It is time the silent amongst us, speak up

The antidote to fear is not silence, it is creating communities where we share fears and hopes together

A Fearless Collective mural in progress. London, May 2024.

Last month, a cousin who was visiting me from Delhi, showed me a picture of a “Jai Sree Ram” poster that was placed on an electricity pole opposite her house. My cousin lives in a gated, well-to-do neighbourhood in the country’s capital, and so for her, it was shocking to see such blatant display of right-wing politics within her neighbourly sanctum.

“Everyone in the neighbourhood knows my child, which school he attends and which van comes to pick him up. I don’t want to make myself or my family vulnerable by speaking up,” she said. Later, as election results rolled in and it was clear that BJP would be forced to form a coalition, the same cousin shared a quote by by veteran journalist Ravish Kumar, on her Instagram stories, a departure from her long held choice of not talking politics on social media.

While the election results have given many people a much-needed relief from the choke-hold of a fascist ideology, for many of us who come from relative privileged settings within our communities, staying silent cannot be an option anymore. In the weeks following the election results, beef lynchings and house bulldozing have continued, which shows that unless all of us speak up and play our part in calling out the hate, we are helping those trying to constantly silence us.

Staying silent or ‘apolitical’ does not guarantee safety, rather offers proximity to it but for a brief moment. It is a tool of oppressive structures that convinces one of our ‘powerlessness’.