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India under siege by ‘cultural terrorists’
One day is it is Bollywood heartthrob Shah Rukh Khan, the next it is South Indian film producer Kamal Haasan.
And then it was Booker Prize-winning writer Salman Rushdie and before him there was social scientist Ashis Nandy.
Not to mention the furore over controversial Bangladeshi author, Taslima Nasreen.
It seems in India today, nary a week goes by without a furore over faith that is stifling free speech in the world’s largest democracy.
Likening the "assaults" on artistic and intellectual freedoms in India to "cultural terrorism", Rushdie said it was a "shame" he did not have freedom of movement in the country despite being its overseas citizen.
Enraged after being forced to cancel his trip to Kolkata two days back following information that the Kolkata Police would refuse him entry into the city at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's request, the Mumbai-born writer said in a statement: "I am an OCI, an overseas citizen of India, and am proud to be one.
"It is a shame that this does not allow me the freedom of movement within India to which any Indian is entitled by right."
"What is happening in India nowadays is an accumulating scandal and a growing disgrace to this great nation," he said and referred to the assaults upon the "artistic and intellectual freedoms" of artist Maqbool Fida Hussain, novelist Rohinton Mistry, scholar A.K. Ramanujan, writer James Laine, filmmaker Deepa Mehta, sociologist Ashis Nandy and actor-director Kamal Haasan.
Rushdie said such incidents added up to "what I have called a cultural emergency" and hoped the people of India had the will to "demand that such assaults on freedom cease once and for all".
Rushdie said he arrived in India Jan 22 at the invitation of the distributors of the film "Midnight's Children", based on his novel by the same name, and planned to visit Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai for its promotion.
"The day before I was due to travel to Kolkata, we were informed that the Kolkata Police would refuse to allow me to enter the city. If I flew there, I was told, I would be put on the next plane back. I was also told that this was at the request of the chief minister," the statement read.
Attacking Banerjee, Rushdie recalled that the chief minister had said after the Jaipur festival last year she would not allow him to enter Kolkata.
"It would appear that she has made good that threat," he said.
Last month author Taslima Nasreen also faced protests in Kolkata when the launch of her latest memoir at the city's book fair was cancelled.
Nasreen was not at the event, but in a tweet blamed "religious fanatics" for opposing the launch.
Last week, India's Supreme Court ordered the police not to arrest leading academic Ashis Nandy for making controversial remarks at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
But the court advised Nandy to be more cautious when speaking.
The sociologist was reported as saying that some of India's most disadvantaged groups were the "most corrupt".
He later clarified saying he meant that the poor and disadvantaged were more likely to get caught than the rich.
He had filed a petition in the court after fears that he would be arrested.
On Friday, the bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir told Nandy that he must "exercise caution" in the future if the "intention was not to cause hurt to the sentiments of another person or community".
In his petition, the academic had argued that lodging a case against him "is against the basic principles of the fundamental rights which envisages that free speech is the foundation of a democratic society".
He said that in the "surcharged environment... and the rabid statements made by important political personalities, his physical safety is itself compromised and there is imminent threat of injury to him".
A number of political parties have criticised Prof Nandy's remarks, but several academics have also supported him.
Former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state and low-caste Dalit leader Mayawati said that he should be "sent to jail".
"Most corrupt people come from Other Backward Classes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes [three disadvantaged groups]," Prof Nandy was quoted as saying during a panel discussion at the festival.
He later said that he was sorry if anybody was hurt because of the misunderstanding and clarified his comments.
"I have been misquoted. What I meant was that most of the people getting caught for corruption are people from OBC, SC and ST communities, as they don't have the means to save themselves unlike people from upper castes," he is quoted as saying by The Hindu newspaper.
Dalit scholar Kancha Ilaiah said Prof Nandy had made "a bad statement with good intentions".
"While referring to Dalits as corrupt, Prof Nandy probably missed out saying that upper castes [in India] have always been corrupt," Prof Ilaiah said.
The most recent kerfuffle involve movie personalities Shah Rukh and Kamal Haasan who are extremely successful, talented artists with millions of rupees and many jobs riding on them and their films.
Yet, they are under attack, victims of what some term cultural terrorism and even state terrorism. Shah Rukh cornered for his views on what it is to be a Muslim in India and Kamal Haasan for making a film that allegedly has scenes that some Muslim groups find objectionable and that the Tamil Nadu government seeks to ban.
An upset Shah Rukh - in the thick of controversy for an article that sparked a ridiculous war of words between New Delhi and Islamabad after Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the Indian government should offer him security - said the "unwarranted twist" was "nonsense".
Nowhere in the article, a first person account for Outlook Turning Points magazine, does he state or imply directly or indirectly that he feels unsafe, troubled or disturbed in India, the star said, reading out from a statement.
"It does not even vaguely say that I am ungrateful for the love that I have received in a career spanning 20 years. On the contrary the article only says that in spite of bigoted thoughts of some of the people that surround us, I am untouched by scepticism because of the love I have received by my countrymen and women," said the actor, who has been in the eye of so many storms.
Ironically all of this I happening as India marks Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary and a time to recall the spirit of tolerance.
One commentator wrote that the standard explanation given by the Muslim radicals for lambasting Rushdie or Haasan is that they have hurt the community's religious sentiments.
It is the same argument which compelled Galileo to deny in the 17th century that the earth moved round the sun since his claim was found hurtful to their beliefs by Christians at the time. It took the Catholic church three centuries to offer a formal apology for its denunciation of the astronomer.
Yet, this argument is offered time and again in 21st century India to satisfy the prejudices of the diehards, the commentator said.
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