Minding the sensitivities of hooligans

The decision by artist MF Husain not to return to India is hardly surprising from his point of view. When he lived here he was under constant threat — his art works vandalised, his movement restricted. His crime is well-known — he offended religious sentiments, a crime beyond any other in the hooligan’s scheme of life.

As a Muslim, moreover, he dared to depict Hindu gods and goddesses in a way which was offensive to Hindus. There is no point getting into the aesthetics of the matter or trotting out the ‘Khajuraho is full of sex’ argument. We all know that. The real issue is one of “sentiments and sensitivity”.

People are very sensitive at all times to their religious symbolism — as they understand it — being tampered with. So like the Muslims who protested against the Danish newspaper and its depiction of their prophet Mohammed, some Hindu bigots in India find Husain’s art offensive. Both took similar routes of outrage and protest to make their case. In India, though, public vandalism is seen as a legitimate form of protest, where any amount of destruction of property is all right as long as you invoke the “sentiments” argument.

Note the Shiv Sena’s justification of its behaviour at all such times, now also adopted by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. At the slightest provocation, their members beat up people or burn buses and then some smug leader comes on television to blame it all on public emotion leading to spontaneous violence. Really.

The Danes stuck to their guns and would not apologise for the cartoon. But in India, we do not stick to our Constitutional responsibilities, because of the aforesaid sentiments. Husain can be driven out of the country, Salman Rushdie’s book can be banned, Taslima Nasreen cannot return even if she has nowhere to go, James Laine’s book on Shivaji must remain banned — this is only the contemporary list.

If all religions are equally sensitive to criticism, caricature, disrespect or whatever you want to call it, then all things are equal. The question is, how does a modern nation-state respond? If you call a visually challenged person blind just to mock him, then you are being insensitive. That is bad manners but no one would make it illegal.

When it comes to race, the western world, to counter its own guilt, does make it a crime to discriminate — even in speech — between black and white. So also with anti-Semitism, though it must be pointed out that Israel does not show much sensitivity as a nation-state while the Christian world must bear the collective responsibility of Hitler’s crimes.

But if you call a bigot a bigot, is that a sign of insensitivity? Art lovers or fans of Husain will not take to the streets and burn down a few bigots just because their “sentiments” have been hurt by the actions of the bigots. Does that perhaps show that they do not care enough for their cause or bus or two would have gone by now?

The real culprit is the government — in its larger sense. So far either the administration of the day has pandered to the bigots or it has failed to take the threat of the bigots seriously. The threat is not to religion, which seems to survive the kind of “attacks” that those with thin skins and much sentiment protest about. For whatever reason people choose to believe in divinity, a few pokes and jokes and even insensitivity cannot make that crumble.

The threat is to rule of law, which the government is sworn to uphold. By giving in to those who are only looking to create trouble, we have had successive governments — of every political persuasion — which have failed their basic responsibility.

Sadly, this is not new and nor will it end here. This week marks the 8th anniversary of the riots in Gujarat and we all know where the cases on those stand and how many will actually be punished. As for MF Husain, he must live out his years in sadness that his country could not protect his sensitivities over those of hooligans.