Author: Tarun Vijay
Publication: The Times of India
Date: March 19, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2881678,flstry-1.cms
The most effectual means of preventing [the
perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable,
the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge
of those facts which history exhibits.
-- Thomas Jefferson.
Gradually an unprecedented streak undoing
the constitutional spirit through executive orders is gaining ground in the
corridors of power for the sake of immediate populism and political gain.
This is not only against the egalitarian norms of inclusiveness and accommodation
but is leading dangerously to further and bitter fragmentation of polity.
This is also supported (as a unintentional
result) by peoples' inertia in asserting their rights and pushing for corrections
in government policies. Except for the sponsored and hired crowds, there is
hardly a visible spontaneous demonstration on issues affecting civil life.
More than 17,000 farmers committed suicide in 2006 alone, but not a single
district, leave aside a state showed its anger through any bandh or silent
procession. Lethargy on the civil front is a sign of an imminent upheaval
that erupts with a suddenness of a pouncing tiger. People feel hopeless and
cheated; hence nothing shakes them or excites to rise and say a big no to
the masters of the power games.
They used to do it; India has seen unprecedented
movements and agitations in the past that authored a new course of public
action and constitutional behavior changing the colour of politics forever.
We had mass leaders in political as well as
non-political realms enjoying the peoples' unflinching trust. Now the "fast
food" culture in the public domain has devoured the element of trust
and mutual respect. The language spoken from public platforms has gone down
and the credibility of mass organisations in the public eye was never this
low. It's impossible for any organisation to appeal for a single important
issue that touches their hearts and have a crowd of thousands gathering on
its own. It was not so in the Sixties and even in the Seventies. Till the
Eighties, bandhs and strikes were spontaneous signs of public dismay and disapproval.
Remember the time of Punjab terrorism. Not any longer.
It's because the governance has become insensitive
to the public sensibilities and more of a tool to satisfy petty goals and
achieve localised ambitions. The pan-Indian outlook is diminishing not only
from the political corridors but also from the media houses. Both had been
pillars of a wholesome idea called India. Now Bulandshahar, Kochi, Guwahati
and Rajkot have become more significant to the news coverage needs and concerns
of the movers and shakers because localized sentiments - fashionably interpreted
as 'niche markets' bring more votes, money, increased circulation and give
a ticket to govern. We have swapped India with ghettoes of our goals miniaturizing
the republic's principal nature and cohesiveness. This wholesome idea is quintessentially
constructed by an active participation by its constituents. That very element
of participation has become invisible.
Maybe it has gone into a shell of disgust
and disillusionment suspecting every single public person's credibility. Hence
people select their own programmes to see a more credible leader from among
them, a more enjoyable and amenable character to admire and trust. It's like
avoiding a direct conflict out of utter disregard before the final hour arrives
when a credible leader would emerge to offer a window to accumulated angst
of the masses.
We celebrate Republic Day, but the contemporary
scene of the republic says it all. All the power and money is centralized
in the hands of a chosen few - not more than a hundred people controlling
the fate of a thousand million commoners called praja !
Taslima Nasreen's agony, a shrinking Hindu
population and a geographically shrunk India post-1947, the majority being
snubbed for being assertive over its civilisational icons, patriots living
as refugees and loans, jobs and educational opportunities being doled out
on religious criteria - all this is un-republican . A Hindu-Muslim divide
is the prerequisite for any secular polity thriving on fragmented minds. If
I write anything that affects Hindu sensibilities, it must be construed as
'anti-Muslim' and against minorities without even reading the text!
Indian masses are feeling and sharing the
agony of Sarabjit Singh, but not the secular state power which takes pride
in entertaining the "pardon Afzal Guru" crowd and losing sleep over
Dr Haneef.
The one big step this mighty government of
India took from the colonial age precincts of South Block was to request the
visiting French President not to honour Taslima on Indian soil.
From the day she wrote Lajja , a wonderfully
moving novel on assaults on Hindus in Bangladesh by Islamic fundamentalists,
Taslima has become an eyesore to the "secular brigade" and intolerant
Muslims. So, anything was used as a tool to harass her in a world largely
dominated by men.
The way a state government refused to ensure
her security in Kolkata has raised fundamental questions about the state's
credentials. This doesn't reflect a republic's ethos. Even Nehru didn't blink
before China's serious protests and gave asylum to Dalai Lama and his followers.
But these "seculars" of the Left variety who had been agitating
on issues like allowing an Israeli satellite to be launched from Indian soil,
just to please the Muslim votebank, even if it means compromising with our
security with Israel being one of our most trustworthy allies, have shamed
the spirit of the republic by standing against a woman writer and organising
a brutal dance of death in Nandigram. The ouster of Taslima is a blot on a
polity of a society that is otherwise symbolised by the icon of Shakti, the
female annihilator of the wicked and restorer of righteousness. That in the
land of Shakti, the wicked should be seen winning is a gift of Marx.
Those who were determined to see a woman writer
ousted from West Bengal and have her visa canceled for fear of hoodlums and
murderers remain silent on the Uttar Pradesh blasts and jihadi assaults on
Kashmiri Hindus. They gleefully participated in a ceremony held at Jamia Milia
Islamia to honour M F Husain, a painter with a Doctor of Philosophy degree
known for selectively painting nudes of Hindu goddesses. This is how politics
of secular jihad flourishes. Taslima stands abandoned by all - candlelight
demos in her support remain fashionably limited to having their protest registered
for the sake of record.
A woman so brave and courageous that she took
on hypocritical pen pushers and Mullahs is running helter-skelter amid a thousand
million citizens of a democratic republic that boasts of a 5,000-year-old
civilisation. None of the secular bravehearts stood up to say 'Come what may,
whether the central government fails in its duty or the Communists in Bengal
go in hiding on her safety issue, I shall protect her in India, the land of
free thought and Vedic wisdom which gave shelter to all the persecuted in
the world from Jews and Parsees to the Tibetans'.
For her outspokenness, the nation's Islamic
religious leaders issued a fatwa against Taslima, putting a price on her head.
Taslima had to flee from Bangladesh and took refuge in Sweden continuing "to
rail against the forces of oppression despite attempts to silence her".
Thus wrote Mathew Kelley in the script of a 27-minute film made on her life
and struggles. Another 23-minute film produced by Journeyman Pictures depicts
her as a woman writer who has called for more freedom for the women of Bangladesh
and consequently had a fatwa issued for her arrest and/or death. Taslima received
the Sakharov award from the European Parliament and even West Bengal's Left
Front government presented her the Ananda award before Muslims objected to
her writings.
You have to be very special while dealing
with issues concerning Muslims. It raises inconvenient questions too. Inconvenient
to the "seculars", human rightists, peacemakers and "uncompromising"
voices of freedom and equal opportunities and those who "fight"
dark forces of obscurantism and oppression, particularly injustices against
women.
Question no. one - Would Taslima have been
hounded out from West Bengal if she had written against Hindu "communalism"
and the atrocities they "perpetrate against minorities", exactly
in the same fashion which has become a signature tune for the Left and secular
groups? If Taslima had joined their ranks and agitated against Hindu "lumpens"
would she not have been awarded fellowships by Delhi and Kolkata?
Question no. two - Would the Left intellectuals
and leaders have kept their conscience at the mercy of jihadi "headhunters"
if Taslima was a man? A masculine gender showing off "his" bravado
at press conferences and giving a slap for a slap if jihadi "bravehearts",
all men of course, are assaulted in full glare of press cameras and reporters
(like happened last year in Hyderabad)? Is being a woman and on top of that
a writer, exposing Islamic fundamentalism and atrocities against Hindu women,
such a criminal act that Taslima had to be hounded from Kolkata to Jaipur
and Jaipur to Delhi and Delhi to nowhere?
Question no three - Wouldn't Taslima have
been considered for a Padma award or a Nehru Memorial Lecture for "communal
harmony and international understanding" if she had chosen to lambast
the Hindu right and bow her head before the mullahs? Why is that the first
requisite to get recognition and comfort in a secular regime?
Faith must be en element to enhance love and
tolerance. But if it becomes a principal instrument to hate and divide, there
must be something fundamentally wrong with it. Try to revisit it with an inquiring
mind. We can't say that issues involving our nation are none of our business.
It's OUR nation. We have got to take ownership and say no to everything that
goes against our grain. Peoples' inaction is a dangerous signal. Maybe a storm
is accumulating and waiting to erupt unannounced.
The author is the Director, Dr Syamaprasad
Mookerjee Research Foundation.
