Quartz: Why are Indian liberals outraged over Muslims’ killing but not Hindus’ plight? It’s complicated

 Though they can lay the grounds for actual blood-letting, culture wars unfold through claims and counter-claims of injuries to the psyche. An aspect of this is the current criticism that goes by the name of “selective outrage.” The term is used to describe the situation where the so-called liberal citizenry engages in apparently self-serving public protests against some incidents while ignoring a number of others. [...]

But first, one must address the logic of the critique. Do protestors against the killing of Muslims deliberately downplay or ignore the killing of Dalits and Sikhs? And, do their reactions to the killing of Hindus (say, by Muslims) display partisan emotions because they fail to organise demonstrations and protests? Let us leave politicians out of the discussion, for their actions are motivated by the psychopathology of power. But what about the rest of us? Do we discriminate in our outrage? [...]

The question is deliberately simplistic and is intended to produce a black-and-white view of the world. The question assumes that all forms of actual or symbolic violence are exactly the same and require the same response. The accusation of selective outrage is intended to foreclose a serious examination of violence and any fundamental social critique of its multiple forms and causes. It stops us from thinking about actually existing social and political conditions and the conditions that make for violence. Censorship, of the kind faced by Nasrin is—as she herself has eloquently pointed out—also an issue of masculine power, and the killing of state security personnel is the tragedy of a state that is viewed as the enemy in many parts of the country. [...]

Second, the selective outrage argument produces pathologised personalities through presenting a picture of social life where extending empathy is always a competitive act: to be seen to protest against one kind of violence is to imagine that you condone another kind. Empathy becomes the shallow act of shoring up community feeling rather than stretching out across community boundaries. Shallowness of empathy is the classic trait of the psychopath. Empathy is translated into an act of political manipulation and fear-mongering. Empathy transforms into an instrument of producing gated mentalities and violence.

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