It’s impossible not to notice the strange parallels between India and the U.S. these days. The world’s largest democracy and its oldest have both elected demagogue leaders with a penchant for high drama and precarious rhetoric. But right now, what I am struck by more is how differently the two populations behave in the face of attacks on democratic credos.
In the U.S., there has been fierce, vocal, public denunciation against the government’s outré order against immigrants. It’s been opposed by the media, judges, civil rights groups, citizens, senators, mayors, and Trump’s own party men. More significantly, corporate CEOs have spoken up — Starbucks, Apple, General Electric, Google and more. Even Hollywood has called foul.
Meanwhile, in India, we have an epidemic, a plague if you will, of rogue protesters holding people to ransom claiming hurt sentiments; groups that have indulged in violence, arson and assault; groups that demand certain films, books, writers and painters be shut down in a country where freedom of expression is still a constitutional right the last I heard. But nobody seems to shout loud enough or long enough against these obscene displays of prejudice. Where is a concerted, all-out, loud chorus of disapproval?
I suspect it’s missing because nobody dares raise a voice against a method of blackmail that they fully intend to use sooner or later for their own purpose. How can you be united in indignation about a Rajput group attacking Sanjay Leela Bhansali when not so long ago a Muslim group was shouting outside Diggi Palace protesting Taslima Nasreen’s presence, and before that a Christian group demanded a restaurant be shut down because its interiors were blasphemous and another group hounded Perumal Murugan out of his village and another wanted to chase bulls and another wanted a film renamed because… exactly, the list is endless.
So what we have is craven submission to a method of objection that is not protest, just criminal offence.
By all means, protest. Hold a demonstration or march with placards denouncing a book. Write another that says what you want it to say. Sue the director. Mock the painter. But the shooting or exhibition or book must be allowed to go on.
This is where it becomes about governance. Administration after administration in state after state gutlessly claims that the fear of violence forces it to shut down theatres or shows or matches. Why do administrations have police departments? Precisely so that the lawful rights of law-abiding people are protected. How can they throw up their hands and claim they are helpless to protect individuals from mob violence?
Each time such groups are allowed to have their way, the Government is guilty of collusion by silence. Just once, let it clamp down on the protest, lock up the attackers and arsonists, allow the film or show or cricket match to go on — the message will be made amply clear that crude and violent displays of brute intolerance will not be allowed.
Enough of us have to shout out and demand this from the administration. Where are the CEOs, businesspeople, sportspeople, filmmakers, jurors and journalists demanding that Bhansali or Johar be allowed to film what they want to with who they want to?
A superstar who writes eloquent letters on women’s rights just before a big film release is strangely unable to tweet a tiny tweet supporting his colleague. Superstars who vociferously defend the right to chase bulls are struck mysteriously dumb by continuing assaults on human rights. CEOs who are not shy to fight for tax breaks shut up about civil rights.
In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn said that when we don’t punish evil, we rip “the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” We are doing just that.
As Americans fight for the right of Muslims to enter the U.S, can we fight at least for Taslima Nasreen to live without fear in India? Isn’t it shameful enough that we allowed M.F. Husain to die in exile?
