A new name has been added to the illustrious list of those who have fought to strengthen democratic India post-1947: Perumal Murugan. Until a few years ago, few outside Tamil Nadu would have heard of him, much less read him. This 50-year-old remarkably talented scholar and writer, the author of several novels, short stories and anthologies, was happy to be away from the glamour lights of Chennai, and taught Tamil at the government art college in Namakkal. But destiny was waiting to catapult him from a Tamil writer of eminence to a national icon standing for the pre-eminence of freedom of expression and speech in India.
In 2010, Murugan wrote a Tamil novel titled Madhorubagan, later translated into English as One Part Woman. It is a story about a childless couple desperate to have a child in order to escape social stigma. In the narrative, Murugan wrote about a traditional custom in which a woman could have consensual sex with a stranger on the 14th day of the temple car festival. This tradition, at one time, had the sanction of the community, and was one way to resolve the predicament of childlessness.
The decision was that of the woman, often with the support of her husband. It was not considered immoral, and was part of customary law. Murugan uses this custom as a powerful metaphor to highlight the anguish and humiliation of a childless couple. The curious thing is that for four years the novel did not provoke any protests from any section of society. But, suddenly, in December 2014, some elements expressed great outrage. Perhaps it is happenstance that in May of that very year, the BJP had come to power at the Centre. Did this embolden “fringe groups” of the Hindu right to a new form of aggression? Readers are free to draw their own conclusions, but the fact is that for four years prior to 2014, there were no voices of protest or intimidation. It is curious also that when these protests escalated, the government of Tamil Nadu stepped in to bring about “peace” by “unofficially” proscribing the circulation of the novel. What was the locus standi of the state to intervene in the matter?
And was it becoming of it to so meekly succumb to the aggression brought to bear upon Murugan by such threatening fringe groups? Is it the dharma of the state merely to somehow enforce “peace” without objectively assessing the merits of the case, or evaluating what the impact of this decision would have on the expressly guaranteed right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 of the Constitution? Abandoned by the state, and devastated by the illiterate ferocity of the venom being directed at him, Murugan took a landmark decision. He wrote on his Facebook page: “Perumal Murugan the writer is dead. As he is no God he is not going to resurrect himself. He has also no faith in rebirth. An ordinary teacher, he will live as P. Murugan. Leave him alone.” Rarely in the annals of creativity will we find such a public announcement of literary suicide. Why did Murugan resort to this extreme step? Essentially, he was left with no other option. Those opposing him were not open to reason. Their modus operandi was to threaten, intimidate, use violence and drum up hysteria against anyone who had the temerity to slight their notion of what is socially right or permissible in terms of creative expression.
Almost none of them would have read the works of Kalidasa, Bhartrihari or Vatsyayana to understand the degree of freedom sanctioned in Hindu literary tradition. Nor would they have been familiar with the fact that the great Shankaracharya defeated his intellectual opponents not by threatening to kill them, but by shasthrath or discussion. With the government refusing to protect him, and with the examples of what happened to Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi before him, Murugan decided to just die as a writer. But judicial intervention has made Murugan rise from his literary grave. In a landmark judgment delivered on July 5, 2016, a division bench of the Madras high court comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana, decisively pronounced: “Let the author be resurrected to do what he is best at: Write.” Recognising that the novel refers to a social practice, if at all it ever existed, to somehow solve the problem of a childless couple, the learned judges said, “The novel shakes you, but not in the manner its opponents seek to profess. It jolts you, because it succinctly depicts the pain and sufferance depicted through the words of this childless couple. That is the takeaway from the novel.”
“No one reading the novel” the judges said, “would be persuaded to draw a definite conclusion as sought to be canvassed by the opponents of the novel that the endeavour of the author was to portray all women coming to the car festival as prostitutes. This is a complete misreading of the novel and its theme.” Pronouncing that the so-called settlement arrived at with the intervention of the state authorities had no “binding force or obligation”, the court, annulling all cases against Murugan, directed the state to provide him adequate security so that he could continue to write fearlessly. Finally, in an admonishment of historical proportions against those seeking to stifle creative freedom, the judges thundered: “If you do not like a book simply close it. The answer is not its ban.” Hindutva fringe groups may think that they are omnipotent today, but they should never underestimate the power of Indian democracy, especially the judiciary. Perumal Murugan, the writer is alive again, and may all creative people continue to have the freedom to “jolt and shake” society, notwithstanding what the Hindutva brigade feels.
