Freedom of speech in India was never perfect: Guha

At Mysuru Literary Festival, historian says it is an exaggeration to dub the Modi government ‘fascist’; however, he calls the regime anti-intellectual

Meet and greet: Writer S.L. Bhyrappa and historian Ramachandra Guha exchanging pleasantries at the Mysuru Literary Festival 2017 in Mysuru on Sunday.

Well-known historian Ramachandra Guha said on Sunday that freedom of speech in India has never been perfect and it was an exaggeration to dub the present dispensation at the Centre as “fascist”.

He was interacting with the audience during the Mysuru Literary Festival conducted by Mysore Literary Association.

Mr. Guha said there were restrictions by the Congress governments from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi to the Left government under Jyoti Basu in West Bengal, and hence freedom of speech has always been imperfect in India.

“However, it has got a little worse today,” he said, adding however that it was loose talk to associate fascism with the present government. “Had it been so, people like me would not have existed,” he said.

But Mr. Guha went on describe the Modi government as the “most anti-intellectual ever, and also hostile to scholarship”.

Comparing it with the previous NDA government under A.B. Vajpayee, Mr. Guha said the latter had leaders such as Mr. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, George Fernandes and others who not only read but wrote books, some of them good ones. “There is not a single example in this government,” he said.

To buttress his point, Mr. Guha stated that noted writer S.L. Bhyrappa was not recognised in the past because of the leftist influences in Delhi.

“But Bhyrappa is a jewel of India and is celebrated in Karnataka. Yet, he was given a Padma Shri by the Centre while Sri Sri Ravishankar of the Art of Living Foundation received a Padma Vibhushan, which shows the priorities of the Modi government,” he said.

Earlier, he delivered a talk on ‘History beyond chauvinism’, where he spelt out the “five commandments” a historian ought to follow. He urged historians to look beyond official sources for historiography. “Thou shall steal,” he said, calling for liberally integrating history with developments in other disciplines and incorporate some of their methodologies and crafts.

He said a historian should not be ideologically rooted or biased as society was too complex and diverse to be caught in a single ideological framework. In this context, Mr. Guha said a historian should not be a nationalist to ignore the crimes committed by the state. “A true nationalist is one who feels ashamed of the crime committed by the state.”