In the recent past, there have been several incidents of community-based hatred that made news. An Ola driver refused to go to a Muslim area, a Hindu customer particularly asked Airtel for a Hindu customer care representative to address her concern and an inter-faith couple was moral policed by a passport officer. Interestingly, all these incidents happened within a span of five days. It is essential to note that while we are constantly evolving in technology we are using it to spread regressive ideas and hate. A major question to address is, who is to be blamed.  Who is responsible for these incidents of hate? Is it the government, the people, the organisations or social media trolls?

Before we can try to find an answer to these questions, let us take a close look at the three incidents separately as and when they occurred.

Incident One: Ola Driver Refuses to Go to Jamia Nagar in Delhi

After celebrating Eid, on June 17, a journalist named Asad Ashraf took an Ola cab in Delhi to go to Jamia Nagar. The driver allegedly threatened Ashraf and asked him to leave the cab as he was not ready to go to a Muslim area. Ashraf later shared his experience on Facebook and alleged that both the police and Ola’s customer service didn’t help him.

Ola later apologised to Ashraf on Twitter and assured that they have fired the driver.

Not long ago, Abhishek Mishra, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activist, cancelled an Ola ride because he got a Muslim cab driver. Ola condemned Mishra and urged for respecting every community and religion.

Incident Two: Airtel Allegedly Gives In to Customer’s Religion-Based Prejudice

On June 18, an Airtel DTH customer Pooja Singh, raised a complaint on Twitter. A (Muslim) customer care executive named Shoaib responded to her tweet. Singh then asked for a Hindu representative saying she doubted Shoaib’s work ethics.

Later, an executive named Gaganjot responded to the query. Social media users soon took notice of the incident and criticized Airtel for giving in to the customer’s prejudiced demand.

Airtel issued a statement saying it was not intentional. They clarified that Gaganjot only responded on behalf of his colleague as a standard process they follow, to make sure every customer query is solved in the shortest possible time.

Incident Three: Passport Officer Moral Polices an Inter-Faith Couple 

On June 20, a woman named Tanvi Seth tweeted to external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, complaining about an experience at the passport office. Seth with her husband Anas Sidiqui, faced an incident of moral policing at the local passport office in Lucknow. Passport officer Vikas Mishra, allegedly denied making her a passport because she married a Muslim man but didn’t change her name.

Sushma Swaraj hasn't responded to the tweet yet. But the passport office has issued a statement clarifying that they have completed the investigation and transferred Vikas Mishra. Mishra has also spoken out and clarified his stance.

Now that we have told you about the three incidents in detail, let's address the initial question -- Who is to be blamed?

Media? 

As the fourth pillar of democracy, it is essential that the media maintains an unbiased approach, even though some media houses do take sides. For each such incident, the media is divided. They evidently extend support or condemn to particular incidents according to the ideologies they adhere to. The media’s constant commentary on such incidents only fans the sentiments of people, creating a deeper divide among them and enticing more hate and prejudice.

Trolls?

Many such incidents unfold on the social media. For online trolls, it has become very easy to take these opportunities and spread hatred. For instance, in Pooja Singh’s case, her discrimination wasn’t justified. Though, social media trolls took the opportunity and further worsened it. Singh has constantly been attacked and abused at  by trolls and addressed with the most horrible words.

Government?

Tajinder Singh Bagga, spokesperson of Delhi BJP, is one of the followers of Pooja Singh, whose timeline is full of posts against a particular community, Abhishek Mishra is a VHP activist; and uncharacteristically, Sushma Swaraj hasn't responded to the tweet yet. The central government’s implied support and silence over such incidents of hate can be unhealthy to our democratic fabric.

Services?

Ola and Airtel as companies cannot be blamed for what one of their individual employee represents, but can that be a ground for them to shrug off the responsibility from their shoulders? In their basic training to employees, the companies can work on improving the responsiveness of their customer care and establishing strict set of work ethics so as to avoid such events from happening. Also, a government service like the passport office needs to  serve all citizens of the country without prejudice.

Citizens?

Can actions like firing the Ola driver ensure a change in his thoughts? His prejudice will remain but in his next job he may not open about them. Rather than taking the easier actions of firing, transferring, suspending, we can establish better educative methods for parties involved in such cases as a a whole.

If only all of us take our duties more seriously and logically we can avoid the frequency of such incidents being so high. It is easy to play the blame game and pass on the baton of responsibility on each other. But to dig within and look where we go wrong as citizens can actually be better. Change the question, rather than asking who is to be blamed. Let's instead ask how am I at fault? and work on it.

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 21, 2018 04:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).