Mute spectators in the bull ring

Khushwant Singh, in his latest book, The End of India, bares his soul when he states: “Fascism has well and truly crossed our threshold and dug its in our courtyard. And we have only ourselves to blame for this. We let the fanatics get away with every step they took without raising a howl of protest. They burnt books they did not like…they perverted texts from history books to make them conform to their idea. We allowed them to do all this, as if none of this was our business…they foul mouth everyone who disagrees with them. To them we are pseudo-secularists. We have failed to hit back because we are not a united force and did not realise the perils of allowing our country to fall into their hands. Now we are paying the price.”

Singh further quotes the German pastor — Reverend Martin Niemoller — who was persecuted by the Nazis: “In Germany, they first came for the/ communists, and I did not speak up/because I was not a communist. Then/they came for the Jews and I did not/speak up because I was not a Jew/Then they came for the trade/ unionists, and I did not speak up/because I was not a trade unionist/Then they came for the homosexuals/ and I did not speak up because I was/not a homosexual/Then they came for the Catholics/and I did not speak up because I was/Protestant/Then they came for me…but by/that time there was no one left to/speak up”.

Watch the patterns emerging right here as the state goes after the saner voices, one by one. Mallika Sarabhai is just the latest in a long list of those who have been targetted for their courage to speak up. One wonders, that if an artist of Mallika Sarabhai’s background and standing can be made the target of the establishment’s wrath, what becomes of the average citizen. Bureaucrat-turned-social activist Harsh Mander points out that the quiet one sees in Gujarat today is based on “extreme fear”, resignation and compromise. Minorities are confronted, on the one hand, with a state that is openly hostile and looking to deny them justice. On the other, they are dealing with an unprecedented social divide and a social and economic boycott. Equally vocal has been Mahesh Bhatt, who speaks in the context of his Gujarat connection. Bhatt’s father was a Brahmin, his mother, a Shia Muslim. Bhatt speaks of the injustices heaped on the minority community in Gujarat, of the blatant double standards by the political machinery, without a thought about how unpopular this could make him.

Today the sane voices that are speaking out are not many. Just a handful, in fact. And the disturbing trend is that they are getting hounded even as the rest of us sit around like mute spectators.