When music composer A.R. Rahman speculated that his lack of offers was probably due to ‘communal’ attitudes, he was brutally trolled. As the majority kept quiet, Harsh Mander, peace and communal harmony activist, told Sidharth Bhatia in an episode of The Wire Talks that his “heart broke” for many reasons when he read Rahman’s statement. In the conversation, Mander espoused for love and hope. The full text is produced below. It has been transcribed by Ritvi Jain, an editorial intern at The Wire. Sidharth Bhatia: Hello and welcome to The Wire Talks. I’m Sidharth Bhatia. A much honoured and popular music composer, A.R. Rahman, recently made a statement that provoked such a backlash against him. He said he was not getting much work in the film industry and this could be for communal reasons, implying that the cause was his religion. He also said the film Jawan, which he scored for, was divisive. The attacks began immediately. He was talking rubbish. His music was in any case mediocre and he couldn’t stand up against younger talent. These were what were thrown at him. There were some of these accusations… have continued even though it has kind of tapered off. Rahman has since recorded a clarification of sorts, but has not retracted his original statement. I find that very interesting. This opens broader questions about everyday prejudice that somebody might face because of their religion: Not getting a job. Not being able to rent or buy a home. Treatment in the workplace. How prevalent is this kind of behaviour? I invited writer, teacher and activist Harsh Mandar, who has worked on this topic and has seen it in his life over the years. Harsh was an IAS officer who quit after the 2002 violence in Gujarat. Since then, he has been working on issues of communalism and healing. He started the Karwan-e-Mohabbat campaign in solidarity with the victims of communal or religiously motivated violence. He is now the director of Centre for Equity Studies, a research organisation based in New Delhi. Harsh Mandar, welcome to The Wire Talks. Harsh Mander: Thanks. Pleasure to be with you, Sidharth.Sidharth Bhatia: You’ve met a lot of people who have been subjected to some kind of communal attacks from the violent to the not so subtle, but still not violent. What did you think when you read the statement made by A.R. Rahman? Harsh Mander: My heart broke for many reasons. Firstly, A.R. Rahman is a person who represents, I think, the gentlest, most dignified kind of persona apart from being a formidable talent. The fact that he had experienced what seemed to him like discrimination for eight years before he gently spoke a line or two and then this barrage of hate was thrown at him. I think it reflects a much larger problem of what is happening in our society, because this is also a period where there is a kind of epidemic of hate speech. I’ve just, in fact, completed, and I’m not sort of plugging for it, I just completed a book on hate speech in India, which I’ve called It Started with Words, which basically draws from the Holocaust experience that the Holocaust didn’t start in the gas chambers, it started with hate speech. And I’m seeing India has normalised levels of hate speech that are terrifying and which can lead us into a situation of mass violence. That is acceptable. You know, and I myself filed criminal charges, criminal cases, criminal complaints against some of the worst hate speeches. The police isn’t even willing to register them. And here one, you know, one gentle, talented hero of sorts just speaks, shares a little bit of his pain, and this is what he’s subjected to. So that’s one. But Sidharth, you know, I want to say that during the last four or five years, I find when I travel around the country, people of Muslim identity reach out, and wish to sit with me in a closed room to share their pain, you know, where they then don’t have to censor or worry about the implications of what they’re going to say. And there is so much pain, you know, and the word I hear most is fear, you know, that fear stays, you know, all the time. When you go on a train now, you’re worried nobody should recognise you to be of Muslim identity. When you, you know, just generally, when somebody leaves the home, you’re feeling fearful. You know, lynching has really done that. It’s a performance of hate. That’s the word I hear most. And second, I hear about, you know, a sense of betrayal. You know, was India always like this? Or, you know, we’ll be kidding ourselves when we felt that we belonged and were accepted as equal citizens. And then there’s, you know, I mean, the big violence, lynching, etc., I won’t even speak about here. But, you know, even from middle class Muslims, they tell me stories. And when I read about A.R. Rahman, I was recalling this, you know, for instance, this very good looking young Muslim medical student in Hyderabad was telling me that, you know, he, his teacher’s reading out the roll call. And when she comes to him and says, oh, and “Love Jihad”. So the class starts laughing. He says, “No, sorry, ma’am, my name is not Love Jihad. It is XYZ.” “No, no, but you know, boys like you do love jihad and so on.” And then he said that became his nickname in the class. Sidharth Bhatia: And then this is Hyderabad where there are well-to-do Muslims. Harsh Mander: Yeah, rich, well-to-do Muslim guy. Another person, I think, got a little well-known in Manipal, I think. The teacher was again reading out and she said, oh, Ajmal Kasab. And then everyone laughs. And he got up and he said, this is not funny, and you have no business to, you know, to say this to me. I have another friend who said, I won’t mention her name, but her father had passed away. And his name was Zaidi. And she was going to this office and she kept saying, my father’s “XYZ Zaidi.” “Haan haan, jihadi.” “Sorry, no, my father’s name is Zaidi.” “Yeah, yeah, same thing, jihadi.” You know, these are things that have become so normal in everyday life. And Muslim brothers and sisters are expected to just bear it and keep smiling and never utter the smallest complaint. I think what’s happening with A.R. Rahman is symbolic of what happens if you want to share your pain for a moment with your fellow countrymen and women. Sidharth Bhatia: You know, but one of the things that has been thrown at him is that, you know, he’s so successful. He’s been in film which are not necessarily, I mean, he’s still getting work. What’s he complaining about? So it’s not ad hominem, but in the sense of saying that, you know, you’re getting work. You were successful at one time, hugely successful. You got work from the same producers. So what’s the complaint about? So, and that’s, in a sense, a question that can be asked. What would kind of, what could have prompted him to say this?Harsh Mander: So, firstly, I think he is still probably the, you know, arguably the greatest talent we have, you know. That can be debated. But certainly his time has not passed. But more importantly, again, this response and the fact that, oh, he’s, you know, his time has passed and he’s mediocre and so on. It reminds me a lot of what I call a general coarsening of the public discourse, not just in India, but around the world. So we have leaders like Trump. I remember Meryl Streep had made some statement in the she got the Golden Globe Lifetime Award and she said something about Donald Trump. And his response was, oh, she’s a useless, overrated actress and, you know, not responding to what she said, but trying to sort of demean her. I think that’s another pattern that, you know, the person should have responded to the fact that, yes, you know, he’s expressing this concern. Instead, you are trying to devalue him. And I think that’s part of the general coarsening of discourse. Sidharth Bhatia: Again, you know, I’m just laying out the…Harsh Mander: Yeah, sure, sure. The devil’s advocate situation. Yeah. Sidharth Bhatia: You do realise that as a journalist, I have to present this kind of context. Harsh Mander: I’m a non-violent responder, so I won’t try to box your face, but let me hear you.Sidharth Bhatia: No, no, no. The top stars in the Hindi film industry, the male stars, are and have been for many years Muslims. Do you think they could have faced communal prejudice? Harsh Mander: These top stars have also on occasion very, very, very hesitantly spoken about that sense of feeling discriminated against. It’s much more, you know, it’s not simply about not getting work. It is, I mean, if they bring in the money, they will, they’re still getting work. But it’s, you know, how every word they do, every action. I mean, Shah Rukh Khan goes to pay tribute to Lata Mangeshkar at her funeral. And he says the Muslim prayer and blows into the air, which is, you know, and people start saying he’s spitting and this is part of a “thook jihad”. You know, it’s this kind, I mean, nothing that they do can, everything is under scrutiny from a very negative communal kind of view. It’s not as if all people do it, but the trolls are constantly looking at them. They’re not looking at Akshay Kumar for, you know, he can do foolish things. He can say inappropriate things, etc. That doesn’t, but if you are a Muslim identity, quite clearly you are continuously under scrutiny for something that you can be caught on or for. And something that can be plugged into the prevailing prejudices about Muslims. That, oh, somehow he is disloyal to this country or somehow, you know, those songs, Diljit. I mean, his comments where he speaks about friendship with Pakistan, for instance, is then completely blown out. I mean, if a person of Hindu identity spoke about friendship with Pakistan, would not receive the same kind of trolling. So I think it’s this business that, yes, they are getting work, but I think they are continuously careful about saying anything that can be, I don’t think it’s misunderstood. I mean, people can clearly understand what they’re saying, but something that can be twisted from a communal perspective and thrown back at you as a troll. I think they have to be careful.Sidharth Bhatia: Again, should we not, social media where trolling happens the most, should we really take it that seriously or worry about it beyond a point? Harsh Mander: See, we are now living in a world where a lot of your life is on social media. I mean, in a sense, especially younger people, their relationships, their sort of worldviews are all, I mean, people in your and my generation, for us, social media doesn’t dominate our life in the way that it does for young people. And I think we do need to take seriously the conversations on social media. Also, Sidharth, at a larger level, when I look, you know, community riots of the past always required what I call an explosion, a creation of hatred as an explosion. So you have to have the train burning in Godhra, the chief ministers talking about it as a terror attack, parading of the bodies, and then there is an explosion of violence. So there is what I call the manufacture of hatred. I think what is happening now is, it’s a continuous, I mean, you don’t need the sudden explosions. Every time you open your phone, you’re getting one new fix of hate, you know, literally as many times a day as you open your phone, you’re getting more. And so hate is becoming so normalized. And for that, the principal agency is social media. And I therefore, I think, we need to pay very close attention to what is happening in social media. I mean, there was that sort of serial on Netflix, I think it was called Adolescence. It’s a very important reminder for those of us who belong to older generations about how real is social media and what it can do to your understanding of the world. One more thing I’ve seen in major incidents of hate violence, for instance, there was this guy who on the 25th anniversary of the Babri Masjid in Rajsamanth, close to Udaipur, he decided he wanted to kill a Muslim man, anyone. And he organised it, he got his nephew to film it and so on. And he killed him. We visited his family and they were telling us that he’d lost his job during demonetisation. And after that, from morning till night, he used to just watch videos. And they charged him up to this degree that he decided to do this performative killing of a Muslim man. And so on. So I think social media has to be taken very seriously for what it, and going back to that line, it started with words. Hate violence begins with, you know, hate propaganda for which the principal instrument today is social media, but also, of course, cinema, popular cinema, and of course, our mainstream television channels. I think these are the three principal ways in which hate is propagated. So all three have to be taken seriously.Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah, but that’s in as far as communication media is concerned. In fact, I would add politicians also. Harsh Mander: And religious leaders, and religious leaders. I think just to complete the story. So-called religious leaders, people in religious robes, politicians, of course, and these three. Yes.Sidharth Bhatia: So because if you’ve noticed, and I’m sure you have, it’s you know, minor politicians from all kinds of backgrounds who then pick up the thread. We don’t know who feeds whom, but they start talking about this in the most nasty manner. And I remember, I mean, you will remember, we all know Yogi Adityanath advanced calling Shah Rukh Khan a terrorist. Harsh Mander: Yeah. Yeah. Sidharth Bhatia: If you recall. So it, it’s a kind of vicious cycle. And we don’t know who feeds whom, but certainly the cues come from both sides. And you say that social media must be taken seriously. Social media reflects those views Harsh Mander: and amplifies them as well. And gets those views. Sidharth Bhatia: So, yes, social media should be taken seriously, but it’s the leaders, identifiable people who also are part of this. Harsh Mander: So that I agree with you. And I’ll just say something that, you know, when I look closely at major communal massacres of the past, long before there was any social media, the power of hate propaganda and what it does. Bhagalpur is a really classic example. Bhagalpur in one district, they killed, according to some estimates, about 2000 people. Muslims village after village was slaughtered. The basis was a rumour that Muslim young people in tuition centres in Bhagalpur town have Hindus have been slaughtered. Not even the hair of one of those children had been hurt, but this, how this message passed village after village, leading to a slaughter of maybe 2000 people, long before there was social media. So I think social media is a vehicle, but the creation of this hatred is something that is autonomous of social media. I think that is important to understand. Sidharth Bhatia: Probably manufactured. You know that when I was reading upon this and researching this, I remembered the, I found and remembered, the recent incident of Hindutva parties in Jammu in Katra, who demanded that students who were admitted to medical college, 50 odd Muslim students, should not be given admission. So they shut down the college, the administration. Harsh Mander: Absolutely. You know, as it happensSidharth Bhatia: even Hindu students who had got admission after they must have worked hard for it, but even now they are without a future. Harsh Mander: It’s reached levels of, I mean, it would be almost like black comedy except it’s dead serious. I mean, we had a similar example in Assam where there were floods in the Assam city, in Guwahati city. The chief minister says this is flood jihad. And he claimed that a Muslim owned private university had cut some trees and it was a jihad to flood the whole city. And I mean, that was bad enough. Then they de-recognized that institute, although it was in its rankings, it was considered one of the best in the Northeast. So it’s this kind of really, and if you, it happens that a lot of, you know, almost a third to half of the people who work with me are of Muslim identity as it happens. And I hear from them, you know, in, in very real time, how they are reacting to this. I mean, so this university thing, for instance, they just, they were so anguished. They were saying that if you go through an examination and you qualify and you happen to be Muslim, is that a reason to, to close down the university?Sidharth Bhatia: Tell me, you are a very keen observer of popular culture, cinema especially. I know that. And one of the things that, you’re a keen observer of popular culture, especially cinema. And one of the things Rehman also said was that Chhawa was a divisive film. So he had worked on it. He said that I did work on it, but I found it a bit divisive. Now, as an observer, as a student, as a film goer, what have you noticed about the films, the productions that are coming out in the last few years?Harsh Mander: So, Sidharth, I mean, yeah, I love cinema and it’s sort of like my secret love. And I also write about it occasionally. I also teach, say in Heidelberg, I teach a course around India through cinema. So I’ve tried to look at this quite closely. I, I think we are seeing what I call quite clearly the Nazification of, of our cinema. And I’ll say this, I’m saying this very sort of thoughtfully, mindfully. When you look and you think of the 1930s, cinema was still a very new medium, but Hitler and Goebbels, they, they really relied a lot on popular cinema for generating hatred, all the hate conspiracies, etc., against Jews, was propagated through cinema. And the cinema, very similar to what is happening now in our country, these were films that were praised by Hitler and so on, and he would watch them publicly with his senior colleagues, etc. Again, very similar to what is happening now. And so they recognised the power of cinema when it was still a very young medium. I think our leaders today are subscribing to the same sort of playbook. I just wanted to add one more thing. I really found it fascinating that by 1941-42, when it became more and more clear that Germany was going to lose the war, they shut down everything. They shut down schools, but they still didn’t shut down the cinemas. Cinemas ran right up to the end because they saw it as such an important medium to communicate largely the hatred and prejudice, which was the foundation of their ideology. I think our cinema is doing, very consciously doing that. And so this notion of the Muslim as being a sexual predator, violent, intolerant, coarse, all of that is, and since I’m older and so are you, I mean, I recall in the films of the 50s and 60s, you know, the kind Rahim Chacha was a necessary part of the neighbour who was kind and helpful, was a necessary part of the formula of the films of those times. And right up to Amar Akbar Anthony. So we have now, you know, our films, even before the BJP came, transformed the Muslim to be either a terrorist or a gangster. And the Muslim female is shown as somebody who is largely, I mean, there are, largely somebody who is so oppressed that she cannot get protection from within her community and has to be saved by people from outside.Sidharth Bhatia: Well, you know, that I think is a part of the larger thought process of the way the female is viewed, whether it’s this female or that female, she is in need of protection. Harsh Mander: But protection, that won’t come from within her community. I think that’s the one difference, I think, that is… Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah. Well, I’m glad because I too am, I mean, I’m just blowing my trumpet a bit here, having written two or three books on cinema. Absolutely. And I am a keen observer of 1930s films, as well as 1950s Hindi films. So, yes, I’m completely on board with you on what you are saying. The nation building project of the 50s and now it’s, I may call it…Harsh Mander: The nation breaking project.Sidharth Bhatia: You took the words out of my mouth. You’re absolutely right. The nation breaking and, you know, the creation, the creation of a particular view of the nation, which is what is going on, which brings me to, I mean, I didn’t want to go into it because that’s a rabbit hole which will take us down and keep us busy for a long time. But I do think I would like to know your views on Dhurandar because to my mind, Dhurandar represents a particular effort, a very intelligent effort to create, to create a world in which not just Muslims, but of course, Pakistan in a particular light. So what do you think is going on with a film like that, specifically? Harsh Mander: See, we’re protected from going into the rabbit hole because I haven’t had the stomach to watch the film so far, I must. But I’ve heard, I mean, I just could say a line or two of what I’ve heard from friends. They say it’s an extremely, it’s a dangerous film because it’s very well made. It’s technically very good. And therefore, it’s much more effective. But the net result is to show Muslims, in particular Pakistanis, in a very evil light. And I think that that whole feeding into, because Pakistani and now Bangladeshi are kind of proxies for Indian Muslims. So every Indian Muslim is in disguise and some kind of Pakistani or Bangladeshi or sympathetic to these, etc., etc. And so the hatred against Pakistan and now Bangladesh is really in order to demonize Muslims further. I also wanted to give reference to what I hear that a film called Ikkis, which by all accounts is a very beautiful anti-war war film, where there’s a very humanist portrayal of the Pakistani character. But how do you have to end the film Sidharth Bhatia: with a disclaimer Harsh Mander: that not all Pakistanis are like this? I mean, that’s so absurd. It’s so absurd. Sidharth Bhatia: That’s clearly been imposed. That’s clearly been imposed. Harsh Mander: I mean, I just would like to go out of my way to say I’ve traveled to many parts of the world, but I’ve never found people as gracious as the Pakistani people. I took my mother, we are originally from there, from Pakistan. And I remember taking her there and she was treated with so much warmth and grace. When we finally found her house, I knocked very hesitantly and, you know, so that she could see the house. The man opened it and I said, “I’m sorry, this is my mother and she thinks this could have been her house.” You know, without a second, he turns to my mother and says, “Mataji, aap kyu keh rahe hai yeh aapka ghar tha. Yeh aapka hi ghar hai.” And the warmth with which he took her in. I mean, that kind of graciousness, of course, I mean, our enmity can be with the Pakistani establishment or military. Why should we have any enmity with the Pakistani people? And why can’t they be lovely, decent people in Pakistan? Of course there are.Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah, I mean, the film industry has been known for its secular attitudes. And actually, by the way, I’m an idea that those secular attitudes permeate down to the level of people working behind the scenes. So from the technician to the music director to the songwriter to the cameraman to this, it’s a mix. And you know that some of the greatest bhajans have been written and sung by and picturised on Muslims. Harsh Mander: I was thinking about that. And Rahim Masoom does a rooh Mahabharata.Sidharth Bhatia: That’s right. Harsh Mander: You know, the whole serial. Suddharth Bhatia: So I fear that that also will start getting affected in times to come if this doesn’t stop. But, you know, for in a mild way, Rahman has withdrawn what he said, not withdrawn, but corrected. He has said that, you know, he’s put it in context saying that, you know, India is my inspiration, etc., etc. But it’s clearly a message that has gone down to others, please don’t raise your head and start making these kinds of statements.Harsh Mander: Yeah, isn’t it sad that a person who composed Ma Tujhe Salaam has to now say I love my country, you know? Sidharth Bhatia: Exactly. Exactly. Well put. So, but Harsh should we bemoan or should we fight back or push back? Harsh Mander: I think we have to. I mean, there are no people in the world, and I say this quite thoughtfully, who are as influenced by their cinema as we are, you know, right from our growing up years to now. I mean, our films were never realistic, but they were always reflective of a larger, you know, ethos, or they were culturally resonant. And we cannot allow that space to be taken over by what I still am firmly convinced is a minority ideology of hate. And I think that we need far more people, and it will have to be people not of Muslim identity who take the lead to tell stories, to have characters which refuse to reinforce these stereotypes of hate. It has to be because otherwise we are losing India. I mean, every second Indian is below the age of 25. They’ve only grown up in this India, you know. And these are the films they watch. These are the conversations they hear. I feel very strongly, and I try to do this as much as we can in our work, we have to have different conversations, however hard it might be. And it’s a really strange time where, I mean, the establishment, the deep state here, the word they often use for me because I’m charged with all sorts of crimes, that he’s a dangerous man. And I find that really extraordinary. I mean, you could disagree with many things, but to call me dangerous. But I realise more and more that conversations about love, building a society on love, is now a very dangerous idea. And all of us have to embrace that danger if we have to not allow the poison to spread further than it has.Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah, very, very well said, Harsh. On that note, I think we covered a lot of ground. I’m glad that this subject, this topic, and this situation has given us the opportunity to discuss, you know, Rehman and the wider issues in such a detailed manner. I thank you for enlightening us. And I trust, it’s not just you, The silent majority is perhaps thinking on similar lines. I live in hope. So thank you very much for participating in this show, this discussion. And we’ll be back next week. That was Harsh Mandar, peace activist, and an indefatigable fighter for communal harmony. We’ll be back next week with another guest. Till then, from me, Sidharth Bhatia, and the rest of the team, goodbye.