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A teenager and the lynch mobs

By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal. Dated: 1/21/2017 11:08:55 PM

16 year old Zaira Wasim's public apology mocks at the inability of a collective society, cutting across political ideologies as well as ethnic and religious identities, to become mature enough to handle the success and achievements of a teenager. Her role in Bollywood's latest block-buster and the accolades of praise she has won should have made us collectively proud, whatever our identities - Kashmiris, Indians, South Asians, Hindus or Muslims. Instead, everybody found a reason to bring her down - either by openly opposing her or by claiming to support her but twisting the discourse to give vent to their own racial and political prejudices. Zaira Wasim's apology was a mirror many of us refuse to look into, lest we are shamed by our very existence - paled into insignificance not by her overnight success but by our inability to feel proud of what she has achieved, or at least accept her for what she is or what she chooses to do. So, the circus of treating her as a convenient punching bag goes on endlessly. It suits everyone - those fanatics who wish to invoke religion to delegitimise her right to act in a film and call it un-Islamic; those racists who demonise Islam comparing her 'liberated experience' with women in hijab; those who want to tar all Kashmiris in the same brush, branding them as intolerant; those who feel that she has let down Insha and other victims of brutality of Indian security forces; those who feel that her crime was meeting the chief minister as well as those who wish to rely on some loose gossip that she did not stand up for the national anthem.
With Zaira Wasim story, the discourse on Kashmir has reached a new low. It brings to surface the ugly reality of vocal lynch mobs participating in this shocking 'dangal' of milching this controversy aimed at converting her success into her victimhood. There is much that is wrong with how this story is panning out. First of all, trolls and abusive hate remarks against her are a simple case of unacceptable, shameful and condemnable intolerance and amount to psychological abuse and violence. Secondly, religion has been wrongly invoked to both abuse or patronize her from all sides. Neither is hijab a symbol of oppression, nor is her individual choice of acting in films a defiance of her personal faith. Thirdly, unnecessary mantle is being put on the shoulders of this young girl to own or reject her nationality as an Indian or a Kashmiri. While her role in the film in no way Indianises her any more than she wants to, some figment of imagination cannot be used for propping the discourse of her response to the national anthem. Similarly, neither does her acting in an Indian film dilute the political legitimacy of Kashmir dispute, nor does it enhance it any more. She cannot be held responsible for Insha's fate of being blinded by pellets, nor could her decision to stay away from films in any way have changed the fate of Insha or other victims of brutality. Could those senseless trolls explain their own contribution to ameliorate the condition of such children?
This unnecessary controversy is a far more perverse version of the way an all-girls band 'Pragash' was treated some years ago, forcing the girls to quit music. It is pointless hair splitting over whether the trolls against Pragash and now Zaira were reflection of popular opinion in Kashmir. That may not be the case. There is already an outpouring of support from many on the social media for Zaira. She is role model for some. She may not be for others who feel that as an individual, she has the right to do what she wants and should be left free from this sudden encroachment on her personal life. And, then there are many apologists, who feel she was misled by the chief minister who wanted to appropriate her success. Whether or not that is true, if meeting the chief minister is such a huge crime on the social scale for a 16 year old, then what about the many Kashmiris who voted in the last elections, those who must have campaigned for and with the present chief minister as well as those bureaucrats, officers and employees work under the government she heads? The selective targeting also shows the patriarchal nature of the discourse and the vulnerability of women and children. The ifs and buts that become appendages of support for her reek of biases that are communal, racial, political or gender insensitive; or all of these.
For apologists of Indian state, everything in Kashmir is seen from an ultra-nationalistic perspective. If people vote, it is seen as victory of democracy. If people go out shopping, it is normalcy. If youngsters go out of the state for jobs and better opportunities to other parts of the country, they have been mainstreamed. But that is only one end of the problem. At the other end a contrasting, but equally irrational discourse, of collaborator, conspiracy theories is propped up to build a sense of Kashmiri nationalism that forbids diversity of ideas, opinions and actions. It seeks to create a monolith through manufactured homogeneity about what Kashmiri aspirations are and what it means to be a Kashmiri. Any defiance from this prescribed outline invokes the imposition of 'collaborator' and 'conspiracy' theories.
Individuals are cannon fodder before this lynch mob, whatever their identity and affiliation. Women and girls are more vulnerable. This vulnerability mocks at the hollowness of the much celebrated slogans to promote girl child, about 'beti padhao, desh bachao' and South Asia's tradition of treating all children as "our own". In Zaira's story, we are all culpable collectively - for playing a more pro-active role in targeting her, for weaving up yarns of ultra-nationalistic nonsense in conjunction with our confused support for her or for our abject silences. We are culpable for our failure to protect her from this controversy that she does not deserve, from the hatred spewed against her or the hatred spewed against others by using her as a prop. How insecure are the respective sense of nationalisms that they must survive by destroying a teenager!