Dilip Chitre
An expected, but bizarre, public response in Maharashtra to the recent
lifting of a ban on James Laine’s book Shivaji—Hindu King in Muslim
India—provokes me to write this. Author Laine’s effigies were burnt
in several places and his publisher, Oxford University Press were
warned against selling the book. The Chief of the Shiv Sena urged the
public to burn copies of the book. Other political parties joined him
in the demand.
Then, on May 9, 2007 The Times of India shockingly reported that the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute that had been vandalized
purportedly by people offended by a passage in Laine’s book, has now
decided to support a ban on Laine’s book. (A research institute
seeking ban on a book? That is unheard of! )— The B.O.R.I. was
reportedly seeking a ban on Laine’s book in view of a recent ruling
by the Supreme Court rejecting an appeal challenging the Karnataka
government’s banning the book Dharmakarana that allegedly hurts the
sentiments of the followers of saint Basaveshvara and the Veerashaiva
community.
‘Hurt sentiments’ now threaten to become a judicially acceptable
ground for banning works of scholarship, literature, and art—some of
them alleged to be maliciously motivated. Most of the people —who
claim to be ‘hurt’— claim so on religious and sectarian grounds.
They also take the law in their hands as they did in vandalizing the
B.O.R.I. and got away without any punishment from the government of
Maharashtra.
Then there was the ‘public outcry’ against the Hollywood actor, Richard Gere’s
mock-erotic on-stage foreplay with Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at
an AIDS-awareness show. This is supposed to have ‘hurt public
sentiments’. A PIL was filed against Gere and an overenthusiastic
magistrate promptly issued an arrest warrant against the American
actor. The magistrate has been transferred since. The frivolity of
such complaints ought to be prevented by law. There has to be
legislative protection, for instance, for artists such as M.F.Hussain
who has been harassed by known vigilante organization with no respect
for the values of civil society.
These various instances of ‘public outcry’ seem unrelated; but they
are not. They point to the fact that though 57 years have passed since
this nation embraced its Constitution, few Indians have grasped the
implications of the fundamental rights it enshrines. These rights are
the foundation of a liberal, democratic, secular and civil society
respectful of its own plurality. They are not the legacy of the
British Empire, as some believe; they are the foundation of a new and
modern secular nation-state, where all citizens are equally empowered,
and where the state and an individual are also equal in the eyes of
the law. Also, it has to be understood that secularism is a commitment
to neutrality towards all religious and sectarian beliefs and
practices; and not equal sensitivity to every religious sentiment. By
the way, what is religious sentiment? What is cultural tradition? In a
multicultural and multireligious society, can such sentiments be used
to tyrannise dissent, prevent debate and discussion, and ultimately to
make a mockery of fundamental rights? Will government actions and
judicial decisions be dictated by threats from rioters, vandals,
arsonists, and their extra-legal armies?
Our founding fathers bitterly argued its many features before
ratifying our Constitution. What they did not realize, then, was how
the Indian polity and its many constituent factions would translate it
into practice. They did not realize, for instance, that caste Hindu
politics would become stronger rather than melt away. They did not
realize that Hindu revivalism and Muslim fundamentalism would
temporarily lie low only to explode into communal riots, pogroms, and
state-abetted genocide just fifty years later. They did not realize
that adult franchise would not automatically result in cleaner
electoral politics. The did not foresee the slow and steady rise of
populism, linguistic and cultural chauvinism, waves of xenophobia, and
a decline in civil order.
They also failed to see that the British Empire’s real legacy would be
its bureaucratic apparatus and the police that were intended to rule a
subject people and not citizens with their rights in place.
In these, they left what has now become the foundation of corruption
and abuse of power. It is an intriguing point whether the elected
representatives of people corrupt the bureaucrat or vice versa. It is
just as hard to tell whether money is translated into electoral power
or it is the other way round. The apparent wealth of newly risen
politicians and political parties, as well as vigilante groups that go
on a rampage when their ’sentiments are hurt’ goes unnoticed by
internal revenue officials, themselves under pressure from
politicians.
When the judiciary defends the Constitution that is found variously
inconvenient by people with anti-Constitutional interests, judicial
activism is seriously discussed by those who believe that Parliament
is above the Constitution. They do not pause to ask whether judicious
legislation is not the real answer to judicial activism or
intervention.
It is assumed by most people in India that the electoral system is for
laundering the character of any contestant. Most Indians see democracy
as rule by the majority and values as something that popularity polls
decide. People with criminal records believe that if they could become
legislators, they could themselves be the law that they already think
they are. This absurd logic seems to have a lot of support, too.
Banning any book is restricting citizens’ right to read. Banning a
controversial book is to shroud in secrecy the alleged controversial
elements in it without reasonable public discussion and debate. A
section of the public, or even a majority of public opinion, cannot
claim that what hurts its sentiments should therefore be hidden from
everyone else. As for burning books, Adolph Hitler—Mr. Thackeray’s
hero—tried to create a fascist culture out of the smoke of burnt
books. He failed. However, some Indians still feel they will succeed
by making illiteracy and uncivil behaviour the ideals of their
followers.
Our Constitution treats us all as equals regardless of our gender,
religion, caste, and creed. However, it does not ban the Manusmriti,
the Holy Koran, the Old and the New Testament, and other sacred books
that make all those discriminations. It simply empowers us to make a
choice of faith and belief. Our Constitution does not tell men and
women what to wear, or what to eat, or what to see, or what to read,
or what to think. We are a secular state that draws no lines between
the sacred and the profane. Our state is concerned solely with
this-worldly good governance and common public interest.
Lord Acton, the great 19th century English historian of liberty,
observed, “It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to
be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in
the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom
resist.” He, then, goes on to warn us, “But from the absolute will of
an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but
treason.”
Our electoral system is based on universal adult franchise. It
threatened caste Hindus with the prospect of facing empowered dalits,
scheduled castes, and tribes. It unsettled Hindu revivalists by
raising the spectre of the power of collective Muslim votes. It is now
making men fear women voters.
None of these fragments of the nation’s polity, at any level, want a
secular national mainstream to emerge. They do not even want to think
about it. They have been forced into alliances with their traditional
enemies. What they share in common is not the love of democracy but
its fear. They prefer populist protest, violent demonstration, and
public exercise of majority muscle to discussion, debate, or any other
rational response to what they do not agree with.
“Hurt sentiments’ is a euphemism for ‘justified anger’ whose violent
public expression is considered lawful.
Threatening a riot over any self-expression a group of people
disagrees with has become a political tool that hides behind existing
laws.
Take the recent case of Chandramohan, a fine arts student of the
Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. A local lawyer, Niraj Jain,
invaded the university campus with a bunch of goons to disrupt the
young artist’s in-faculty and on-campus exhibition which was not meant
for the public. He demanded that the exhibition be immediately closed.
He also had the art student arrested.
The Dean of the Fine Arts Faculty, who stood firmly behind the
student, has since been suspended by the Vice Chancellor of the
University. This is obviously a case of political orchestration and a
threat to incite the public against a minority—in this case an
academic institution, its faculty, and its student community. The
Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the B.J.P. and their invisible
mentors the R.S.S. are obviously involved in this ugly affair. The
Vice Chancellor is a political appointee and a B.J.P. government is in
power in Gujarat.
Politicians and leaders of every ilk are afraid that the Constitution
has made India increasingly unpredictable in the last 57 years. They
find that the wrong people are empowered by the Constitution: the
dalit, women, or even the dissenting intellectual, scholar, writer, or
the avant garde artist. So most of them direct their rage and
desperation against the very book they take an oath of allegiance to,
namely the Constitution of India. However, they do this cleverly by
misusing and frivolously interpreting certain sections of the Indian
Penal Code.
We are fortunate to be over one billion people ruled by a Constitution
that does not allow any minority or majority to oppress the
individual. We are fortunate to speak many languages, practice
different religions, and have regional traditions that vary. We are
lucky to be recognized as individuals equal before one law.
However, how many democracies can a single nation-state hold? The
individual, from whose rights our state itself derives its sanctity,
is in a permanent minority of one. From that minority of one emerge
smaller or larger consensual groups, whether they are religious,
ethnic, linguistic, or sectarian. The right to express oneself, the
right to debate with others and to argue against them, the right to
publicize opinion and to criticize it, the right to question beliefs,
the right to propagate views—all these are interrelated and
inseparable.
Are we in a state of social, cultural, and political anarchy not
apprehended by our founding fathers 57 years ago? Is our system
beginning to crumble under the weight of our massive population and
its variegated constituents? Why do so many people in the ruling class
find our Constitution increasingly inconvenient? Why is everybody
afraid of fundamental rights?
The rights of the individual are the cornerstone of our Constitution.
Those who seek to curtail those rights by demanding bans on books,
paintings, plays, films, or public shows that ‘hurt their sentiments’
should openly say that the Constitution of India hurts their
sentiments most. They should also openly confess that they would not
hesitate to resort to inciting public feelings, causing riots, and
provoking arson and looting should the law not bend in their favour.
