Finding the weapon to fight hate

Last weeks headlines were dominated by standup Kunal Kamras 151 minute video questioning editor Arnab Goswami on an Indigo flight for the views propagated by his news channel accused of being rightwing and supporting action against those protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act CAA and National Register of Citizens NRCThe video which went viral and also led to other airlines putting Kamra on a nofly list albeit without following the rules laid down by the DGCA for such a ban has led to a conversation on how far were actions on both sides legitimate and more importantly how does one engage with opposing views in times like this Was Kamras heckling acceptable and if yes how he was different from themPritish Nandy media and television personality says The pilot of the plane in a letter to the airlines has said that nothing happened which warranted official reporting There has been no police complaint made by any passenger including the one he Kamra spoke to There has been no FIR filed with the police So what are you punishing Kunal Kamra for For criticising a media ownercumTV host about his political position in a public space Is that a crime And if it is indeed a crime was a probe ordered as per DGCA rules The maximum punishment if at all a punishment is warranted can be for 30 days In this case three airlines have taken Kamra off their fly list for six months and Air India indefinitely Is this reasonable Is this lawful Of course not The minister Hardeep Singh Puri aviation minister knows it is illegal which is why he has subsequently stated that rules should be broken at times Is that what a minister should be doing Breaking rules Are we going insanePritish Nandy and Maya MirchandaniMaya Mirchandani Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and professor of media studies at Ashoka University says that the universally accepted definition of counter speech is a crowdsourced response to a comment or an act of violence or incitementmdashideological or otherwisemdashand instead of responding with violence there needs to be a focus on is there a way that you can have a conversation by engaging with the other sideOn the Kamra episode she says that he decided to challenge somebody for their behaviour and views would have made it counter speech but the location and way it was done puts it in a grey area Counterspeech is not just asking someone a question or ascribing blame you have got to provide an alternative viewMirchandani wrote a paper on the issue for ORF published in 2018 titled Encouraging counterspeech by mapping the contours of hate speech on Facebook in India On whether society needs counter speech she says its more important now because those on the extreme views of any issue will be speaking in their own echo chambers and be unwilling to listen to another point of view However someone who is not necessarily a party to this will be able to weigh in as an objective bystander On social media this began as a move for deradicalising young potential recruits to radical violence networks and organisations You could not pull down posts because that violates freedom of speech so you get a number of people to engage in peaceful conversation That requires conviction Its not an issue that you have a role in but may have a stake in and theres a possibility of a backlash Incentivising counter speech is important For instance the third party would say that every religion preaches peace Its when people misrepresent it that it becomes problematicIts important also that counter speech graduates from the online space to offline For instance in the early days of the CAA protest students in Delhi offered the local police roses Thats saying we dont want to fight with you we want to talk to you Thats counter speech adds MirchandaniCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates