Shraddha Walker’s gruesome murder: The dismal consequences of Hindu reactions to a tragedy

Never has the poverty of imagination, heart, and intellect among modern Hindus using social media been as clear as in some of the reactions to the tragic news of the slaughter of a Hindu woman by her Muslim live-in companion in Delhi. This is not a casual or routine bit of news like a politician’s statement or stunt to merit any old reactions on social media to express amusement, wit, or even anger. This is, in the larger scheme of things, a moment of profound horror that took place not in some moviemaker’s imagination but in real life. Even considering the details should make us feel like turning to Hanuman and closing our eyes in surrender.

But it is the nature of our warped, media-saturated times that neither our senses nor minds will have the sanctity and privacy to consider the life of another with the perspective that decency demands we should. Our homes, or those of our neighbours, and our shared public waiting areas in offices, hotels, airports and train stations are probably filled with the shrill voices of television experts and even louder screeches of blood-red graphics and flashing slogans, and the grinning, unbearable, grotesque face of the murderer’s image. And of course, what happens in the intimacy of our lovingly hand-held, face-illuminating private devices is even more piercingly vile; in the dark, on the bed, or at the dining table, when we should be in a state of private peace, it is with the light of horror that we are covered, yet again.

In this phase of Kali Yuga, it is through our eyes that we have been truly enslaved, and poisoned. What is the karma of partaking in all this? Who will tell? Who will ever know? In the old days, the reading of a Garuda Purana after some ceremony served the dual purpose of scaring people into regulating their actions lest some torture get them in the afterlife. Now, science and the modern worldview has left us quite confident no such fear is necessary. We do not consider karma in any convincing way in our lives, certainly not when it comes to the use of social media, among other things.

It is in this spirit that I would like to question the widespread response among Hindus on social media to the tragedy of a Hindu woman’s suffering and death.

An issue that the world sees essentially as domestic violence, with, quite possibly, a systemic Hinduphobia angle (if that is persuasively argued), is instead being approached by some Hindus as it’s a vindication of their beliefs about women instead. This is an intellectual, moral, and of course, a strategic communication failure too.

Why is it that the reaction of so many people on Twitter to this has been to express sadistic “we told you so” sentiments about a Hindu woman’s murder rather than to pause and consider how best one can use one’s words, thoughts, and actions at this time?

Why is it that so many Hindu women, not just anti-Hindu “feminists” as one might dismiss them, are having to point out the obvious fact that it is shockingly cruel to indulge in victim-blaming at this time?

Is sneering amidst a tragedy going to convince one young modern woman that all the propaganda in Bollywood and mainstream media against Hindu men is not true?

To be fair, it is obvious that there is hurt and rage among Hindus venting on social media; perhaps out of personal rejection, or family tragedies, or growing helplessness that there is nothing out there really to protect a community weary after hundreds of years of violent targeting for extermination.

et, without the cultivation of restraint and good judgment in communication, the only thing cheap words accomplish are the conditioning of yet another Hindu victim for the unctuous charms of the next predator that hits on them.

It is through words that freedom is lost, and it is through words that freedom will be won again. Jihwagre, sarvam.

So, to help shape our relationship to words, memes, and communication technology a little better in this time of incessant propaganda (and real-life) war, I leave these words here before the eyes of readers in the hope that a better understanding, drawing from within ourself and our ancestral strengths, will prevail.

One, erect a firewall between reading and writing. The nature of social media today is to keep us reacting and responding. This makes for fast action and hashtag-based “narratives” to move quickly, but these waves come and go with little real gain being accrued for a community that has no other platforms but social media trends.

A tribe of monkeys that has no place to talk to each other except on Twitter and WhatsApp while rival tribes own, manage, and dominate every real-world space including schools, colleges, workplaces and entertainment industries in which the monkey tribes have to live the rest of their lives will not succeed in changing narratives or ensuring survival very much – unless it is very careful in how it uses these tools.

Imagine if Shivaji Maharaj’s soldiers got off the horse and kicked some pebbles around angrily every few steps instead of patiently completing the march to strategic heights and only then engaging in real combat. That’s exactly how Hindus stuck in social media patterns of behaviour look today. By rationing out how much we want to say, and allowing most of our reading to stay quietly and simmer into long-term ideas, we will grow as a communicative force, and we will stop weakening each other. More reading, less shouting.

Two, understand the difference between private and public communications (and of course, the fact that nothing might stay safe between them too). Almost everything you type into a screen today can be used against you someday. Yet, most of us seem oblivious to this reality as we live most of our waking lives making pitiful displays of our own selves to strangers on social media. It may be a reality that we cannot control how we are seen beyond a point. But there is a lot we can do to keep a line of sanity around us for the sake of not only our own credibility, but also those of our family and community.

If your children’s prospective employers do not like your social media profile, your children will have to choose between you and all you stand for, and their future. This is not a good situation to put anyone in, especially if you are a Hindu who believes in reverence for ancestors and intergenerational trusteeship (for lack of a better word). Do not use public communication platforms for venting. Save that for very private chats. Also, engage privately with people who do not exactly think like you but who are still your friends. They will give you a reality check too from time to time.

Three, understand that words are public currency, and in the busy marketplace for attention that is the internet, do not squander your energy and inner peace by throwing them around carelessly. A word might erupt from your fingers from a feeling of rage, disturbance, or dissatisfaction inside you about some very valid issue or reason, but if you have not stopped to consider the nature of words, how a word might look very different to someone who needs to be actually seized by it and educated by it, then your work has only gone waste, or worse, might even be counterproductive. For example, I cautioned several years ago that the phrase “Love Jihad” is a self-goal if the intention is to urge young Hindus to be consider cultural or civilizational differences carefully (to put it politely) before jumping into relationships with classmates, co-workers or casual acquaintances.

Unless you have been educating these youngsters in a forest far from the Kali Yuga, chances are that their belief systems based on their education, media use, and encounters with diversity in daily life, have already stacked them against your use of that word. You may feel like your use of this word is vindicated every time you see a “suitcase” or “fridge” meme on social media, but tragically, this will not help to warn anyone in the future, much less pierce the wall of distraction that has been built by billionaire media owners and lobby-donors to keep the focus away from such crimes.

Four, equip your children to walk away from the skewed game of identity politics carefully, and to recognise the enormous consequences of physical violence. Just as how violence has become meaningless for its perpetrators because of their fascination with crime shows, extremist religious ideologies, or some other cultural influences, it has also become a source of casual indifference for society as a whole today. At one level, it may be desensitisation, an overcoming of natural reactions of revulsion to images of injury and death because of oversaturation in the media.

At another level, it is the result of a calculated propaganda campaign supported by Western liberals and their right-wing heroes in identity politics; I wrote about this first in Huffpost in the wake of US reactions to the UK Ariana Grande concert bombing a few years ago. After twenty or thirty years of school and college propaganda, a whole generation has grown up to think of violence as less evil than “social inequality” based on establishment definitions of identity and privilege. A rude word about a protected identity can be seen by them as more “violent” than an actual massacre by someone of that identity. This is the social and political reality today, and pretending it doesn’t matter is of no help to those younger than us who will have to survive this longer than we have to.

Now, let us consider again in the light of these four communication dimensions the consequences of the ways in which some Hindus have reacted to the unfolding horror stories about violence against Hindu women. A lot of social media responses about the tragedy of Shraddha Walkar have simply been about venting, not about forming an analysis, opinion, or shared emotional experience. Worse, this venting has not understood the public nature of social media and the fact that many neutral, unconvinced observers, especially among the young, are watching every word angry Hindus utter. These words, simply, do not show an effort to win them back, or show them a reality they may be worried about, but have no one to really communicate to them effectively (and patiently).

Finally, the “framing” of this tragedy has also been done in a way that will not allow a balanced consideration of Hinduphobia or anti-Hindu violence to emerge in the minds of the young. Hindus on social media would have done well to acknowledge that domestic violence is a real, universal problem, and then consider the anti-Hindu elements of this tragedy in that context. Instead, they attempted a rather tenuous, distasteful framing of their own, which unfortunately only resonates on the fringes of the internet and not in mainstream society, which is what most young Hindus ultimately want to fit into.

I hope readers will consider these perspectives, and the huge role that lies before all of us if we want to make our world safer to Hindu children, and especially women, in the future. So far, Hindus have only been characters in stories produced by other, more powerful and domineering collectives, while the converse is simply nowhere close to happening. Caricatures in rants are not a match in scale or effectiveness against professionally-produced discourses about Hindutva patriarchy and Brahminical violence which flow up and down the halls of every institution that has power over your children’s futures.

Whatever happens in reality — suitcases, fridges, rooftops — does not matter to those who wield such discourses and they will continue to deploy them against truth itself. But those of us who believe that truth exists, and it is the truth of our pain at the suffering of women like Shraddha that motivates us to put our breath and thoughts into words, must not fall anymore for the traps that have been laid for us by our enemies, outer or inner.

Jihvaagre Vartate Lakshmi Jihvaagre Mitra Baandhavaha Jihvaagre Bandhanam Praapti Jihvaagre Maranam Dhruvam

As sung by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba:

The writer is Professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco. He has authored several books, including  ‘Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence’ (Westland, 2015). Views expressed are personal.

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