Never Challenge The Nation’s Holy Cows

Iconoclasm in India: backlash, consequences and why we have no sense of humour as a nation.

WrittenBy:Arunabh Saikia
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May 2014

An “objectionable” Facebook post with morphed images of Chhatrapati Shivaji, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the late Shiv Sena leader, Bal Thackeray goes viral. Outrage erupts across Maharashtra. Pune – the epicentre of the protests – is forced shut for a good two days.  An FIR is filed under Section 295 (A) of the Indian Penal Code against the person (unidentified as yet) responsible for the post.

Section 295(A) of the IPC pertains to cases that are “deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”.

Five days later – soon after the police claims that the situation was “under control” – a 28-year-old, on his way back from work, is beaten to death by an angry mob. According to reports, all 13 held for the murder are members of a group called Hindu Rashtra Sena.

May 2012

A controversy arises over a cartoon in the National Council of Education and Research and Training (NCERT) Class XI political science books. The cartoon in question shows Ambedkar astride a snail (supposed to be representative of the Constitution) and Jawaharlal Nehru standing behind him brandishing a whip. After a Dalit parliamentarian from Tamil Nadu raises the issue in the Lok Sabha, both houses of Parliament come together (cutting across party lines) to get the cartoon banned. They also scrap existing copies of the textbook.

Indian Express, in one of its reports on the episode, notes how Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the governing alliance then, had thumped the table in appreciation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha’s observation that these were “canards against politics in a systematic manner”.

March 2011

The Gujarat Assembly unanimously bans a book on MK Gandhi written by Pulitzer winning author, Joseph Lelyveld. Justifying the ban, the Gujarat Chief Minister calls the book “perverse” and “hurtful of sentiments of the mass”. According to media reports, the book suggested that Gandhi was “sometimes racist” and had an intimate relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach.

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A common thread that ties the aforementioned three incidents is that of “widespread outrage” (as the much exploited journalistic cliché goes). People were hurt that political leaders were ridiculed. Leaders, whom they have always put on a pedestal, were scrutinised or critically examined. In short, people were upset that leaders were humanised.

Let’s get this straight – iconoclasm is plain disrespectful in this country.

When questioned by a reporter about the murder of the youth in Pune, Anil Shirole, the BJP MP (who sources say was the one to file the initial FIR against the post along with another MLA) said that it was only the “natural consequence” of the sequence of events.  So, death is the “natural consequence” of making fun of the representatives of Marathi pride? Marathi pride, one would like to believe, is made of sterner stuff than that.

While some news reports have (correctly) pointed out Hindu Rashtra Sena’s track record of being religious zealots, it is only a small – and perhaps inconsequential part – of the larger narrative. Also, these reports provide little by way of explanation as to what elicits such extreme reaction to what is – on most occasions at least – plain mischief. Except, of course, extrapolating the increasingly unfounded fear of violent Saffronisation that a section seems to tenaciously hold on to, in spite of more than one development that suggests otherwise.

Commenting on this, Nilanjana Roy, author and columnist says, “We have a tendency to worship icons of all kinds (secular, religious) and insist on a kind of lip-service piety, rather than respect for the principles that these icons stand for. But the bigger problem has nothing to do with tolerance: it’s the casual acceptance that political parties (of all stamps) are free to commit violence, as are members of organised religious groups, and that there is no option except to stand back and let them rampage. We act as though all democracies have to bear with bullying, street violence and thuggery all the way up the spectrum to murder and organised riots; this is neither inevitable nor healthy, and we don’t question this aspect of political and religious life nearly enough”.

As people, we seem to be a sensitive lot – there are no two ways about it.  You can hardly say anything without hurting someone. Also, we love heroes – who we like to think of as flawless and immaculate. Add to that, we are people with no sense of humour. When these traits come together (as they often do), the result is invariably spectacularly disastrous – a calamitous combination of xenophobic jingoism. That is what happened in Pune too.  The religion bit is only a coincidence. There is no evidence (at least at the time of writing this) that a Muslim hand was behind the Facebook post that incensed so many.

Sandip Roy, columnist with Firstpost thinks, “the problem is that our right to be offended trumps out right to freedom of expression. Of course, we have a very low sense of humour, especially politicians, who have an extremely low threshold”, he adds. Roy also said that since violent protests get political legitimacy so often, it emboldens fundamental voices.

Swapan Dasgupta, a journalist who is known to lean right, when contacted said, “I think the murder is a crime that needs to be investigated. However, I don’t want to assume that the murder was a fallout of the original protest”. Which is a strange comment since newspaper reports (and BJP MP Shirloe) clearly corroborate a direct link. In fact, a Hindustan Times report even mentions that the killers exchanged a message on their mobiles that read, “Pahili wicket padli”(The first wicket has fallen).

Urvashi Butalia, author and historian, opines that there is actually “increasing levels of intolerance and increasing confidence of impunity” responsible for developments as these. “We are scared of multiple points of views – a prerequisite in any healthy society”, said Butalia.

Palash Krishna Mehrotra, author of a book on urban India, agrees with Butalia. “I think the Pune incident is part of a larger intolerance which seems to have found new legitimacy.” Mehrotra, however, acknowledges the fact that Indians, by nature, have a low sense of humour – and that has got little do with any of the recent political developments.

Ambedkar was a hero, and so, perhaps, was Shivaji. Balasaheb, I’d reserve my opinion on (not that it’s of consequence to this case). But heroes can be flawed – most of my personal heroes are seriously flawed. The country needs iconoclasts to challenge the status quo. Narendra Modi became Prime Minister by doing exactly that. The idea of “holy cows” is ancient – totally out of sync with the “achche din” we have been promised.

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