Orchestrated Melancholy

India with its humongous diversity is a veritable example of unity in diversity. Resilient Indian society for centuries has been accommodating diverse ideologies, culture systems, and religious values emanating the message of peaceful-coexistence. During the course of its enduring history India suffered numerous onslaughts but still the very essence of Indianness (Bharateeyata) was never lost. Religious harmony has been an integral part of Indian community.

But the recent upsurge of articulated intellectual tirade and shrill protests of the select Indian avant-garde class against the current government is highly preposterous. The fundamental allegation of bridled freedom of expression holds no ground as their hue and cry is heard by far and distant international media leave alone the paid Indian media houses. Had it not been for the unrestrained freedom of expression academicians who hold high moral ground despite calling democratically elected leader a fascist received extensive coverage? If not for the liberal arena of the ruling disposition, can the intellectual brigade have the temerity to pronounce judgments on the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq with no court or enquiry commission holding particular group responsible for the unfortunate incident. They acted as judge, jury and prosecutor and censured the government. Till now circumstances that led to the event weren’t fully deciphered but the politically motivated bunch brazenly held the regime responsible and is demands Prime Minister to address it. Sadly in India, horrific crimes evoke differential condemnation and responses on religious lines. While the perpetrators of gruesome Dadri lynching incident deserves harshest punishment why does a crime of similar magnitude committed against a majority community escapes media attention. Shamelessly differential standards are assigned to individuals based on communal identities.

India’s existing religious bias has been perpetually augured by political leaders wherein minority appeasement and majority bashing has become a norm. This attribute further gathers much strength from the skewed definition of the secularism India follows.

The timing of the orchestrated intellectual revolt spear-headed by a renowned author with close connections to India’s elite dynasty in itself speaks volumes of the dubious political motivations. The illustrious list of her progressive literary contributions includes an ode to her uncle under the title “Jawaharlal Nehru: Civilizing a Savage World”, where she blatantly equates India to savage world. The book provides glimpses of her utter contempt towards culture and beliefs of large section of Indians. It is startling as how this brigade in more than six decades of India’s independence never bothered to raise their voices against the heinous atrocities suddenly became conscious of intolerance.

Protests started gaining momentum on the pretext that ‘rationalists’ and ‘secular-minded people’ are attacked. The murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar was ascribed to Hindu extremist group while investigation revealed that the act was perpetrated by Christian fundamentalists. Regarding the killing of Kalburgi who hails from Karnataka, despite the massive uproar by the writers across the board the inept congress state government hasn’t ordered for investigation yet. Instead of putting pressure on the state government, writers conveniently chose to lash out on central government. As regarding the unwarranted fears of rising communal intolerance/ violence so far no official records ever raised alarm about sharp increase in the crime rate across India.

Another interesting feature of this orchestrated protests is that they peak during election season and automatically die down. The momentum is not persistent, it lacks direction, purpose and it fails to offer any plausible solutions. Why did a series of Church attacks suddenly surface out of the blue before Delhi Assembly elections? These disruptive events gained traction during the fag end of election campaigning and subtly polarized the electorate. Police investigation again revealed that they were random cases of stray incidents. The selective outrage and vilification of the ruling regime in the first quarter of their tenure subconsciously rakes doubts about the intentions of elite intellectuals. While it is imprudent to draw conclusions is this brouhaha of intolerance culminating in social disharmony a larger game plan of restive opposition voted out of power? 

Intolerance has been part and parcel of system it hasn’t suddenly crept in during the past 14 months. Recent eruption of intellectual fury has been the outcome of pent-up obsessive hatred towards certain ideology. Independent India so far has been guided by a certain kind of ideology that pervaded in the higher echelons of power. It flourished during the past six odd decades and was unchallenged and highly patronized. The intellectual community (artists, film makers, writers etc) which controlled the higher institutes of learning replete of this ideology permeated the same. As rightly reflected by Bibek Debroy in his interview- a specific ideology controlled the whole system and any deviant was scrupulously weeded out clearly indicating that the intellectual circuit itself is intolerant. They are impervious to alternative ideologies. In a country as diverse as India, different ideologies are bound to exist and hence no ideology can for itself claim to be self-righteous. Indian intellectuals and especially the pampered Lutyens circle are jittery and are dismayed by the prospect of losing intellectual hegemony.

These conclusions aptly fit propositions advocated by historian Ramachandra Guha in an article in Caravan, 2015 where he contemplates that while right-wing managed to clinch power “it can command support of few well known or widely published intellectuals”. Rightly so renowned Indian intellectuals following the announcement of Modi’s nomination as a prime ministerial candidate strongly denounced him and ran signature trails opposing the same. Undeniably the award-returning protest is an extension of that remnant grouse and anger.

Lastly, the scientist who was honored with “Padma Bhushan” for his pioneering scientific feats decided to return his award alleging that “government is moving away from path of democracy towards Hindu religious dictatorship”. Other aspects which prompted his decision include strong dislike towards BJP, Modi’s Hindu religious beliefs, penalizing green activists, Teesta Setalvad and Hardik Patel. He was highly critical of alternative medicine, yoga and ran a campaign against it.  At a time when defamation campaigns are run in India undermining traditional knowledge, a Nobel Prize for Physiology in 2015 for a Chinese researcher working on traditional Chinese medicine should be a wake-up call. Youyou Tu was awarded the prestigious award for isolating anti-malarial ingredient artemisinin from sweet wormwood. It is not an attempt to belittle the spectacular contributions of the scientist. But a targeted disapproval of a democratically elected government for mere ideological reasons might reduce top-notch ‘intellectuals’ to mere ‘ideologues’ who can barely tolerate a change.

 

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