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NEW DELHI — Anmol Pritam, a journalist at National Dastak, said that even as a mob was jostling him, and yelling at him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram,’ he felt that he could handle the crowd, until he saw a much larger man looming over him.
“This man said, ‘Dahi jum rahee hai tere moonh mai? Toh Jai Shri Ram bol de,” Pritam recalled. (Has curd set in your mouth? Otherwise say Jai Shri Ram). “It was then that I felt like the situation was about to go out of control.”
This man has now been seen by thousands of people, as a video of Pritam resisting a right wing mob at an event in Jantar Mantar, Delhi, on 8 August, went viral on social media on 9 August.
A second video from Jantar Mantar that went viral, showed the mob raising violent, abusive and derogatory slogans against Indian Muslims.
“Say Jai Shri Ram, say Jai Shri Ram, say it,” a second man shouted in the video with the mob surrounding Pritham.
“Either you leave, but if you want to stay here (India), you will have to say it,” a third man said.
“Listen to me, if I feel like it, I will say it, but you people can’t force me to say it,” said Pritam, clasping his microphone and wagging his finger.
“‘If so many people surround me and tell me to say Jai Shri Ram, I won’t do it,’” he said, making his way away from the mob.
Pritam, who hails from a farming family from a village in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, told us that he believes that it was his “privilege” that saved him from the mob at Jantar Mantar on Sunday.
“You could say that I am privileged. I had a mic id and a cameraperson with me,” he said, referring to his microphone bearing the name of his news outlet. “If I didn’t have a mic and a cameraperson then I don’t know what would have happened. Perhaps, we may not have been having this conversation.”
National Dastak, Pritam’s news outlet, covers marginalised communities and has a history of covering Dalit and adivasi issues.
Pritam told us that when the “large man” came barreling towards him, he wavered for a few seconds about whether he should chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ just to save himself from getting thrashed.
Amid the din of the communal slogans, the shouting and jostling, and his desperation to extract himself from a dangerous situation, Pritam said that he had a tsunami of thoughts and a moment of clarity.
“I thought if I don’t say it and they beat me up, they will break a few bones, and I will be bedridden for one or two months. I thought if they beat me a lot, I will be bedridden for three or four months. I then thought, if I say it, I will not be able to live with the fact that I surrendered before these hate mongers.”
“I knew that the wounds from a beating would fill up, but the wounds from compromising your principles never fill up,” he said. “I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. I did not want to sell my soul.”
I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. I did not want to sell my soul.
In the capital
Ashwini Upadhyay, a lawyer and former spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told us that he had organised an event, calling for an end to colonial-era laws on 8 August at Jantar Mantar, but he did not know the people who had surrounded Pritam, forcing him to chant Jai Shri Ram, or raise violent, abusive and derogatory slogans against Indian Muslims.
Upadhyay is famous for filing dozens of PILs (Public Interest Litigation) petitions. Upadhyay has challenged the Places of Worship Act,1991, which freezes the religious character of places as it existed on 15 August, 1947, and moved the Supreme Court for the deportation of “illegal” Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. The lawyer, who had been promoting the August 8 “Bharat jodo” event on social media, said that he had left the venue by noon, as the crowd started swelling up, and that he too had registered a complaint with the Delhi Police, asking them to check whether the videos with the anti-Muslim slogans were real, and to arrest the culprits if they are.
Journalists who were at the rally told us that there was an overtly communal tone to the event. While the organisers were calling for a Uniform Civil Code, a population control law, and “swadeshi” laws that are in line with Hindu traditions, there were groups of people speaking ill of the Muslim community.
There were pamphlets with the title, “Islam ka vinaash” (end of Islam) at the venue. Children were also present.
Reporters who were at the rally also said that there were policemen present at the rally site.
The faces of the people raising anti-Muslim slogans, and those encircling Pritam, can be seen in the videos circulating on social media.
The Delhi Police has registered an FIR against unknown persons for promoting enmity between different groups and violating Covid-19 guidelines for gathering at public places. It is unclear whether Delhi Police had granted permission for Upadhyay’s event. The Delhi Police told The Indian Express that they had refused permission for the event, but an unnamed senior police official told the news outlet that arrangements had been made for a gathering of 50 people.
We have reached out to the Delhi Police.
In April, the Delhi Police registered an FIR against Mahant of Dasna Devi Temple Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati for his hate speech against the Muslim community. The National Commission For Women (NCW) has written to the Uttar Pradesh Police, asking them to register an FIR for his derogatory and communal remarks targeting women.
Last week, slogans of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ were raised by people protesting against the building of a Haj House for Muslim pilgrims in Dwarka Sector 22.
Alishan Jaffrey, a journalist who tracks hate crimes, says that there have been at least three instances in which right wing groups have targeted the Muslim community in Delhi since June — Uttam Nagar, Dwarka, and Jantar Mantar — with a similar pattern.
Pritam said that the anti-Muslim slogans were the first thing that he saw in the TV footage captured by the cameraperson from National Dastak, who went with him to the Jantar Mantar event on 8 August. They had reached the venue at around two in the afternoon.
Even though he was used to hearing all manner of things at the rallies and protests that he covers, Pritam said that he was stunned by the violent slogans raised in the heart of the national capital.
“This is very very dangerous. I could not believe what I was hearing. I had never heard this before. I knew that this was different,” he said.
The video clip that he shared on his Twitter timeline, Pritam said, was only the last minute of an ordeal that he said had lasted around 10 to 15 minutes.
What had really ticked the mob off, Pritam said, was when he asked why they were raising issues about archaic laws and the deportation of Rohingya Muslim refugees, when India was stricken by unemployment, and the state still had to dole out free food grain to the country’s poorest.
The angry mob told him that he worked for a “’jihadi channel,’” he said.
After he had managed to extricate himself from the mob, a few people kept following him, and listened to what he said when he gave his PtoC (Piece to Camera). “I just said everything that had happened in the PtoC,” he said.
This is very very dangerous. I could not believe what I was hearing.
A journalist
Following his graduation from Delhi University last year, Pritam said that he worked for a few Hindi-language web portals, before joining National Dastak, where he files ground reports.
“I have covered large crowds before. I can handle crowds, but the situation on Sunday was getting violent,” he said. “I was afraid that I would not be able to control it.”
Growing up in Gorakhpur, Pritam had planned to pursue engineering, but he said that his heart was always in journalism.
Pritam believes that television news in India amplifies the voice of the powerful, and he wants to raise the voice of the poor and underprivileged through his reporting.
“There is an instinct that draws you to journalism,” he said.
There is an instinct that draws you to journalism.
This story first appeared on indiaaheadnews.com