Having underplayed its condemnation to the Bangalore riots, the Congress party has once again proved that it has got addicted to a bad habit that is ruining its politics morally and numerically.
Trouble in Bangalore seems to have started from a scandalizing post against Prophet Mohammed by the nephew of a sitting Congress MLA in Karnataka. It is being said that the aggrieved group approached the police to register a case, but that wasn't accepted as the offender was influential. So, apparently, helplessness was what drove the group (aka mob) to the residence of the Congress MLA to register a protest. As there is no dearth to rabble rousing folks in any mob, the events took a violent turn, and the mob ended up damaging many houses and cars, in addition to the MLA's house. Further, the rioters even had the audacity to rampage a police station. At that stage, the police are said to have had little option but to resort to firing to bring the situation under control, an act that cost 3 lives.
There are indeed claims that a person in the mob had a prior rivalry with the MLA and that the riot was a planned and targeted assault on his behest. Let's discount that for now, and take the narration of the previous paragraph at face value, which is the most lenient view on the rioters. Even in that view, the riots were a horrible act of intolerance that needs to be condemned in an unambiguous and clear voice from all quarters. Well, although the MLA belonged to the Congress, a clear condemnation from the grand old party was dearly missed.
Unlike the twitter traffic during the usual violent flare-ups, most Congress Twitter handles were deafeningly silent during this riot. Also, even among those Congressmen who tweeted condemning the violence, all of them had hyphenated their posts with counter-narratives supported by pictures like the one where 'Muslims formed a human-chain to save a temple in their neighborhood'. Even if these posts were in good faith, its timing and the subsequent posturing of the party displayed a clear intention to take the sting out of their condemnations against the rioters. By choosing to be meek here, the Congress is not just giving up on its MLA's safety, but is also angering a segment of sane law-abiding apolitical Hindus who've been left to lurch for themselves in such riot like situations. One needs compassion to understand the trauma of the families whose lives were on the line during the mayhem and the Congress clearly chose to look the other side.
The next day, the MLAs nephew who posted on Facebook was arrested and some of the rioters were also taken into custody. When the Karnataka Congress President was questioned on this, his tone was largely focused on the post and notably soft on the rioters. In fact, the only other time a Karnataka Congress President would sound softer to vandals would be when the Cauvery issue burns. This kind of conduct naturally rises the question among common folks on whether the Facebook post was a graver offense than the riots? The post against the prophet might have been inappropriate and hurtful, but that doesn't negate the graveness of the violence. Those aggravated by the post should've ideally approached the court, or should have mooted a peaceful protest to press for executive action against the offender. These nuances apart, the simple question that Congress needs to ask itself is whether it would've adopted the same tone if the mob involved was a Hindu one?
As an organisation, Congress needs to inspire confidence among people that it would stand steadfastly against violence and bigotry of any form, irrespective of faith of the proponents. Further, Congress seems to make little differentiation in its approach towards the hardline rioters and the Muslim community at large (unlike how the party differentiates between Hindu hardliners and regular Hindus). By wearing a communal lens for electoral gains, the party refuses to openly decry the hardliners, and it also fails to integrate the larger Muslim community as neutral social contributors to its cause beyond religion. Its repeated failures in these aspects stems from its obsessive political arithmetic of treating Muslims as a single block of homogeneous voters. This attitude of treating them as a herd that can be won over by preferential treatment is not just very disrespectful to the Muslim community, but is also likely to polarize the electorate even further, which will consequently make life very difficult for ordinary Muslims who seek a peaceful living, but will also be counterproductive to its electoral game in the long run.
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