Speaking Out

‘A judge dies. His son and wife are unable to summon up the courage to speak their minds. Shouldn’t the Chief Justice of India assure them of safety, making it possible for them to speak? If a citizen, out of fear, loses the courage and the will to live, to speak, who will reassure him? If, as the upholders of the Constitution, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister cannot provide this reassurance, who can? Have we allowed power to become such a blanket of fear that it will keep terrorizing us and we will pull the same blanket over ourselves for security, lying helpless under the very terror that makes us tremble? An ordinary citizen, too, needs answers, or else everyone will believe that if this can happen to a judge, absolutely no one is safe.

I want to confess something to you. I felt fear, too, when I read the story. Yet I’m devoting this Prime Time show to it so that Anuradha Biyani does not feel that her brother, the judge, was probably killed and we did not speak. Judge Loya’s son should not feel that someone killed his father and none of his countrymen will speak for him. It isn’t as if we aren’t afraid; we are. But the way out of this fear was to bring this story before everyone. Now, whatever will be, will be.’

‘Now, whatever will be, will be.’ This closing sentence of the NDTV India Prime Time Show of 23 November 2017 was for my viewers, and also for myself. I had found release from the fear that had held me in its suffocating grip for two days. Through the duration of the show, I’d felt that every single word was holding me back, as if to warn me: ‘Enough, don’t go any further. You cannot put yours and yourself in danger just to overcome your fear. Fear does not end after you’ve spoken out. Even after you’ve spoken, fear lies in wait for you with its nets and snares.’

But I had spoken, and I was free.

That November afternoon, as I was heading to the NDTV studios to conduct my usual Prime Time show, I was wrestling with the silence surrounding the allegation that a judge had died in suspicious circumstances. The silence lay thick even three days after the news broke. A report had been published in Caravan magazine which raised questions about the death of Judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, who had been presiding over the CBI court in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in Gujarat, in which BJP president Amit Shah was the prime accused. No statement from the judge’s wife and son had come after this story broke. Was it because of some terror that the family could not say anything? Can people be so afraid that they cease to have faith in everyone? Even in themselves? I was myself living the fear that must have been inside them. I was worried, too, that the story in Caravan could be wrong. I felt as if I had somehow put myself on the line. This story wasn’t mine, but now it had become also mine.

I am making no claims about the story in Caravan, but the fear and the silence surrounding it had set up a shuddering within me. Perhaps fear is not even the right word for this, but doubt. Doubts create all sorts of restlessness within. They shatter one from the inside; like someone is using a hammer and a chisel to chip away at a wall. Before I broke down and became even more of a ruin, I decided to broadcast Judge Loya’s story on prime time.

It was almost 9 p.m. The fear was threatening to overwhelm me. There was no one around me with whom I could share my apprehensions. I looked within myself and saw a news anchor falling into a deep dark well. To save himself, all that he had was his voice, which he wanted to reach to people at maximum pitch and volume. I used each word as the step of a ladder and began to climb out of the depths of my fear. And, after I finished broadcasting the Prime Time episode, it felt as if I had kept a promise which I had made to Judge Loya’s wife. I had also freed myself of fear.

But, afterwards, others’ fears lay in wait for me. My phone buzzed incessantly. The voices at the other end were all chilled. I felt as if I wouldn’t even be able to get home. Unpleasant doubts crept into every conversation. I gradually began to feel alone. It felt as if each person was delivering a final warning before going away. The story in Caravan could have been wrong, that was plausible; but other than that apprehension, had I also crossed that line which dictates that certain people and versions of certain stories should not be questioned? Were people actually, genuinely, so afraid of that man at whose doorstep Judge Loya’s story finally washed up?

Fear can be real. It can also be imaginary; but the factors which create and control imaginary fears are very real. So speaking out will never be easy. It may even well be an act of bravery, but what is significant is something else. When you speak, you must first challenge yourself. You first become your own interrogator before asking questions of others. If your life is clean and uncorrupted your voice will have the ring of truth. To speak, you must persevere; it isn’t a single act done in a moment or without effort. You strain your entire being from within. In the same way in which Usain Bolt leans his body forward into the wind at the finishing line. The farther you lean your body into the finishing line when you speak, the closer you will come to the truth. But the truth is not just a set of bald facts, easily gathered and stated. Truth is also defined by its time, the prevailing environment and the systems that run the institutions in that environment. So while a ribbon awaits Bolt at the finishing line, for people like us, there is a concrete wall. When you reach the finishing line, you run straight into that wall. Everything, your job, your credibility, your life itself, is at stake.

Where your fear ends is where those who sit at the top of the power hierarchy go to work. You are freed from one fear but they will spread ten more around you like booby traps. Courage is nothing but the struggle to emerge from one circle of fear into another, then another; a constant struggle to be free of fear. These days, whenever I write something, say something, afterwards, people introduce me to new and different varieties of fear. Even if what I say is commonplace and non-controversial, people caution me: ‘Aren’t you afraid? Take care of yourself.’ Whenever I hear these words I see a world of fear on the speakers’ faces. These exhortations to keep safe have made people cowards. Because they are not warnings to speak carefully, but warnings to not speak at all.

Whenever someone asks me if I am afraid to speak out, fear spreads its wings out within me. I go back to being that Ravish of my boyhood days who would recite the Hanuman Chalisa and chant ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ as he walked underneath the bel tree. I had heard someone say that ghosts reside in bel trees. If there was no one on the road, I would run as fast as I could, my slippers in my hand. As I ran, my body would become limber and strong and I would forget the ghost; I would even slow down. For the longest time I thought that in later years my fear had vanished because I had left the bel tree behind. I now understand that it was the act of becoming limber and strong which had vanquished the fear. If we do not show mental and physical strength in the face of fear, it will keep us forever standing underneath the bel tree.

This was what used to happen in cinema halls too. As soon as the hall lights would dim, I would become afraid and I would screw my eyes shut during scenes of violence. I have never been able sit through a rape scene in a movie with my eyes open.

At school, the fear of failure would kill me every day during examinations. I was an ordinary student. I had no grasp of science subjects and thus the months of March and April used to be exceedingly sad. My father said to me during one of these moments of fear, ‘If you study gradually all year round, you will have no need to cram during examinations. And there will be no need to be terrified either.’

I was leaving home to sit for the mathematics paper during my board examinations. I cried so hard that Babuji had to come along with me. A bucket was filled with water and a rose floated upon its surface, the way in which it is done when a girl leaves her marital home for the first time after marriage. I just wouldn’t leave home. I still don’t know why Babuji went along with me that day. In the normal course of things he was unbothered with which class I was studying in, which subjects I was bad at and which ones I did well in. As the time came for us to part, I felt like clinging to him and weeping one more time. When he left me at the school gate, Babuji said, ‘You shouldn’t be so afraid. Why do you have such fear within you? You’ve prepared well, haven’t you?’

I have always remembered Babuji’s words. When I came to Delhi and started studying for my graduation, I won over my fear of academic failure. When all my friends would go home to Patna for holidays, I would sit in the library and work on my fear. I made friends with my B.A. examinations.

My mother too remains unfazed by any circumstance. Laughing, she often tells Noyona, ‘This one starts crying before anything has even happened. Just the mention of examinations used to be enough to make him cry.’ This is the same Noyona because of whom I have become free of fear in all the other areas of my life. But that story is for another telling.

This man whom people ask to be careful and stay safe was a coward for a large part of his life.

I feel a great deal of fear even today. I am very afraid of making mistakes. I make that journey from fear to courage every day. My days start with the trolls’ abuses and threats and end with the thought that I should be careful for the sake of my job. Not a day has passed in three years during which I have not heard people talking about the possibility that I might lose my job. But fear is also what saves you from rashness. It is that resting place between courage and rashness. That point from where you commit to a course of action.

Power knows who should be removed from the path of its onward march and when. It maintains a strict calendar and schedule. Despite that, in a democracy, people keep alive the act of speaking out. And the thrill of this journey, between fear and courage, has destroyed my sleep, it has gained me abuse, and sometimes made my ears resound with applause.

One must pay other prices for speaking out too. When colleagues with whom I had worked for twenty years were having to leave the company, many among them looked in my direction. There was a great distance in their eyes. They felt that it was because of me that the government had punished the organization.

During that time I ran into a former colleague in the office bathroom. All he asked was: ‘Couldn’t we have changed our line of work?’ I asked him in return, ‘So shouldn’t we have become journalists?’ My question did not answer his, and I did not have any other answer for him. The experience of losing a job is bitter for everyone, I thought. One should not feel bad or offended by someone’s words at such a time. I kept standing before him like time that has already passed. There was no point in expressing the pain that I felt at parting with him. I stood there as upon a shore, inwardly shattered. I do hope that in my colleague’s eyes, the men who did not like that a journalist should speak out are as culpable as I am.

‘Couldn’t we have changed our line of work?’—this statement sank its hooks deep within me. Should I instead have become part of a mob which kills someone on a moving train, which won’t allow a movie to be released, which corners a man in his own house and murders him, which climbs on to the roof of a court of justice and unfurls a saffron flag? I thought these thoughts as I walked slowly out of the bathroom. The act of speaking out makes you alone. I have no friends in this profession of mine. Each one I speak to advises me to keep silent.

Even today I feel as if I am tiptoeing underneath the great bel tree of power. The only difference is that I no longer chant the Hanuman Chalisa. I don’t implore God to preserve my life. Rather, I thank him for all that he has given me. I analyze my facts carefully, I keep my pen straight, and I keep my tongue clean. The ability to speak follows naturally.

My speaking up, and its being viewed within the framework of courage, all of it is thanks to what happened after 2014. Post 2014, the political winds began to change course. Criticism of the government began to be equated with criticism of the nation. A factory called the ‘IT Cell’ was set up and many varieties of fear were manufactured inside its basement. The trolls of the IT Cell mounted fierce attacks on anyone who dared to ask questions. They were called many things, from anti-nation and anti-religion to even pimps of the opposition parties. Many journalists were cast in the mould of an opposition. They were called anti-Modi. Even serving ministers began to attack reporters. The IT Cell rapidly transformed media into ‘godi media’—lapdog media. Many anchors and journalists crept into the laps of power and began chanting the Modi Chalisa.

The IT Cell is not simply the unit of a particular party. It is a mentality which has formed among a large section of society. I call that entire set, the collective of people who share that mentality, the ‘IT Cell’. This IT Cell has transformed a large section of the citizenry into trolls. Many people find this idea of the mentality of the IT Cell a joke, but this is a fully realized human resource which works extensively from the metropolises to far-flung areas of India. Many of the news channels which work in today’s India are an extension of this IT Cell.

This IT Cell has its own laboratory: the WhatsApp University. The amount of history that this WhatsApp University has tried to teach in three years would not have been taught in the seventy years since Independence by all historians together. The only difference is that the history taught in the WhatsApp University is fake and poisonous. Even India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, fell victim to this WhatsApp University. His clan, his religion and his name were all changed and distorted. He became a greater ‘villain’ than Jinnah, than whom there is no man more evil for the IT Cell and its parent family. Gandhi has not been spared either; in this case the IT Cell laboratory does what certain politicians cannot afford to do in public, though they privately wish Gandhi had never existed.

The WhatsApp University has also extensively defamed, vilified and abused journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai, Rana Ayyub, Sagarika Ghose, Barkha Dutt and me, among others. The handful of us journalists, who are only doing our job, have been declared traitors. We have been blamed for every injustice committed in India. A new benchmark has been set up in the WhatsApp University as far as speaking out is concerned: ‘Why didn’t you speak then, and why are you speaking only now?’ With this mischievous statement, the public has been handed a weapon. People have been told, ‘Any time they ask a question, ask them, “Where were you when that happened?”’

I remained enmeshed among these questions for a long time. I kept thinking, ‘I am a journalist, I am not myself a newspaper. I cannot comment on everything. And keeping quiet doesn’t mean that I become a party to injustices.’ Why didn’t you speak then?—this is a design by which a sense of guilt is created within that person who asks questions. And those who ask that artful question conveniently forget to ask those who remain silent why they aren’t speaking.

For over three years now, I have found myself dealing and arguing, not with the government, but with the new armies it has built in our society. The generation that has emerged from the WhatsApp University has become the private army shielding the government and it demands the name and address of anyone who is critical of the government. Soon they’ll be asking us for our Aadhar numbers before deciding whether we can ask the Modi government any questions or not. A mob has been created which will harass and intimidate us on behalf of Power. This mob is answerable to no one, as long it remains a cheerleader for the establishment. When we demand accountability from the government, the mob is let loose.

This mob broadcasts new rumours and lies every day. These lies don’t disappear into a void. I’ve seen them seep into lakhs, if not crores, of minds. The establishment has outsourced its power to this tireless mob which will surround one anywhere, at any time. Every day I’m stalked by a new lie. Every day I fight a new lie. It would be exhausting, but for the occasional sign that the fight is not in vain.

In January 2018 I was doing a series for Prime Time on jobs in the country. The government institutions that recruit people take an average of four years to fill a single vacancy, when there are millions seeking jobs—and there are very few vacancies to begin with. After one of the first programmes in the series, a young man called Rahul phoned me from Bihar’s Aara town. I had met him when I was in Bihar in 2015, covering the high-voltage Assembly elections. He was calling me now, over two years after that meeting, he said, because he wanted to apologize. He said I had spoken about young people like him in my series on jobs, no one else had bothered, and this when he and many of his friends had abused and hated me for long. He said local members of the Bajrang Dal had convinced them I was anti-Hindu and anti-Modi. I was anti-India. I was a Communist and my annual salary package was one crore plus perks. That would have made me a very rare Indian Communist indeed. Rahul went on to say that he had also been taught to hate Muslims and had his head filled with the poison of communalism. He had wasted his life. He was purging himself of the poison.

It’s this poison of hate that I’m fighting, too. It has spread all around me. It has ruined many young minds. These young men wander about with explosive hatred inside them. They want to find a way out of the hell they have been pushed into. But there’s hardly anyone around to help them climb out. On good days, I feel I can be the one to help.

It’s one of the things that keeps me focused, despite the torrent of abuse I face even when I write about something as neutral as the weather. These aren’t routine abuses used by people. These are rocks and stones hurled by Power that fall all around and create a wall of mental despondency. Enduring these abuses has begun to feel like an exercise in sensing the true heft of Power.

Abuse is a part of the culture of India. Abuses are exchanged during marriages; there is societal sanction for abuse in some relationships. But never before today has abuse been a weapon at the hands of Power. When the mob which stands in support of Power hurls abuse, it becomes so much more. That mob wants to terrify you. This, then, is the decision you must make: do you want to be terrified? Even when an entire system exists, complete with abuse, and when there is no one to stand with you?

What I cannot understand is: what is it that one is doing that is so wrong? Why is it that for asking a few questions, one should be punished so severely that a mob is set loose after one? I have been at the receiving end of people’s anger in many places. Men have chased me sometimes, sticks in hand; at others, people have grabbed me by the collar. There have even been incidents of pushing and shoving. I have grown more and more alone in the course of this process. I started speaking out to combat my loneliness. That was the only act which would shatter my isolation.

Each of these acts has made me less and less wanted in my profession. It has become normal in all conversations about journalism with friends for them to tell me that I will lose my job before anyone else and I won’t find employment anywhere else either. As the advice about doors slamming shut—in the professional space, upon life itself—has poured in, speaking out is the only window that I have sought through which air and light—though they may be in limited quantities—stream in.

In 2015, Aamir Khan expressed his concern, though in a muted fashion, about the climate of insecurity he and his family felt in India and he was instantly attacked by the IT Cell mob. That same mob remained silent at the Karni Sena’s call to Kshatriya personnel in the army to stop eating in their messes to protest against the release of the film Padmavati. One man openly talked about instigating communal rebellion within the army and the entire government stood before that man, heads bowed in supplication.

The mob has established a government of fear. It can scare Aamir Khan, claiming to be acting for others, because he practices a religion different from the one practiced by the mob. If it wants, that mob can strike fear into the heart of Sanjay Leela Bhansali too, who is of the same religion. There is just one law in operation, the law of fear.

Every mob is based upon the foundation of fear. Responding to external fears, many people started becoming part of the mob. These individuals first feared their own fellow citizens because of their religion; then, once they joined the mob, they learnt fear from the masters and controllers of the mob. The reason for their silence was simple. They understood, ‘If the mob can do this to these people, it can do the same to me.’ People joined the mob to silence others; what they did not realize was that they had also learnt to become and remain silent.

On social media too, people have stopped speaking out because of the terror of the IT Cell. Women, especially, have stopped commenting on political matters in large numbers. They don’t express their opinion in the ‘comments’ section but do so in messages sent to inboxes. Not just women, many other people now do the same.

When I set up my page on Facebook, @RavishKaPage, many women inboxed me to say that after having commented on my posts, they were trolled by people who would tell them the different ways in which they would be defamed and assaulted. Frequently, there are a thousand comments on my posts but the women among them don’t number even one hundred. The abuses which depend upon Power to propel themselves work like bullets. Everyone is afraid of bullets. Even many boys have told me that they have been forbidden to comment on my page by their parents. The socialization of fear is complete. To be afraid is to be civilized in this new, enfeebled democracy. But I find it uncivilized and impolitic. It is an impoliticness that is inflicted upon democracy.

The IT Cell has accomplished the task of laying down fear with ferocious detail and efficiency. The language of the IT Cell has become the language of the ministers of the government as well as that of the supporters of the government. It was the government which used to strike fear into the hearts of citizens; now the mainstream media and social media are its active allies.

My phone number is frequently made public on Facebook and WhatsApp. The language of provocation that accompanies the act of making my number public should be part of a special study. Sentences are written in such a clever manner that on reading, it isn’t clear if a death threat is being issued or if it is being ordered that I should be verbally abused. ‘This is the number of the Pakistani Ravish Kumar, please call him and give him a lesson in nationalism.’ The posts are in this tenor. All of this is enough to scare a man. The good thing was that as soon as my number was made public, some people became exceedingly happy. They called to say where they had got the number from, but also clarified that they weren’t trolls but fans. These same people also later sent me screenshots of those pages which expressed hate.

We seem to living in a climate of fear and suspicion. ‘Hang on, not over the phone. I’ll call on WhatsApp.’ Talk to any official and you will find that he thinks that some minister is getting his phone tapped. Ministers think that their seniors are recording their calls. Journalists feel that their conversations are being listened to. In every other conversation, reporters mention phone tapping. No one has proof of these things, but everyone fears that their calls are being recorded. This fear is so pervasive that it makes even routine meetings suspicious. The suspicion engendered by fear has cast a deep effect on meetings and on the act of speaking.

Ask yourself: Has speaking out become fraught with risk? Does speaking about the government make you afraid? Who are you scared of: the government or of that mob present around you in different avatars? Do you speak out up to a point and stop, or do you continue and finish whatever it is that you wanted to say? Do you seek a society in which people crawl around terrified of the government and some mob for no reason, and only those who sing praises of the government night and day strut with their chests puffed out? And why is it that those who criticize the government should be faced with fears and doubts? Only because there is no faith left in institutions, is it not? Who knows which case one will be embroiled in, and then one will be forced to make the rounds of the courts for years. This is very easily done in India.

In Delhi, which is the centre of India’s power politics, the effect of suspicions and doubts has changed the way in which people have conversations. Some refrain from making photographs public on Facebook, while others don’t communicate on WhatsApp so that texts can’t be used as evidence. Whenever I meet people I come away with yet one more new code word whose only purpose is that the government should not find out in case it tries to snoop. This statement is becoming ever more common: ‘We should not talk about this on the phone.’ If politics transforms society to such an extent that it calls the dissenter a traitor, putting a barbed wire of intimidation between itself and citizens, then that is a form of violence too.

For those people in Delhi who are connected with governmental work, for those who assess and analyze the work of the government, cellphones—even the most expensive models—have become a source of great insecurity. They carry their phones upon their person but have no faith in them. Things have reached such a pass that when politicians from the ruling party call, the word ‘unknown’ flashes on the screen. Politicians, too, are very alert that no word of criticism should roll off their tongues.

‘That finger which is raised against him, that hand which is raised against him; we will come together to break that hand or, if necessary, to hack it off.’

These words emerged from the mouth of Nityanand Rai, the secretary of the Bihar unit of the BJP and a Member of Parliament, because it has now become normal to strike fear into people’s hearts. This is not the first statement of its kind in Indian politics. Nor is it the last. We will hear more of its kind in the future. All you can do is to don metal armour on your fingers—and on your neck because matters have now gone upwards, from cutting off fingers to hacking at necks.

During the controversy surrounding the release of the film Padmavati, now Padmavat, an official of the Haryana unit of the BJP, Surajpal, announced a reward of ten crore rupees to anyone who would bring him the heads of Deepika Padukone and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. A man from Meerut had earlier declared a reward of five crores, which Surajpal upped to ten, as if upgrading someone from economy class to business. In that same Meerut, in 2006, Yakub Qureishi of the Bahujan Samaj Party had announced a reward of eleven crores, which some media reports pegged at fifty-one crores, for the head of a cartoonist from Denmark. (I do hope there isn’t a bank in Meerut which gives out loans on EMIs for cutting off heads!) Back then such criminality was still abnormal. Now it is routine. On 12 April 2017, a politician from the BJP Yuva Morcha, Yogesh Varshney, declared that whoever brought him the head of the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee would be given eleven lakh rupees. It is a sign of the times that the amount sounds paltry. Could it be that the demonetization of November 2016 had an effect? Perhaps the man had run out of cash.

If you think that the threat to cut off a hand in response to speaking against the Prime Minister is an uncommon one, you should pay attention to one more statistic which I have collected from Google. Between 2014 and November 2017, more than forty people were either arrested or had cases slapped against them for criticizing Prime Minister Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath or sharing posts about them.

It isn’t easy to speak out against Power. Before you speak, you will have to choose between jail and amputation. Or a lynching. For mobs have no fear of the law.

There are many different kinds of mobs: One mob might set out on the issue of cow slaughter; another on the equally spurious issue of love jihad; yet another because a certain film was made. The social structures of different mobs are distinct in themselves, but they all have one thing in common: the cloak of religious fervor. The fear of these mobs is silencing many a young person who wants to speak about politics but is now staying away from Facebook altogether. This is how an atmosphere of silence is created. You don’t speak when you should.

The social sanction for speaking out is lessening. This isn’t happening only because of the fear of governments or the mob but also because devotion to religion has been strongly established in a large section of the citizenry. That devotion prepares the ground for the majority to remain silent. And because of that devotion, they are comfortable with the joke that is being made out of democracy in the name of their religion. More precisely, given the behavior and discourse of the present dispensation, one should call this devotion to the Hindu religion. The unfortunate thing is that this devotion is not born out of Hinduism’s capacious and generous traditions but out of the fear of a handful of goonda organizations. That citizen who is laid siege to by the fear generated by these organizations might believe himself to be, at least on paper, loyal to the Constitution, but his behaviour is contrary to everything that the Constitution stands for.

If Indian democracy is to be modernized, it is vital that devotion to the Constitution of the land be widely promoted. Blind devotion to any religion will always run down and deem inferior this devotion to the Constitution. Which is why, when the secretary of the Shri Rajput Karni Sena, Mahipal Singh Makrana, called out for the Kshatriya soldiers of the Indian Army to boycott food in their messes to protest against the film Padmavati, the common man did not understand what that implied and none of the political parties had the courage to unreservedly denounce this call. The Rajputs protesting the film could have registered their protest using Constitutional means. Instead, they were out on the streets, unleashing violence. What emboldened some of them so much that they could stone a bus full of school children? Why did the government and the opposition not unite to condemn them and ensure action against them? Why was there no public outcry? The majority population did not demand action. Was their devotion to Hinduism stopping them? Would they have stayed silent if people of a different faith had stoned a school bus? How has a shared religious identity come to mean this?

It is this blind religiosity that gives licence to the mob. The mob is greater even than the Constitution.

A powerful fear is created over maniacal debates on TV channels. Many news anchors swarm like fearsome attackers all over those who ask questions. The common viewer of TV channels sees this and starts losing confidence. He can see what becomes of those who raise questions. He feels that there is danger in standing apart from the mob. So he stays quiet, and by his silence he becomes a part of the mob. Fear has seeped into people’s consciousness.

This has had the greatest effect on the minority community. It has begun to keep out of every kind of debate. And the space which has been vacated by the community has been filled up by those maulanas, who do represent Muslims, but speak like those very majority institutions in whose communal agendas these maulanas are caught up. These maulanas have made Muslims even more insecure. To the extent that Muslim friends advise me that I should avoid platforms where issues related to their community are being debated. So this is the extent to which they have been made to feel politically irrelevant. Most Muslims now feel that if they were to take to the streets with their demands, the media will see only their beards or their sherwanis, and it will not talk about their issues. This is what the acceptance of one’s status as a second-class citizen means.

The status of second-class citizenry has fallen not just to the minority community, but also to people from the majority community. In this democracy of fear, religion is not the only determinant of minority status; the act of questioning the government too can transform you into a minority.

‘Ravish-ji, aren’t you afraid of speaking out?’ ‘How do you speak out in such an atmosphere?’ ‘Doesn’t your family forbid you?’ I have no substantial answers to these questions. What is it I am saying, after all, that I should be specially praised for it? I am only expressing the views of the people. Why should anyone feel that I possess an ore of courage within me which people can mine by repeatedly asking me how I do my job? Are people afraid?

Everyone who asks me these questions feels that Ravish will give a fitting reply: he will say that he drinks a glass of Bournvita before leaving home. Or that he offers a laddoo to Hanuman. I have no magical mantra as far as the act of speaking out is concerned. I know that Power will make my life such hell that it will be difficult for me to survive in my profession. There are many Hindi-language newspapers already which do not accept my articles. Before 2014, I would be irritated by constant phone calls from these same newspapers asking me to write for them.

What I say isn’t very brave in itself. Those who hear what I have to say are so terrified that my speaking out at all seems courageous. They ask how it is that I speak when they are rendered mute by fear. There are many who joke that Bihari people feel no fear. Which Bihari would not feel chuffed hearing good words about his home? But this is not a question about being Bihari. Marathis speak out, Bengalis do. Gujaratis speak out, too. And those who speak out in Gujarat have heard and seen much worse. I am not the only one doing the talking. Many other journalists are writing too. But now newspapers in their respective languages don’t publish what they write.

To speak out is not difficult. What is hard is to walk through the tunnel of fear before the act of talking. That fear is not always the fear of Power. One is scared of making mistakes. The fear of possible reactions to what one has to say also bothers one. The battle with fear begins once you have said what you wanted to. It is then you understand whether you have the courage to face that which you have said: when friends call, exhorting you to stay alert. To stay quiet. That times are bad. There might be just one call out of ten in which the caller might say, ‘It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry. Keep speaking.’ Most of the rest have faith neither in the institutions of the land nor in society. And everyone feels that the world doesn’t care at all.

Advice given by friends and family also creates fear within you. I was giving a speech at the Press Club after Gauri Lankesh was murdered. Many of the people present there were looking at me as they might have looked at Gauri. Their eyes were filled with a sense of warning. They put their hands on my shoulder as they left, as if to tell me, ‘You’re next.’ They were loading their fears on to me. Many viewers called me after they saw my speech at the Press Club. For a few days I kept walking about like a living corpse. Messages were arriving in my mobile phone inbox urging me to take care of myself. Get some security, they said, at least register an FIR with the police. Viewers who were watching me were very stressed. The IT Cell had performed its task of striking fear well.

That you live amidst such well-meaning advice is enough. In today’s time, we are giving our fears away to others. People are sharing their fears by becoming supporters of the government too. I frequently meet people who tell me, ‘Stop digging around Modi-ji’s foundations. Reform yourself.’ Is all this fear which surrounds us because of Modi-ji? Really? Will it go away if we stop being critical of Modi-ji? I don’t think so. The jinn is out of the bottle.

And what am I writing, or broadcasting in my programmes, that a supporter of the government should fear that some game of the establishment will be disrupted? I, at least, harbour no such illusion. All the rules which once governed the media are destroyed, after all. Ninety per cent of the media is filled with praise. Wherever there are critics, they are being attacked. They are called upon to be more than impartial. But those who break all rules of journalism to play in the lap of power know no definition of impartiality.

Just as an individual seeks a way to free himself from fear, an alive and conscious society wages war to emerge from its fears. If you live in fear of being killed, you aren’t really alive, even though you may be physically so. You can be sure that you are alive only when you speak out. He who cannot, misses out in life. So everyone should speak. It is very important also that we begin teaching our children to speak up and to speak out right from a young age and at home. Don’t stop them. We keep forbidding our children at home and, one day, the fear they feel spreads out of the home and into the world. Most of our fears are created and sustained in our homes, where we are taught to keep silent.

Ask yourself one question: Are you afraid of speaking out, of criticizing authority? Why are you afraid? Do you choose a system only to inflict fear upon yourself? Are you afraid of being killed or being isolated, of being alone? If you aren’t fearful of being killed, then also banish the fear that you will fall alone among your friends. You can risk at least this much. If you have friends whose devotion is to something you think to be wrong, tell them that. If you cannot speak up before friends, how will you ever stand before the government to criticize it? You will have to start practicing speaking up somewhere. Things aren’t so bad yet that no one can speak out.

If you are afraid of criticizing Prime Minister Modi, say whatever you want against the first prime minister, Nehru. What you say will not affect Nehru in any way and you will learn to stand before an institution such as the prime minister and ask questions. Just make sure that your questions are correct when you do ask them. Check your facts. Don’t allow hatred towards the person to seep into your questions. He who is in the dominating position of power decides the rules of morality. He might himself be immoral, but will request you to stick to principles of ethics and morality. That, too, is one of the conditions of speaking out, so keep gathering maximum points on morality. Stick to ethics at all times. Keep your life clean and uncluttered. And keep speaking out.