Opinion Do we deserve our freedoms?

Nehru’s remarks are even more apt now than ever before. I was struck by Justice Katju saying that Salman Rushdie was a poor and sub-standard writer who would have remained unknown except for his scurrilous book The Satanic Verses. This,he is quoted as saying, is much more fundamental issue than merely banning him. Of course,every one is entitled to his own literary standards. I hope the Booker Prize authorities take note of what Justice Katju has said and immediately withdraw the original Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children and its prize as Booker of Bookers of over 25 years.

But even a poor substandard writer deserves to be able to write and be read by such tasteless people who prefer him to better writers. A writer’s freedom of expression and for all of us the freedom to read and write as we please is not granted on a quality adjusted basis. This is not one of your IIT entrance exams where if you don’t score 99 per cent,you may as well jump in the lake. The founding fathers of the Constitution of India gave all such freedoms without even setting a literacy test. Of course the freedom to read implies the freedom not to read if you don’t like someone’s writing. It does not imply prohibition on all from reading something which a minority does not approve of.

Over the sixty-two years,India has encouraged the articulation of several identities among its citizens. This can only be a good thing. But some identities especially religious ones are being privileged. This is paradoxically because of the insistence that India is a secular state. Indian secularism treats its citizens as belonging to certain identified religious communities and enjoins others to respect the sensitivities of each such community. But then who is to decide which sensitivities are worthy of more respect and which less.

The taking of insults over the most trivial matter,be it a Bollywood film song,or the dress worn by some group or a biography of some historical figure has become a large scale industry. PILs are used as a way of blackmailing those who some people do not approve of. Mob violence and political party muscle is enough for the State to abdicate its responsibility.

The worst effect of privileging religious or caste groups is that if I am born in one of those groups but wish to reject that identity,I cannot seek protection from the state. But for an apostate Muslim as for a Muslim divorcee,it is the religious gatekeepers who police if they can enjoy their fundamental rights.

All his life Gandhiji was criticised by orthodox Hindus for the simplicity and ecumenical nature of his religious beliefs. He was finally killed by a fellow Hindu,who was hanged for his crime. If Salman Rushdie had come to Jaipur and been shot by one of the many Muslim gangs,would his killer have been tried,if caught,and hanged if convicted?

Do I need to ask?