LINE OF OFFENCE

The ruling BJP government at the Centre has had a week it would like to forget as it scrambled to put out the fires lit internationally in the Muslim world by the comments against the Prophet by some of its top leaders.

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

The party has suspended national spokesperson Nupur Sharma and expelled the Delhi BJP’s media cell chief Naveen Kumar Jindal, the two at the centre of the fiasco, calling them “fringe elements”. On June 8, Delhi Police also filed an FIR against the two and a few others saying their social media posts could cause discord. A senior police official was quoted as clarifying that the FIR names people “across communities”

But even as the country’s ambassadors in West Asia and other places fight to control the damage, in India, the BJP leadership has the onerous task of trying to placate its enraged core rightwing followers. Scientist and right-wing expositor Anand Ranganathan tweeted that “the Islamists only asked the BJP to bend but it chose to crawl”. Others like Subramanian Swamy talked about the Modi government doing “shastangam dandawat before tiny Qatar”. As the hashtag #SupportNupurSharma took wing, there was a flood of social media support for the suspended leader from the right-wing corner. A top BJP leader, though, defended the government’s actions: “We are not at war with the Muslims…and present-day Muslims can’t be held responsible for the conduct of those who lived 500 years back.”

In her defence, Nupur said her comments had been in response to “insults” made against Lord Shiva, while Jindal quietly deleted his offensive tweets. But the damage had already been done. Kanpur witnessed violent protests and a subsequent police crackdown, in which 12 people were arrested on June 7. BJP Yuva Morcha leader Harshit Srivastava Lala was among those held, again reportedly for tweets and other messages related to the Prophet.