The Delhi High Court refused on March 18 to stay proceedings in a trial court against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi cabinet minister, Kapil Mishra, in a case relating to hate speech. The matter pertains to inflammatory social media posts by Mishra in the run-up to the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections.

A city court had refused to drop proceedings and quash the summons against Mishra for making objectionable statements. The judge had observed categorically that Mishra’s alleged remarks seemed to have been “a brazen attempt to promote enmity on the grounds of religion.”

The Delhi High Court dismissed Mishra’s argument that an adverse order would damage Mishra’s reputation, observing that it was possible that Mishra would be discharged and the continuation of the proceedings did not create prejudice. Let us recall the circumstances of the case.

Among the statements made by Mishra, one that was deemed to be offensive suggested that there was an India versus Pakistan match, referring to the elections. The proceedings followed from a first-information report filed against Mishra accusing him of breaching the Model Court of Conduct and infringing the Representation of the People Act.

Around the time Mishra made his inflammatory imputations, BJP leader Anurag Singh Thakur, then a union minister of state, too, made inflammatory statements in the form of leading the infamous ‘goli maro saalon ko’ (shoot them) chants.

He was rewarded with a promotion to the Union Cabinet. Parvesh Verma, then a BJP MP from Delhi, had also made inflammatory statements. Thakur is now out in the cold, but Mishra and Verma have both been rewarded with cabinet positions in the newly elected Delhi government.

While hailing the judiciary for laying down the law without making exceptions for a powerful public figure, we could reflect on the way the BJP functions. There is one view that the mainstream of the party is sane and responsible, which, while having a majoritarian ideology, is circumspect and measured in its public pronouncements.

It is only some irresponsible elements populating a so-called ‘radical fringe’ that indulge in inflammatory rhetoric, spewing venom at some sections of the populace. This understanding is incorrect. There is no division in the party between a responsible mainstream and a fringe composed of loose cannons.

Since the whole party is structured as a unit, and since certain people are encouraged to be venomous, the party does not act against them. As we have seen, they are rewarded instead. We have only to recall Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s divisive rhetoric on the campaign trail to comprehend that the entire party is inflammatorily sectarian. In this context, it is heartening to see the judiciary play a positive role in sanitising the public discourse.