Each time an M.M Kalburgi, Govind Pansare or Narendra Dabholkar are brutally murdered in broad daylight, a T.J. Joseph’s hands are chopped off, a Shireen Dalvi, James Laine or Perumal Murugan are violently silenced or a Salman Rushdie, Sanal Edamaruku, M.F. Hussain or Taslima Nasreen are forced into exile, it is this essence of India and Indian thought that is grievously attacked.
One of the most prominent hymns in the Rigveda (the oldest of the four Vedas, dated c.1700-1100 BC) is titled the Nasadiya Sukta and is also known as the Creation Hymn. ‘Na asat’ which is the root of the word Nasadiya means “not the non-existent”. The hymn is a series of questions on the entire process of creation and more importantly, the Creator. A rough translation of a few verses of this hymn is as follows-
Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? — perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did notThe One who looks down on it as the supreme arbitrator, Seated in the highest heaven, only He knows Or perhaps even He does not know?Fundamental to this is a spirit of skepticism, agnosticism and rational questioning that has been the cornerstone of Indian philosophy. Since time immemorial, Indian thought has been defined by a complete absence of the concept of heresy, as we know it from the Semitic faiths. Questioning well-established existing beliefs, fierce intellectual debates and irreverence even to what is considered sacred and divine has always been the norm. It is this attitude to life and intellectualism that made India ever accepting of diverse viewpoints, assimilating multiple cultures and faiths, amalgamating them in its own world-view. But each time an M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare or Narendra Dabholkar are brutally murdered in broad daylight, a T.J. Joseph’s hands are chopped off, a Shireen Dalvi, James Laine or Perumal Murugan are violently silenced or a Salman Rushdie, Sanal Edamaruku, M.F. Hussain or Taslima Nasreen are forced into exile, it is this essence of India and Indian thought that is grievously attacked. Individuals are dispensable, but the attack is on a civilisational belief that has been sustained for centuries.
In the last few decades, it has become increasingly impossible for artists, thinkers, scholars and writers to push the boundaries of what is considered sacrosanct and shake existing beliefs. If artists do not break boundaries and rules, who else will? How else will new thoughts and ideas emerge if we do not demolish a few existing ones? While it is rightly said, “Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins,” there is palpable fear to even move one’s fingers given the barrage of violence — be it in the form of physical assaults or obscene verbal attacks by online trolls. ‘Sentiments’— the often-heard word, are offended at the drop of a hat and the reaction is never one of intellectual rejoinder but of violence and harm.
Discourse on religion and history have become the casualty in the process. Is this not ironic in a country whose religious philosophy has been based on debate and rational thinking? The answer to a book that “offends” you is not a bullet aimed at the author’s chest, but a vigorous counter intellectual viewpoint. If Adi Shankaracharya or his followers had been similarly offended by the contrarian views of philosopher and scholar Mandana Mishra — the historical debate went on for months between the two — the distilling of the Mimamsa philosophy would never have occurred.
One must concede that not all “rationalists” today air their views in the true spirit of enquiry or scientific temper. Many times the motive is to provoke without substance, create disturbance or worse, cheap publicity. But even in such cases, the counter should be a public shaming of that viewpoint through intellectual arguments and not causing physical harm to the person concerned.
It is ironic that in a country where we have little or no regard for our own history, we get so touchy when it comes to historical characters and the way they are depicted or analysed by different scholars. As historian John Noble Wilford says “All works of history are interim reports…what people did in the past is not preserved in amber… immutable through the ages. Each generation looks back and drawing from its own experience, presumes to find patterns that illuminate both the past and present.” But how open is India today to a contrary scholastic view on say, a Basaveshawara, Shivaji, Tipu Sultan or B.R. Ambedkar? The violence unleashed on the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune for instance, for assisting American historian James Laine in his work on Shivaji, certainly shows we are not. The manner in which various linguistic, regional and caste groups have appropriated these figures as icons for modern political discourse, does more harm than good to their legacies as it insulates them from any kind of academic debate.
From personal experience, each time I have spoken or written something contrary to popular blind beliefs on Tipu Sultan, the 18th Century ruler of Mysore, I have faced a violent backlash. My lectures on the subject were shouted down, my family members threatened, my articles burnt in public and even an effigy consigned to flames! All this when I was quoting chapter and verse from documented and well-researched primary sources. But not a tear is shed by these same hypersensitive groups professing their violent love for the man, when the same Sultan’s palaces, armories or forts crumble due to governmental or public apathy and indifference. Moreover, it is meaningless for us to sit in judgment of characters of the past by yardsticks and definitions of today. To certify an Aurangazeb as secular or communal as has been happening in the last few weeks, or a Tipu as a freedom fighter of the nation, at a time when concepts like ‘nation’ or ‘secularism’ never existed, is being grossly unfair to them. They were products of their times and circumstances and need to be judged and discussed in that very light. To err is human and a scholar is not immune to it.
The counter to a book that offends you since you believe it is erroneous on representation of facts or their interpretation is another book that refutes the original arguments.
This bane of silencing ‘thoughts’ is becoming a South Asian epidemic. Numerous voices in our neighbourhood like Niloy Chakrabarti, Ananta Bijoy Das, Washiqur Rahman and Avijit Roy in Bangladesh, dissident Buddhist monks such as Watarkea Vijitha Thero in Sri Lanka or Salman Taseer and Sabeen Mahmud in Pakistan have been ruthlessly crushed in the recent past. Will India go the same path or will it show the way as it always has? Numerous editorials and articles like this one have been written denouncing this trend. People vent their anger for a few days and then move on till the next assassination or attack hogs the public space. Sadly, the pen has not been mightier than the sword. But the one and only option that is available with the vast majority of theists who are peace loving is to stand up against this scourge of a few people from amongst them who wrongly appropriate for themselves the role of guardians of the ‘faith’. It is their responsibility to demand from the State an absolute protection for a fundamental right that any modern democratic civilization can offer---that of free thought.
A freedom that the Rig Veda offered us as a civilization is something that we surely must vigorously demand from the Constitution and its modern implementers. As George Washington had said: “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
— Vikram Sampath is a Yuva Puraskar winning author
