UPSC Jihad: Suresh Chavhanke of Sudarshan TV could never have cleared the UPSC

The BJP and the RSS have developed an ecosystem where it is clearly kosher to lie, harass, harangue, ridicule, lynch or otherwise target people or communities they do not like or detest. An entire community, that of Muslims, have been systematically targeted, lynched, cowed down and otherwise hounded over the past six years and still the bigots in the ecosystem have not managed to send them all to Pakistan or otherwise obliterate their existence.

I know from my conversations with many within this ecosystem that what galls them the most is the continuing economic prosperity of the people they hound. They have at one level largely targeted poor dairy farmers among Muslims who might have been transporting cattle but despite those brutal incidents, despite calls from within their community for them to give up dealing with cattle, the farmers have continued because there is little else they can do.

Moreover, whatever the bigotry that makes them the target of fascists, there are enough people who are not saffron supporters inextricably linked to these Muslim dairy farmers – like cattle breeders or traders, for example – whose livelihood depends on the sale of their cattle who make it possible for the targeted community to continue their operations under the radar and under their protection to frustrate the overall plans to annihilate the minority community altogether.

But it is when they target Muslim intellectuals that these fascists come up against real frustration. The Jamia Milia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University and Jawaharlal Nehru universities among others continue to function and turn out enough intelligent students capable of clearing top competitive exams in the country with flying colours, they get their doctorates, they top the civil services exams, they can take their places as equals among the country's best performers and they lack nothing in confidence and self-esteem to be able to challenge those who would condemn them to the margins of society.

So, it should not at all be surprising that one particular television channel, which even previously was known to be extremely communal, obscene and even borderline pornographic, should target the nation’s premier constitutional bodies like the Union Public Service Commission and describe the recruitments of Muslim candidates into the civil services as a 'bureaucracy jihad'.

After the ridiculous campaign of “love jihad” targeting mixed marriages among Hindu-Muslim couples failed, this time the bigots have gone too far. Responses however have been swift with the IPS association calling for condemnation of the show, which was to be aired last Friday and the Delhi High Court losing no time in staying the telecast of the incendiary programme.

Years ago, as a cub reporter, I had been driven to tears by a senior in the small-town newspaper where I was a trainee who faulted my every report including the grammar and syntax I used. When I asked to be informed better, I was accused of copying the style of a leading woman journalist of the time who, I might have told him, I had never read until then (though I made it a point to do so later).

Watching my flailing self-confidence, the editor took me out to coffee and informed me gently that if I wanted to avenge myself on the man who was routinely crabby with everybody because he was frustrated by his own lack of progress in his chosen profession, I had to strive to do better and surpass my own expectations. “Frustrate him with your superior achievements. Outshine him," he told me. “Don't give him any satisfaction by bursting into tears or running away from the field.”

I only half-understood the value of that advice then but today, I cannot help thinking that that is the best way to defeat rivals and tormentors – exceed everything they may want for themselves and do it without so much as reacting to their torment.

That is what these civil service candidates have now done and I cannot help but be delighted at the frustration of the bigots that has led them to such effrontery. However, I do hope such swift reactions as from the civil servants and the judiciary now becomes the norm rather than the exception as it has been so far.

It is essentially because the authorities failed to take prompt action against the offenders and in many instances various branches of the judiciary failed its citizens that the ecosystem has thrived and the bigots got away with their criminal acts.

Freedom of speech is a very important element of democracy but it cannot be an absolute right untramelled by concerns of law and order and social and communal harmony. Quite apart from casting aspersions at the UPSC and civil service this particular show was aimed at disturbing the equanimity of the candidates, making them feel like second class citizens and somehow reducing their achievements.

I recall Supriya Sule once telling me how her father Sharad Pawar had once pulled her up for speaking in familiar terms with a civil servant. “He was 15 years younger than me, so I used “tum" instead of 'aap". My father was furious. He said I could never have achieved at his age what the officer had. So, I had no right to reduce his self-esteem and achievements by not acknowledging them or not respecting them enough.”

Indeed. Our civil servants, Hindu or Muslim, Sikh or Christian or from any other community have exceptional minds and that is how they clear those exams. We have no right to reduce that achievement to some politically misplaced notion of a jihad. Least of all by people who may never have cleared even an ordinary college exam and have only bigotry to their names. And not even good journalism to speak of by the way.