New Delhi: A host of eminent personalities on Saturday joined the debate on growing intolerance with music maestro Zubin Mehta speaking against “ostracising” writers and authors that would amount to cultural dictatorship while Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy said there is “considerable fear” among the minorities in India.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said tolerance and mutual respect was necessary and physical harm or verbal contempt for any particular group should not be allowed.
On his part, President Pranab Mukherjee yet again called for preserving the pluralistic character of the country as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said unity, peace and harmony is a first condition if India is to move forward and attain new heights of development.
The 79-year-old Mumbai-born music conductor, who lives abroad and has just concluded a multi-city concert performance in India, batted for complete freedom of expression for the writers and filmmakers saying it should be there in the world’s largest democracy.
“Our writers, our filmmakers do have a chance of speaking their minds. We should not ostracise them. Otherwise, we will become a dictatorship, a cultural dictatorship and that is inadmissible,” he said.
Mehta said: “If they write their opinion, they should not be ostracised by the government. There should be complete freedom of expression. We are the largest democracy in the world”. He also hoped that the government “invites them for discussions and speaks to them”.
Murthy expressed concerns that there is considerable fear in the minds of minority in India and wanted governments should bring back the sense of confidence in them.
“I am not a politician, I am not interested in politics, therefore, I don’t want to comment on that but the reality today is that there is considerable fear in the minds of minority in India,” he said. Murthy said there was also “considerable fear” in the minds of people of one region living in another region. Citing the Shiv Sena campaign against the South Indians living in Mumbai in 1960s, he said, “Today there is a lot of that worry. I get lots of emails, I get a lot of people talking to me even though I stay at home because of my leg”.
Murthy said, “the first priority of this government, or for that matter any government, both at the Central level and the state level, is to bring back the confidence, the energy, the enthusiasm, the trust in the minds of every Indian that this is our country, I have all the rights here, I am very safe here and therefore I will work towards the betterment of India”.
The RBI Governor used the occasion of his convocation address at the Delhi IIT to say tolerance and mutual respect was necessary to improve the environment for ideas and physical harm or verbal contempt for any particular group should not be allowed.
Asserting that India’s tradition of debate and an open spirit of enquiry is critical for economic growth, he said encouraging challenge to all authority and tradition would rule out anyone imposing a particular view or ideology because of power. (PTI)
