Kaliquzaman’s words just look around and see aren’t Muslims thrown to the wolves in contemporary India?  Here the effort is to underline the problems of Muslim identity in independent India. These problems of Muslims were raised in the run-up to the independence from 1920 to 1947.

To stay on course, Jinnah saw the fate of Muslims in independent India as early as the 1920s when mass-based politics was taking shape in the country. He pleaded to the Congress leadership to safeguard and protect the Muslims from the freebooters among the Hindu majority community.

Jinnah, as a gesture of reconciliation, proposed 14 points to safeguard Muslims' interests at the Allahabad Congress session in 1928. This was not only shot down but he was hooted by the rouge element of the Congress party. Disgusted, by the way majoritarian politics was panning out Jinnah retired from Indian politics and went to practice law in London. It was there that Kalique – u- -u-Zaman went to beg him to return and protect the Muslims from the onslaught of the majority community’s offensives.

Jinnah participated in round table conferences that were held in London and again tried to influence the Congress leadership to protect the Muslim interests in India.  Congress remained non-committal and took refuge in saying independence first and the rest of the issues could wait. Congress did not give any assurances to allay the fears of Muslims in India nor did it discuss the issues of their safeguards.

The 1936 elections sealed the fate of Jinnah’s politics and Nehru thundered; “there are only two political forces in India the Congress and the British, rest has to pack up.” Jinnah retorted to this and said “Hang on, don’t forget there is another force and that is Indian Muslims.

Since then, Jinnah shunned the politics of cooperation with the Congress, embarked on the separatist path, and tried to do competitive politics with the Congress.  He seemed convinced that Congress would head to parity and that he had to gain by hook or crook to bargain to safeguard the Muslim interests in India. The 1946 election turned the table in favor of the Muslim League. The new electoral muscle that the Muslim league gained gave Congress only two options; either to agree to the safeguards of the Muslims in India or to willingly approve the Partition proposal of Jinnah.

In this moral dilemma, the core Hindu leadership in the Congress like Sardar Vallabbhai Patel and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee decided in favor of Partition to shed the Muslim load over India. They consented to divide the country rather than give any safeguards to the Indian Muslims. The narrative that was built was; “It’s better to cut the head than have constant headache.”  The blame game started and Jinnah was held responsible for the vivisection of India.        

Notwithstanding the fact, the fact remains that the same set of problems that Jinnah raised in pre-independent India haunts the Indian Muslims even now. The situation of the Muslims has enormously worsened in the independent India. In contemporary India, Muslims have become a rudderless community being abused, humiliated, and bulldozed as if they are outcasts in their own motherland.

Good riddance the competitive religious politics ended with Partition of India.  After independence, Nehru took up the cause of Indian Muslims assured them of protection, and committed to their prosperity in India. However, after Nehru the vote bank politics primed for electoral supremacy and Muslims were subsequently used as the vote bank for the electoral victory of a political party.

The book titled “Jinnah, Sahabuddin & Owassi “Tackling Muslim’s Problem in India” tries to look at the issues confronting Muslims in India. It also looks at the different styles of politics pursued by the Muslim leadership at different times and spaces in India. Under the leadership of Jinnah competitive and separatist politics were being pursued.   Such kind of politics accentuated the problems of Muslims in India in the post-partition India.

 

It was around the 1980’s when the Muslim community was subjected to all kinds of embracement that Syed Sahabuddin, an Indian foreign diplomat took upon the mantel of the Muslim leadership. Being a lawyer, he drew his political strength from the constitution and the independence of the judiciary in India. He took up issues such as Muslim personal law, Babari masjid, Salman Rushdie, etc. He started a politics of confrontation with the majority community of Muslims as an alibi. His faith in the probity of courts and justice to safeguard Muslim interests vitiated the communal atmosphere in India. He little understood the brute majority forces can have their sway not necessarily on the right side of justice.  Syed Sahabuddin’s belief in the judiciary and the primacy of the constitution was thrown into the wind when his campaign for the protection of the Babri masjid ended up pulling down the contested structure by the Hindu fundamentalists.  Posterity judges Syed Sahabuddin's politics as one instead of mitigating the problems of the Muslims accentuating them and spoiling the social relationships in the country. 

Subsequently began the resurgence of Hindu nationalism. Against this backdrop, Assaduddin Owsaii has emerged to take up the cause of Muslims in India. His style of politics is of ‘Protest’ against numerous injustices going on against the Muslim community in India. His brand of politics is also towards Muslim political empowerment. Such politics has yet to see any tangible results.  

The dominant narrative that prevails in India is the Muslim leadership has done nothing to ameliorate the ills of the community rather they are hand in glove to castigate the Muslims into oblivion blaming democracy to be ill for their problems.

The purpose of this book is to look at the real problems of Muslims in contemporary India and find the ways and means to mitigate them within the democratic and constitutional framework.

The executive summary is; that Muslims have survived after the 1857 upheaval when they lost their political power to foreign invaders. They have also lived through the agony of the Partition of India. Currently, Muslims are living under the shadow of resurgent Hindu nationalism. They are being confronted by hostile forces that are hell-bent on dismembering their religious identity in India. In such a situation rather than feeling despondent Muslims should recalibrate their politics to the needs of the contemporary situation.

There is little doubt that Indian Muslims are living in toroid times.  They have to wake up to the reality that the ground below their feet is being pulled down by their hostile forces. They have to build a decisive response to the harsh reality surrounding them. This response should be through capacity building first through political empowerment at gram panchayats, municipal ward councils, state assemblies, and Lok Sabha levels. Muslims have sufficient electoral muscle to be present in these bodies and this strategy can alone regain their self-esteem in India. The other strategy is that through educational merit they can they can have a visible presence in the administration in the country. Their presence in the police being in charge of police stations and upward can make a difference. The presence in administrative posts such as block-level circle officers, sub-division officers, and the district magistrate post can stop the social injustices against their community. Needless to say, such change has to be brought within the democratic framework and within the constitutional parameters.  

The book –“Jinnah, Sahabuddin & Owassi - Tackling Muslim’s Problem in India” can be a submission to the nation that sees Muslims as an obstacle to national growth but hardly gives any support to the nature and direction of the change.

The volume is going to be self-authored as the author carries the academic baggage of PhD on the theme “The Demand of Partition of India.”  The fascinating story of Jinnah is on his lips, As an eyewitness the author is witness to Syed Shahabuddin’s brand of politics. As a working journalist starting his career in Hyderabad, he is previewing the rise of Asaduddin Owassi in Indian politics. Nationalist to the core the author holds the view that independent India promises an exciting future for the Muslim community. They only have to help themselves for their betterment.

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He is the author of five books including “The Demand for Partition of India” (Mittal, 2002). Publishers can contact him at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com            

 

 

 

 

 Call for Papers for an Edited Volume

“India’s Social Development Agenda sacrificed on the altar of Hindu Nationalism”

An edited volume tentatively called “India’s Developmental Agenda Sacrificed on the Altar of Hindu Nationalism” is being planned to understand the layers of the BJP rule under the Premiership of Narendra Modi.  

The book which is going to be part of academic research is edited by Dr. Syed Ali Mujtaba, a well-known journalist, author of five books, media influencer, etc. The book will be tentatively published by a renowned publisher based in New Delhi.   

In India, the Hindutva madness has been accentuated since the BJP government came to power in 2014. Since then only one agenda that surmounts all other agenda is Islamophobia. In the process of building a hate narrative against Indian Muslims, many pressing issues facing the country have been sidelined.

As a result, India has gone down on many popular human indexes in comparison to the other countries in the world. Just look where India stands in the Hunger Index, Human Development Index, Press Freedom Index, Environmental Index, Human Rights Index, and Social Justice Index etc.

The reality is the BJP rule since 2014 has failed to address the real challenges faced by the country. The classical example is India’s health infrastructure that got exposed during the time of Covid -19.  The BJP government blamed the pandemic on the Muslims and called it Corona Jihad launched by the Muslims. The innocent Tabligi Jammat members were hunted in the country blaming them for spreading the virus. Since then the noise volume of Islamophobia has been raised so high that it is hurting the ears of common Indians.

The BJP government is manipulating the data of all the failing indexes, blaming the foreign data surveys to be biased against India. To skirt the issues facing the country a narrative being built by the BJP that India is witnessing Ram Rajya under Narendra Modi’s rule.

It is with this intention in mind the edited volume “India’s Developmental Agenda Sacrificed on the Altar of Hindu Nationalism” is being planned.  The purpose of the book is to call off the bluff of the half-baked lies and concocted truth by the votaries of the BJP rule.  This edited volume is planned to solicit essays on several themes that give the grim reality of India under the Ram Rajya of the BJP rule.  The themes are: - 

1- ‘Challenges     to Indian Democracy

2- Challenges to Indian Diversity-

3- Challenges to Indian Democracy

4- Challenges to Gender issues

5- Challenges to Social equality in India

6- Challenges to Social inclusion in India

7- Challenges to Human development

8- Challenges to Popular struggles and movements in India

 9- Challenges to the right to dissent in India

10- Challenges to protectant religious identity in India

11- Challenges to the backward Caste groups in India

 12- India’s social realities from the Hindutva paradigm 13- India's social reality from ‘Hindu-Muslim’ confrontationist angle

14- Human values being trampled by a wave of Hindu nationalism

15- India's constitution being trampled 

16- Rising unemployment in India

17- Inflation and Rising prices in India

18- Rising social inequality in India

19- Rising human rights abuses in India

20 - Failing human development in India

21- Failing Secular Agenda in India

22- India failing in the Hunger Index

23- India failing in the Human Development Index

24- India failing in the Press Freedom Index

25- India failing in the Environmental Index

26- India failing in the Human Rights Index

27- India failing in the Social Justice Index-

28- India failing in the Interfaith relation-

29- The status of minorities in India

30- Any other related themes that can fit into the basic concept of the book

Kindly, pitch in an abstract of 150 words to get acceptance for your essay to be included in the book. You can mail your abstract to {syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com}  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Protest against Israel not allowed in Mumbai, 13 detained

Syed Ali Mujtaba

 Mumbai police picked up 13 individuals, 11 of whom are students belonging to the Muslim community for taking part in a prayer meeting in solidarity with children who were killed in Palestine. The prayer meeting was held on November 14, 2023, the Children's Day, at the Juhu beach. 

The detainees were charged under sections 37 (1), 37 (3), and 135 of the Maharashtra Police Act (MPA), according to a press note from the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Maharashtra.

According to the PUCL handout, the youth detained had responded to a multi-city call emanating from an Instagram account ‘solidaritymovement’ and had gone to Juhu beach to attend a peaceful prayer gathering there.

 However, after the prayer, some students went to collect the posters and ply cards that they had earlier voluntarily kept in the police cabin near the beach.  The police there started questioning them and asked them to pose with the posters and placards and photographed them.

The police told them they would escort them to the Bus Stop to ensure they leave safely. As they proceeded, a police van arrived and they were forcibly pushed into the van and taken to the Juhu Police Station. Among the detainees 4 were under-age youth (2 boys and 2 girls), the PUCL press release said.

The youth were detained for almost 8 hours and when they were released were asked to return the next day and provide all their personal details along with their Aadhar Card xerox copy and 2 photographs.

PUCL Maharashtra expressed grave concern at the increasing trend of criminalizing public protest and deplored the manner in which police in Mumbai lodge cases against those participating in such democratic events.

The right to protest is a fundamental right of citizens guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. However, the increasing number of such instances shows that the right to protest of citizens is not only being infringed upon but being met with harsh and intimidating police action and criminal sanctions. In many places in India, Civil society organizations are being denied and met with sanctions that are gatherings for anti-war public protests on the ongoing Israeli war on Palestine.

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plight Muslim Children in Non-Madrasa Schools

Syed Ali Mujtaba

There is an interesting book titled “Mothering a Muslim” by Nazia Erum (2017) that gives a lucid account of the plight of Muslim Children in Non- Madrasa Schools. The author captures some hard realities of what it means to be a Muslim in non-madrasa schools in India.

The author has given a number of anecdotes where Muslim children are subjected to slurs from their non-Muslim peers and there are none to stop such kind of kind of harassment meted out to them. It’s a book based on testifiers.

1-    The book says, a Muslim boy testified that they don’t feel like going to school because the teachers always single them out and beat them. The teachers don’t let us participate in any sports. Class monitors are always chosen from among Hindu boys. The teachers insult us by saying; ‘You children come to school only to play and don’t want to study.’ Whenever they check our workbooks, they make negative comments about our work and throw the workbooks at our faces.

2-    Another testifier told her mother that her teacher says: ‘You Muslim people have no brains, you read only Quran and pray to Allah and don’t respect knowledge.’

3-    Another testifier said that a substitute teacher had said in the class that the floods in Uttarakhand happened because Muslims have opened meat shops there. Uttarakhand is a place of worship for Hindus but because of the Muslims, the disaster happened. Hindus had to pay for their sins. The child felt bad when such things are told about Muslims in the class.

4-    Another boy, said: Whenever the teachers are angry, they call us Mullahs. The Hindu boys also call us Mullahs because our fathers have beards. One father of our classmates had come to submit a form to the school. The teacher referred to him as ‘the man with a beard and laughed at him. All the Hindu children laughed too and made fun of him in front of the whole class. We Muslim students felt terrible at such gestures.

5-    Some Muslim children complained to their mothers that they don’t like to be Muslim because they feel insecure in their school. They said some Hindu boys laugh at them and in case of a fight most Hindus gang up to beat the Muslim boy. 

In some fancied schools where there are negligible Muslim students, the school management decided to keep the Parents Teacher Meeting on Eid-ul-Fitr day, ignoring the national holiday. The mothers of the Muslim children are coxed to attend the meetings on their festival day and they did for not being singled out as being troublesome mum. The same school had declared Karva Chauth a holiday because all the teachers were Hindus and busy fasting for their husbands.

So, this is where we are today, some non-Madarsa schools still blame a Muslim child for his religious identity.  Why Muslim children in non-madrasa schools are made to suffer in their classrooms. This needs serious discussion.  However, no one likes to do any tough conversation on such issues because it's a non-issue for the majority community.

 Certainly calling Muslim children names is not an act of nation-building rather it’s an anti-national activity. If that is what is happening in non- Madrasa Schools, with the Muslim children then advocating reform in the Madrasa should think twice it gets implemented. 

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 Syed Ali Mujtaba is journalist based in Chennai. 

 

Two Religious controversies Two Views in India

Opinion

Two Religious controversies Two Views in India   

Syed Ali Mujtaba

In India, two religious controversies are raging on. First, the adverse remarks made by the BJP office-bearer Nupur Sharma, and second the poster of the documentary film “Kaali” released by its director Leena Manimekalai.

While Nurpur Sharma incensed the feelings of the Muslims by her remarks against the Prophet, purposefully tarring his image, Leena Manimekalai demeaned Kaali, one of the most revered deities of the Hindu religion, through the poster of her documentary film.

Although the government of India took measures to douse the flames lit up by the BJP functionary, no BJP leader or Sangh Parivar or Hindu religious heads uttered a word of condemnation against the Hindu hate monger. Their conspiracy of silence has given support to Nupur Sharma’s diatribe, which is a new normal in India.

However, when the Supreme Court of India made some scathing remarks against a female hate monger, more than 100 eminent citizens of the country including Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju hauled the Supreme Court judge for his unnecessary comments about Ms. Sharma. Their attack on the judge inadvertently sounded as if they are supporting Nupur Sharma’s words against the Prophet of Islam.  

The scene changes to Canada and the spotlight focuses on the poster of the film Kaali, released by its director of Leena Manimekalai, and the entire discourse of hurting the religious sentiments change from the Muslims (they) and Hindus (we).

A hell gets to let loose in India and sermons are being given; “Liberty comes along with sensitivity, freedom comes along with responsibility, can we live in the world without being sensitive, respectful, and responsible,” demanding the arrest of the filmmaker Leena Manimekalai.

A forceful narrative is built in India that Leena Manimekalai has hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindus. There is a cacophony to arrest Manimekalai from Canada and bring her to India, while Indian citizen Nupur Sharma is shielded in some safe heaven to avoid probable arrest. These are two parameters to judge two religious controversies in India. Means, its wearer alone knows where the shoe pinches!   

The fact is religious controversy fails to die down in India. Close on the heels of the Prophet Mohammad controversy, the Kaali controversy is raging now in India. At the center of this controversy is the poster of the documentary film Kaali, where a woman is dressed as the Hindu goddess Kaali and is seen smoking a cigarette and holding a Trishul in one hand and a Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) flag in the other.

The Madurai-born, Toronto-based filmmaker Leena Manimekalai posted a tweet about her documentary film ‘Kaali’ and shared the poster of her movie. In her tweet, she said; “Super thrilled to share the launch of my recent film at Aga Khan Museum as part of its ‘Rhythms of Canada Film Festival and I am excited about it”…

This poster created a huge buzz on social media and invited a backlash in India. This led Indian High Commission in Canada to urge the Canadian authorities to withdraw the poster that was showcased as part of the ‘Under the Tent’ project at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. The museum authorities deeply regretted the disrespectful depiction of Hindu Gods and said if it inadvertently causes offense to the Hindu faith it can immediately withdraw the poster.

The micro-blogging site, Twitter also removed the poster saying that the tweet from Ms. Manimekalai has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.

Ms. Manimekalai, reacting to Twitter removing her film’s poster, asked if Twitter would also withhold the tweets of the hate mongers as well. “This is hilarious. Will Twitter withhold the tweets of the 200000 hate mongers? These lowlife trolls tweeted and spread the very same poster that they find objectionable. 

“Kaali cannot be lynched. Kaali cannot be raped. Kaali cannot be destroyed. She is the goddess of death,” Manimekalai tweeted on the micro-blogging site.

Back in India, the religious outrage was vented through scores of complaints in the police stations, seeking Manimekalai's arrest. A large number of complaints were filed for hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus. The complainants said the Manimekalai’s poster depicts Goddess Kaali in a manner “unacceptable by any Hindu” and that it was a “deliberate distortion of the Hindu religion and culture with malicious intent to insult Hindu religious feelings”.

Jumping into the controversy was TMC MP Mohua Moitra who reportedly said that she had every right as an individual to imagine Goddess Kali as a meat-eating and alcohol-accepting deity, as each person had his or her unique way of offering prayers.

This led to another round of outrage against the TMC MP. No less than 56 complaints were filed against Moitra in West Bengal alone, seeking her immediate arrest. Suvendu Adhikari the BJP and leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly said, “The TMC government and the state police have been very active in seeking police action against Nupur Sharma, but they have not taken any action against Mahua Moitra and there can’t be a different set of rules for BJP and TMC leaders.”

Meanwhile, some FIRs were filed against Ms. Moitra in Madhya Pradesh, a BJP-ruled state. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “Hindu religious sentiments have been hurt by Mahua Moitra’s statement and insult of Hindu deities will not be tolerated at any cost.”

Ms. Mahua Moitra facing attacks from the BJP reacted, “truth doesn’t need backup forces, I am a worshipper of Kaali, and not afraid of saffron “goons.”  The ruling TMC distanced itself from Ms. Moitra’s comments, even as the controversy rages on.

Another angle of the Kaali controversy that has emerged is a contest between the people who worship Kaali as straight nosed, thin-lipped,  baby-faced, fair-complexioned deity against those who worship her with darker skin tone, broad nose with the world view of Kaali as a raw, non-apologetic, having an identity of her own kind of deity.

The Kaali poster outraged the feelings mostly in the North Indian states calling it blasphemous and hurting religious sentiments. Those who worship Kaali as a baby-faced, calm goddess do not like the worshiper of the same goddesses who smoke a cigarette, love booze, drink blood and eat meat and epitomize Maha Kaali in every sense. The north-South divide is the subtle theme in the Kaali controversy that is raging on in the country.

This bizarre narrative is going on in tandem with an anti-Muslim diatribe in India. While on one hand, some Indians want to teach Muslims a lesson or two, the same folks want to do the same to the South Indians too.  This is new India, the “Post-Truth India – The Brand New Republic” welcoming you on board.  

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. His forthcoming book is “Post-Truth India – The Brand New Republic.” He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com.