Author: Swati Maheshwari
Publication: NDTV.com
Date: August 10, 2007
URL: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070022229&ch=8/11/2007%201:12:00%20AM
The attack on exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima
Nasreen has exposed deep-rooted hypocrisy with regard to fundamentalist protests
against creative freedom in India.
Political condemnation has been not as vocal
against the Muslim political party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's (MIM) attack
on Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen.
Though she stays in exile from her country
in Kolkata, even the Left government had banned one of her books.
Fundamentalism at its worst, ironically elected
representatives of India's democracy saying they may be MLAs but are Muslims
first.
Three months ago a fine arts student in Baroda
was jailed and his works vandalized by Sangh Parivar activists for painting
what they saw as blasphemous images of Hindu deities.
But here's the difference, the Baroda incident
led a nation wide outpouring of outrage at this moral policing by Hindu fundamentalists,
as busloads of human rights activists and celebrities converged at the MS
University in Baroda to support the student.
In Taslima's case the activists are either
yet to mobilise support for the beleaguered writer and protest against similar
attempts at censorship by Muslim activists or don't feel as strongly as they
did for the Baroda student.
Brazenly unapologetic
A day after the MIM an ally of the UPA has
been brazenly unapologetic about its attack and the MLAs have been let out
on bail in what seems to be tacit support of the state government.
The Congress has been guarded in its reaction
uncertain about how strongly they should condemn the act.
''Writers have other subjects to write. Why
just religion?'' asked Ghulam Nabi Azad, Chief Minister, Jammu & Kashmir.
And the Samajwadi party has gone a step further
saying the MLAs were right, not surprising in a party where a minister announced
a Rs 50 crore fatwa against a Danish cartoonist for allegedly blasphemous
cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.
''I will ask the government to get her visa
revoked. She should be thrown out of the country,'' said Shahid Aqla, Samajwadi
Party.
Many would see this as political doublespeak
on issues of freedom of speech and expression but perhaps no one understands
the need to clamp down on Muslim radicals better than the Muslim community
itself.
''Those who think that their action is justified
because she vilified Islam have actually done more harm,'' said Shabana Azmi,
actor.
Action against perpetrators of such attacks
would perhaps set the record straight about secularism, not just lip service
to it.
