Breaking views

All the problems have been solved. Now let’s build a statue” was the Loksatta’s — the newspaper is the Express Group’s Marathi daily — editorial response to the Maharashtra government’s wish to erect a 309-foot Shivaji statue. Since this is a free country with freedom of the press, Loksatta took a considered view of the subject and decided that its critique of this decision should be communicated via irony, pointing to what it argued was the contrast between governments’ generous use of iconography and their somewhat feebler record on service delivery. Now, of course, Loksatta or any other serious newspaper doesn’t expect universal agreement. But it does expect irony to be recognised as a valued and valid rhetorical instrument in public debates.

The attack by Shiv Sangram, an evidently energetic group, on Loksatta editor Kumar Ketkar’s home proved once again that parts of our public space, including in cities, are distinguished by a despairing absence of minimum understanding of debating norms. How shaky can your faith in anything be, whether sacred or secular, divine or mortal, so that vandalisation is your automatic response to humour? Maharashtra outfits seem eager to take a patent out on this form of political mobilisation. But they have a lot of competition — from other states and from organisations claiming to have a varied list of sentiments and personages to protect.

Needless to say we at the Express Group always maintain and try to observe the distinction between hatchet/muckraking journalism and strong critique. We also believe passionately that freedom of expression is best upheld when the widely varying opinions have the same right to exist. The governor of Maharashtra has written to the state chief minister that Shiv Sangram activists should answer why they thought their anger was above the law. But the issue goes beyond that. All chief ministers, all political leaders, need to signal that under their watch no one, not just journalists, should have to wonder about the consequences of holding an opinion that doesn’t please everyone. We wish we could be optimistic about the possibility of this happening. But how unreal that optimism is was brought home to us on Thursday.