Last Tuesday, on January 24, 2012 at the Jaipur Literary Festival,
Booker Award winner Salman Rushdie’s interview via video link from London
was cancelled.
This happened after he was forced to not attend the literature
festival in person following reports of threats to his life in India.
The whole controversy erupted because of a book “The Satanic Verses”
he penned in 1988. The book allegedly carries some indecent and highly
objectionable references to the world’s second largest religion.
The book was banned more than two decades ago.
As soon as the book was released, its import to India was banned by
the then Rajiv Gandhi government. In fact India was the first country
to ban the book. After that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini issued a Fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. Even then only
12 countries banned the book. Surprisingly, none of the Middle-East
countries where the religion was born figures on this list.
Although Khomeini died in 1989, the fatwa on Mr. Rushdie is still valid.
Never mind, despite all this, the celebrated author continued to come
to India and in fact participated in the same Jaipur Literary Festival
in 2007 without causing a flutter.
Question arises, why then, his visit this time became such a burning issue?
Experts cite two reasons for this hoopla: a) The JLF’s popularity has
grown manifolds as in only five years it has become Asia’s largest
literary festival and the organizers publicized Rushdie’s visit as a
major attraction.
b) Elections in Uttar Pradesh. India’s most populated state with most
number of Muslim voters.
Bang come the answers - Petty vote-bank politics and increasing
influence of some fanatics from the two prominent religions in our
country.
Oh democracy ! This is not what our leaders had envisioned when writing
the Constitution. Certainly the term vote-bank or minority votes would
not have crept into their mind. Otherwise, why would they make India a
secular and republic state?
Such a sorry state of affairs 64 years after we became ‘independent’
In our country, the best way to get the voters by your side is to arouse their
religious sentiments, with a sense of vulnerability if they belong to minority communities. Unfortunately, this is precisely the election strategy of every political
party in our democracy, the world’s largest.
Doesn’t matter, if doing so, might cost some or many lives?
The Salman Rushdie drama has become a flashpoint. Disturbingly, this
is not the first time something like this has happened. Such incidents
are happening far too often.
One day there is an MF Hussain or a Tasleema Nasreen, the other day it’s a movie allegedly depicting a certain community poorly. The Symbiosis University's capitulation to some fanatics to abort the seminar on Kashmir reflects how spineless our institutes and government have become.
Amidst this all, the prime concern is how easily one of our basic
rights, Freedom to speech and expression is muzzled by a bunch of
these unknown people who claim to be the custodians of our religions
and culture.
In essence, it’s not merely about threat to a writer, a painter or any
other work of art that matters; it’s also about the basic question of
what we are going to be, a liberal democracy on the path to progress
or an intolerant country on the precipice.
As an individual I can neither support nor oppose Mr. Rushide or Mr.
Hussain; the reason being , I have neither read Rushdie’s
controversial book nor seen Hussain’s objectionable paintings yet.
I would like to take any position only after I have known the things
in question. Until then, I would not deplore anyone of them. I
certainly would not let myself incited or compelled to be part of a
mob that is largely unknown to the facts and mislead by some trouble makers
with ulterior motives. Why should we be a mob which specializes in
irrationality and culture of vandalism & violence?
One should be left on his own conscience to decide if something really
wrong has been done? If the answer is in affirmative, then the right
way to protest is, not to indulge in violence but to approach
judiciary, engage in cogent discourse, protest in a peaceful,
non-violent manner.
I think this is what our Constitution allows us to do. Article 19(1)
(a) gives us the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression
and 19(2) spells out the reasonable restrictions.
So, if anyone has violated the law, he/she would face the music.
However, our government with whom lies the responsibility of law and
order and upholding the Constitution shocks us with its abject
surrender when faced with such situations. The manner in which Rajasthan
government acted was both embarrassing and utterly humiliating.
Booker Award winner Salman Rushdie’s interview via video link from London
was cancelled.
This happened after he was forced to not attend the literature
festival in person following reports of threats to his life in India.
The whole controversy erupted because of a book “The Satanic Verses”
he penned in 1988. The book allegedly carries some indecent and highly
objectionable references to the world’s second largest religion.
The book was banned more than two decades ago.
As soon as the book was released, its import to India was banned by
the then Rajiv Gandhi government. In fact India was the first country
to ban the book. After that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini issued a Fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. Even then only
12 countries banned the book. Surprisingly, none of the Middle-East
countries where the religion was born figures on this list.
Although Khomeini died in 1989, the fatwa on Mr. Rushdie is still valid.
Never mind, despite all this, the celebrated author continued to come
to India and in fact participated in the same Jaipur Literary Festival
in 2007 without causing a flutter.
Question arises, why then, his visit this time became such a burning issue?
Experts cite two reasons for this hoopla: a) The JLF’s popularity has
grown manifolds as in only five years it has become Asia’s largest
literary festival and the organizers publicized Rushdie’s visit as a
major attraction.
b) Elections in Uttar Pradesh. India’s most populated state with most
number of Muslim voters.
Bang come the answers - Petty vote-bank politics and increasing
influence of some fanatics from the two prominent religions in our
country.
Oh democracy ! This is not what our leaders had envisioned when writing
the Constitution. Certainly the term vote-bank or minority votes would
not have crept into their mind. Otherwise, why would they make India a
secular and republic state?
Such a sorry state of affairs 64 years after we became ‘independent’
In our country, the best way to get the voters by your side is to arouse their
religious sentiments, with a sense of vulnerability if they belong to minority communities. Unfortunately, this is precisely the election strategy of every political
party in our democracy, the world’s largest.
Doesn’t matter, if doing so, might cost some or many lives?
The Salman Rushdie drama has become a flashpoint. Disturbingly, this
is not the first time something like this has happened. Such incidents
are happening far too often.
One day there is an MF Hussain or a Tasleema Nasreen, the other day it’s a movie allegedly depicting a certain community poorly. The Symbiosis University's capitulation to some fanatics to abort the seminar on Kashmir reflects how spineless our institutes and government have become.
Amidst this all, the prime concern is how easily one of our basic
rights, Freedom to speech and expression is muzzled by a bunch of
these unknown people who claim to be the custodians of our religions
and culture.
In essence, it’s not merely about threat to a writer, a painter or any
other work of art that matters; it’s also about the basic question of
what we are going to be, a liberal democracy on the path to progress
or an intolerant country on the precipice.
As an individual I can neither support nor oppose Mr. Rushide or Mr.
Hussain; the reason being , I have neither read Rushdie’s
controversial book nor seen Hussain’s objectionable paintings yet.
I would like to take any position only after I have known the things
in question. Until then, I would not deplore anyone of them. I
certainly would not let myself incited or compelled to be part of a
mob that is largely unknown to the facts and mislead by some trouble makers
with ulterior motives. Why should we be a mob which specializes in
irrationality and culture of vandalism & violence?
One should be left on his own conscience to decide if something really
wrong has been done? If the answer is in affirmative, then the right
way to protest is, not to indulge in violence but to approach
judiciary, engage in cogent discourse, protest in a peaceful,
non-violent manner.
I think this is what our Constitution allows us to do. Article 19(1)
(a) gives us the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression
and 19(2) spells out the reasonable restrictions.
So, if anyone has violated the law, he/she would face the music.
However, our government with whom lies the responsibility of law and
order and upholding the Constitution shocks us with its abject
surrender when faced with such situations. The manner in which Rajasthan
government acted was both embarrassing and utterly humiliating.
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