Silencing of a scholar

The Jayalalithaa government must take responsibility for the capitulation of Madras university

The Jayalalithaa government must take responsibility for the capitulation of Madras university

The cancellation of a lecture at Madras University by the American Islamic scholar Amina Wadud has been met with baffled outrage. By all accounts,the authorities pulled out on the basis of a wonderfully vague threat. The story goes that P.K. Abdul Rahiman,who heads the Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed Centre for Islamic Studies,received an SMS,purportedly from a police officer,asking him to cancel. When he called back,he was told of threats of protest and that he could proceed at his own risk. The threats of protest were apparently real. Nothing else seems certain. Many are asking,quite reasonably,why it took just one SMS to break the will of a university official.

Last year,threats of violence,real and imagined,had succeeded in keeping Salman Rushdie and even his video image away from the Jaipur Literature Festival. But the JLF organisers had given in after days of negotiating,and after reportedly verifying that activists had indeed infiltrated an audience of 10,000 and posed a threat. However,in both cases,the organisers found themselves on their own,with the impression in Jaipur and the assurance in Chennai that the police,who had conveyed the threat,would not guarantee protection if something untoward should happen. But does the buck stop with the police? The Rushdie affair at Jaipur may arguably have taken a different turn if an election hadnt been in the offing in Uttar Pradesh,in which the Muslim vote was seen to be crucial. In Tamil Nadu under Jayalalithaa,an election is not required to develop a charged atmosphere.

Those were the very words that the Tamil Nadu chief minister had used to justify her absurd sports politics in March,when she stipulated that T20 matches could be played in Chennai only if the tournament was completely Sri Lankan-free. Last year in September,she had suspended a stadium official for allowing a friendly football match between Indian and Sri Lankan teams,and had sent the Lankans back home. When governments are so arbitrary and illiberal,they undermine the confidence of citizens. In such a climate,improbable acts of censorship,like the cancellation of Waduds lecture,become entirely possible.