To claim that Munavar’s jokes, Disha’s toolkit, Kanhaiyya’s slogans, Umar’s speech, Sudha’s work, Varavara’s poems, or Prashant’s tweets incite riots or create disrespect for the court or the nation or whatever, is classic victim blaming. It reminds me of the abusive husband’s, “You are doing and saying things that are making me hit you even when I love you; you are responsible for this violence.” or religion’s, “God loves you, but is forced to punish you when you disobey His law.” or “Behead those that say our religion isn’t peaceful/tolerant.”
No, the maker of the joke or the cartoon or the tweet does not incite riots or instigate violence. Those that want to riot and be violent find it as a convenient excuse to do so.
It is indeed ironic to the point of ridiculousness that the argument for those that manhandle a comedian and drag him to the police station are allowed to claim that,
What he was about to say would have made me so angry that I would have destroyed public property and taken innocent lives. So, please lock HIM up.
That’s like an entitled man dragging a woman to the police station because she was wearing a dress that might have tempted him to assault her, or akin to a thief forcibly tying up a rich man and asking the police to divest him of his wealth lest he, the thief, be tempted to steal it all.
It sounds silly, but that is literally the argument that is being made. And accepted as judicially sound and logically valid. Not just by the media and the general public. But by courts of law. In India. In 2021.
