First came the writers. Then the scientists. Then the artists. And now, the latest in a growing line of protesters are the film makers. All of them have returned their awards to the government of India or sent letters pointing out the growing intolerance in the country and the government’s refusal or inability to come out with a strong reaction against these forces.
But even before all these prominent people, whose gesture has aroused hate and admiration both, came the students of the Film and Television Institute of India. Their strike, which began on June 12 and which ended on October 28, lasting 139 days in all, lit the spark. Till then, no one had stood up in any organised manner to any decision by the government. There were many who grumbled, but till the students went on a strike against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan, actor and BJP worker, as the chairperson of the FTII, there had been no overt action.
The early days of the strike were covered with great gusto, because of their news value. As the strike wore on, it became less newsworthy. But then, after writer Uday Prakash returned his Sahitya Akademi award and Nayantara Sehgal followed, protests are in the news. Not a day passes without someone, individually, or collectively, announcing that they are protesting against the government. The reasons given are more or less common—there is growing intolerance in the country and right wing organsiations are going berserk, not just attacking but also killing people for their views or for what they eat. And the government and its top leaders are not reacting in a way that sends a strong message to such forces.
Many of Narendra Modi’s supporters have chosen to interpret this as a personal criticism of the Prime Minister. What can he do? Should he tweet about every little incident? Can he interfere in state affairs? Is he in any way responsible for such occurrences?
The Prime Minister was nudged into talking of communal harmony only after the President made it a point to bring up tolerance for pluralism in his speech; even then, Modi’s comments centred around Hindus and Muslims jointly fighting poverty, not each other.
This is a completely wrong way of looking at things. It is true that the Prime Minister cannot look into each incident personally, but he can do two very important things — he can rein in his own partymen such as Mahesh Sharma and many more and most importantly, he can set the tone. Imagine if he were to drop Sharma for his utterances, ranging from the reference to A P J Abdul Kalam which began as “despite being a Muslim” to the shocking statement about how the daughter of the lynching victim Akhlaq had not been touched in the violence. The word would go out that Narendra Modi was not going to take such things lightly; others would shut up.
Even a few tweets from the Prime Minister on how he was saddened and dismayed at the death in a lynching of a citizen would have made a difference. The millions who follow him online and otherwise would have at least given this a thought. The Prime Minister was nudged into talking of communal harmony only after the President made it a point to bring up tolerance for pluralism in his speech; even then, Modi’s comments centred around Hindus and Muslims jointly fighting poverty, not each other. There was not a word about how a Muslim had been lynched on the suspicion of eating beef (it turned out to be mutton.)
In any case, it is misleading to think of these protests and returns of awards and citations as anti-Narendra Modi move. They are largely reflecting their disgust and anger at the growing climate of intolerance and bringing this to the notice of the government. A writer without a social conscience is nothing. Scientist P M Bhargava, who returned his Padma Bhushan has talked about how irrational thought is overtaking science. Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, who had his run-ins with earlier non-BJP governments, said, “at one time, during the Emergency, you could be jailed. Now, you can be killed.” I was present at the lecture given by historian Romila Thapar in Mumbai; the presence of a large police contingent shocked me. Is this what we have come to?
Who will deny that there is a climate of anti-intellectualism in the country and it is only getting worse? To ask why the protestors did not object when so many things happened in earlier dispensations is to miss the point. Firstly, many of them did— Nayantara Sahgal fought with her cousin Indira Gandhi during the Emergency; Anand Patwardhan’s run-ins with the Congress governments over the years are legendary. Second, at no time earlier did we have a government or a ruling party whose own members did not object to and even supported violent right-wingers. It is frightening to realise that someone can walk into your home and beat you up on suspicion of eating beef and the authorities may not help you. Instead, there could be victim shaming, i.e. somehow finding a way to blame you.
The protests by writers, artists, scientists and filmmakers will not change things right away. But they will definitely slow down things; without these protests, the attacks on innocent people would continue with even more impunity. Now, there is a genuine alarm in the establishment that such incidents are giving India a bad name abroad. Arun Jaitley said as much. And for an image-conscious government, that is something to worry about. Now if only the ruling party actually sends out a clear message to the trouble makers that their shenanigans will not be tolerated; that would really be something to cheer about.
