By Poonam I Kaushish
Move over political jihadis, it’s the season of the cultural terrorist whereby the licence to allegedly distort becomes a ticket to jail. Underscoring today’s India where our polity use religion and caste to pander to their respective vote-banks and every view is considered an act of sedition. Their final act of patriotism!
Think. Barely, had India celebrated its 64th Republic Day that our secular and democratic credentials were trashed by three States Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. Raising the ante on Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution which grants a citizen the right to freedom of expression.
On three counts. One, the Rajasthan Government registered an FIR under the SC/ST Atrocities Act against famed sociologist Ashis Nandy for his controversial remarks on SC/ST corruption at the just-concluded Jaipur Literature Festival. Said he, “It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from OBCs and SCs and now increasingly the STs”. Trust livid Dalit icons BSP’s Mayawati and LJP’s Ram Vilas Paswan forcing Nandy to approach the Supreme Court which stayed his arrest. Two, Tamil Nadu banned noted actor-director Kamal Hasan’s 100 crore magna opus Viswaroopam which deals with the issue of terrorism on the fallacious that it would hurt the sentiments of ‘unknown’ Muslim groups and create a law and order problem. Surprisingly, the Chennai High Court’s division bench upheld the State Government’s petition. Notwithstanding, the film was cleared by the Censor Board and released in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. That too without creating a law and order problem.
A shocked Hasan who might lose his house has threatened to do another MF Husain and go into ‘self exile. “If Husain can do it Hasan can too”, said the emotional actor. Recall, the legendary painter was literally chased away from his homeland by right-wing Hindutva brigade, who took offence at his paintings on goddesses and his depiction of BharatMata,
This is not the end of political intolerance. West Bengal maverick Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee banned celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie from coming to Kolkata to promote a film based on his book ‘Midnight’s Children’, ostensibly, for security reasons. He flew back to London disgusted.
Undeniably, Nandy, Hasan and Rushdie indicate the narrow-minded climate of political discourse we live in wherein even relatively innocuous statements can be twisted and misrepresented to suit our ‘holy cows’ netas narrow ends, shore up their image and commitment to their constituencies.
Raising a moot point: Is India heading towards an era of intolerance and cultural terrorism? Is the polity afraid of the clash of ideas in our public life? Is it mere coincidence or a sign of an increasingly knee-jerk, reactionary country where one of the South’s most loved film icons is forced to go public to painstakingly reassert his secular identity? Or Nandy and Rushdie have to move court and leave.
The brutal fact is that India is in the grip of bigotry, narrow mindedness and cultural terror, that no historian or social scientist can honestly do his/her research objectively. Sadly, cultural terror is the latest facet of the dirty politics that our netagan have stooped to. Worse, they seem to be getting away with it without even soiling their hands.
Underscoring, that increasingly the leaders are talking more and more in banalities and platitudes where life is lived in the slim strip called the official and every joke, wit, satire, humour or defiance treated as a monster. Big deal if this makes public discourse impoverished and toothless.
Bringing things to such a pass whereby our netagan afflicted by the I, me myself syndrome seem to be only interested in grabbing headlines whenever they can. As far as individual freedom is concerned they couldn’t careless. It’s all about making the right pseudo-secular noises to humour their respective vote-banks, promote their self-interest by creating dissension among the aam aadmi resulting in making them rich and powerful. And India more conflict ridden deeply mired in hatred and violence specially vis-à-vis caste and religion. Alas, this is not the first time. Many films, books even cartoons have been banned, innumerable artists have faced taboo and forced out in a country which prides it self for being the birthplace of so many apostles of peace and non-violence —- Gandhi, Buddha and Mahavir. If one doesn’t like a film just collect a crowd and burn the theaters where it is shown. If you don’t like a novelist’s book get the Government to ban it or issue a fatwa against the author.
Only recently, Shah Rukh Khan was cornered for his views on what it is to be a Muslim in India and got caught in the crosshairs of an unseemly Indo-Pak spat post Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik that India provide security to him. Leading the heartthrob of millions to say he was a proud Indian
Remember an innocuous cartoonist Assem Trivedi was arrested for sedition by Mamata in Kolkata. Before him another of his tribe famed Shankar cartoons of Ambedkar in NCERT school books were posthumously removed. Notwithstanding if India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called sedition laws “objectionable and obnoxious”.
Where does India go from here? To another SRK storm, to more uncertainty for “Vishwaroopam”, more tension for Nandy? Whereby, celebrities and films are fast becoming soft targets with knee-jerk reactions taking over debates and calibrated decisions.
In this milieu can we trust our leaders? Conservative and fundamentalist Muslims can hate Nandy, Hasan and Rushdie. They can burn their effigies but we do not need self-appointed guardians to tell us what we can read, seeing a film, what we can wear, what we can eat or drink. We should be free to worship the way we want, to believe what we want, whom and how we should love. Clearly, the speed with which our tolerance is falling to fragile levels is scary. Forgetting that if an individual’s freedom is denied, then the freedom of a community will be trampled upon too. Our leaders must desist from using caste and creed as pedestals to stand on to be seen. The right of our intellectuals must be protected at all costs.
The message has to go out clearly that no community, caste or group can threaten violence, and if they do, they lose their democratic right to be heard. India could do without netas who distorts politics and in turn destroys democracy and laughter Will they heed? (INFA)