Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy called for a ‘Laxman Rekha’ or certain degree of restriction in the field of literature.
“There is reasonable restriction placed on our freedom of expression and speech in the Constitution. All fundamental rights are subject to reasonable restrictions. Democracy means acceptance of reasonable restrictions, so does literature,” said Dr. Swamy while addressing inaugural session of two-day-long Kalinga Literary Festival that got underway here from Saturday.
“Time has come especially after 2014, in the field of literature one should think what should not constitute literature. I certainly don’t think that which idolises division to the point of breaking country or to advocate things that would put society into a situation of disintegration is literature,” he said.
“I think as far as democracy is concerned, ‘Laxman Rekha’ is written in the Constitution. As far as literature is concerned, it has to be evolved by the community. This is extremely essential for nurturing both democracy and literature,” said the leader.
“The government today faces constant onslaught from those who are no more in power or those who were in power for 65 years. We had the agitation on returning awards. As a matter of fact there was no occasion of doing so. Because the institutions of democracy were still intact, elections were still taking place and the ruling party in the Centre had lost few elections,” said Dr. Swamy. “Today, there are two schools competing in the field of literature. One is the old left wing school and other one is a new more invigorated what I would call it cultural nationalistic group which talks about intrinsic unity of India,” he pointed out.
“All these intolerance debate was raised by people who had free run of running down the system because they were persuaded by the left wing ideology. Today, they have turned against present dispensation at power on the ground of ideology. In the process, there is no room for accommodation. Unless there is a consensus how can literature survive? Consensus means listening to both-sides or divergent views,” the BJP leader observed.
“We all know that today those who had free run for over 65 years are not willing to tolerate even a proposition which calls for revision of history. Much of what you have been told is not sustained by modern science. There is no evidence about Aryan invasion. History, which is not based on evidence, requires revision,” Dr. Swamy said.
‘ Much of what you have been told is not sustained by modern science.. History, which is not based on evidence, requires revision’
