Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate Bajrang Dal has said it will do to writer Arundhati Roy what it has already done to painter Maqbool Fida Husain — teach her a lesson.
The warning was given by Delhi Bajrang Dal chief Vinod Bansal at a meeting in South Delhi on Wednesday to celebrate the accession of Kashmir to India. Mr. Bansal advised Ms. Roy “not to adopt the path of M. F. Husain misinterpreting the right to freedom of expression…our country has already taught a lesson to Mr. Husain…”
And as if in unison, the Bharatiya Janata Party's women's wing, in a statement said, Ms. Roy had time and again “tested the tolerance of our democracy” and “this time” — when she shared a platform with Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani — “she crossed all boundaries” with her views “bordering on treason.”
The right to freedom of speech and expression was not a blank cheque, said Smriti Irani, president of the women's wing.
The Bajrang Dal made it plain that it had hounded Mr. Husain out of the country by filing hundreds of first information reports against him all over the country and could do the same to Ms. Roy.
