Column

You’ve got to get rid of caste!” says Nadine Gordimer, as I rise to leave. We have had a wonderful conversation, carried over from lunch the day before. The writer and activist was a fascinating conversationalist. She was in Delhi on her way back from Kolkata where she had delivered the second Nobel Laureate Lecture organised by the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.

The fighting spirit was alive and kicking in Gordimer, 85, who had successfully battled apartheid in South Africa not just as a creative writer but also as an active member of the African National Congress. Casteism in India — often compared to racism in South Africa — worried Gordimer but she wasn’t sure how to express her disapproval in public without hurting us. The day before, at a public reading, she had enthralled the Delhi audience and faltered only once — when asked about caste. She was uncomfortable with it (or something to that effect), she said, but then she was an outsider and would not want to comment on it and hurt religious sentiments.

So it was great to see her wag a fragile finger at me and say categorically, “You’ve got to get rid of caste!” We will, I promised. But she needs to talk about it too. She mustn’t hold back like she had the evening before, worried of hurting religious sentiment.

“You’re right,” she says. “It’s just that it isn’t my religion.” So what? Shouldn’t one take a stand against such discrimination on principle? “You’re right,” she said. But I could see the doubt flutter in her eyes even as she said it. In the politically correct world that we live in today, hurting another’s religious sentiment is a crime worse than cannibalism.
Unfortunately, the more we try not to tread on another’s beliefs, the more we seem to be trampling on various sentiments. Ever since we discovered that we have a right to be hurt, we have developed a permanently quivering lower lip. We are easily hurt and, if religion is involved, readily angered as well. And vengeance is not for jihadis alone.

Scared of ridicule and retribution, trying hard to please, and constantly worried that we may hurt someone in some forgotten corner, our world gets unsteadier as we take to permanently walking on eggshells.

Of course, personally I believe a quick, hard punch in the nose (or two tight slaps, depending on your disposition) at the first sign of trouble may be a cure for many ills. I recognise that this is not acceptable in a world bowing and bobbing to accommodate unbelievable customs in the name of cultural relativism.

Fine, I promise to be as respectful to Scientology as to Hinduism. But must I accept Scientology’s claim that a psychiatrist is “an anti-social enemy of the people” and should be treated as a criminal? I may promise to respect Islam like I would respect Buddhism, but does it mean I cannot speak up against the practice of stoning a woman to death because she has spoken to a man who is not a close relative, or even because she has been adulterous?

Cultural relativism can be tricky. And we need to know our limits of acceptance. A difference in culture does not give us a right to look away from terrible injustice or violence. Nor can we overcome the cultural context and try to force our idea of right and wrong on others. Civilisation, and humanity, is about finding the right balance between the two. But there are too many sacred cows blocking our way. Religion is just one of them. Political correctness is another. And we have got so used to their bovine holiness that we don’t even notice.

The writer is Editor, The Little Magazine.

Email: sen@littlemag.com