Thesis Format
Monograph
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
Media Studies
Supervisor
Grzyb, Amanda
2nd Supervisor
Compton, James
Joint Supervisor
Abstract
This dissertation examines the media representation of the lynching of Muslims in contemporary India in the context of cow protection laws. I begin with a historical overview of media representations of violence over cow slaughter to reveal the tension between Muslims and other communities, mainly Hindus, that existed in colonial India. I then turn to three contemporary case studies: the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in 2015, the lynching of Mazlum Ansari and Inayatullah Khan in 2016, and the lynching of Pehlu Khan in 2017. As a cause to mobilize Hindus for political reasons, “cow protection” has origins in 19th-century colonial India. With the rise in popularity of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in the political scene since the 1990s, it has gained new traction. The primary aim of the research is to extrapolate how mainstream English-language Indian newspapers – the Times of India, Hindustan Times, and Indian Express – construct the political subjectivity of Muslims through their representation of the violence. My analysis explores how these mainstream English-language newspapers mediate the stories of lynching violence and how they represent the Muslim voices in the hierarchy of sources in their coverage. I analyze the newspapers’ language and discursive practices using Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis methodology. I first analyze the texts to understand the agency and visibility of Muslims in the texts, and then I identify the themes that build the accompanying discourses. I suggest that the privileging and marginalization of these discourses and the agency and visibility of the dead, the injured, and the targeted Muslims form the basis of the construction of the political subjectivity of the Muslim population in India. My key findings suggest that the news coverage privileges the themes that dominate the communal discourse despite the variation in the socio-economic and political conditions of the deceased. Such a dominance of communal discourse reduces Muslims to two-dimensional victims based on their religio-political identity, diminishing the themes of resistance as equal citizens of the country.
Summary for Lay Audience
Media coverage of the recent cases of lynchings of Muslims in India, often in the name of “cow protection,” is central to understanding the perpetuation of communal identities in India. My research focuses on how three English-language newspapers covered lynchings by “cow vigilantes” in north India in three case studies between 2015 and 2017: Mohammed Akhlaq, a cattle trader whom villagers dragged out from his home near New Delhi and beat up on suspicion of eating beef; cattle trader Mazlum Ansari and a minor Inayatullah Khan, who villagers found hanging from a tree in Jharkhand; and Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer who vigilantes beat to death for transporting cattle near New Delhi. As a cause to mobilize Hindus for political reasons, “cow protection” has origins in 19th-century colonial India, and it resurfaced intermittently in independent India. However, with the rise in popularity of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since the 1990s, the ideology of cow protection has gained new traction. Several BJP-ruled states strengthened anti-cow slaughter laws. Cow protection also became an agenda in the political campaigns for the 2014 elections when the BJP came to power with a majority. The new spate of lynching of Muslims was first reported in 2015, marking a diversification of violence against Muslims from riots in colonial and independent India. The thesis examines the media representation of Muslims by focusing on the ways language is used in news articles. The key findings are that media coverage continues to see Muslims through the religio-political lens, limiting them to a communal identity and a victim identity; they are represented as passive citizens of India without political agency. My thesis is an attempt to understand the implications of language use in newspapers in the context of Hindu-Muslim violence and how it shapes Muslim political subjectivity.
Recommended Citation
Sahoo, Sananda, "Construction of Political Subjectivity: Media Representation of Muslims in Lynching Violence of India in Three Cases 2015-2017" (2024). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 10296.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/10296
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