Column

It’s so unfair to have different standards for different people. In the interest of fairness, if we fear the Fuhrer of the Marathi manoos we must fear the Fuhrer of the Malayali manush too.

Prakash Karat should get the same respect as Raj Thackeray, don’t you think? For years, we have been granting special status to the saffron right, making room for their fascist fundamentalism, so why not for the reds on the Left?

And why are we horrified that Paul Zacharia, influential author and candid critic of reactionary forces, has been roughed up in Kerala by CPM hooligans for speaking out against their moral policing?

And that Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala secretary of the party, justified the act with the usual spiel about the victim inviting the outburst by
hurting the sentiments of the people?

We can now justify anything at all by claiming to be hurt. Goons of political parties are hurt most easily, usually on behalf of unsuspecting people. Like the dear old red riding hoodlums who accosted Zacharia.

It started earlier this month, with these left lumpens being outraged by the private friendship of two Congress leaders, a man and a woman. They accosted the duo at the Congresswoman’s house late in the night, dragged them out in front of television cameras and got the two arrested as they hooted and booed.

Later, medical examinations proved no sexual contact between the two, but the lurid stamp of a sex scandal would be impossible to erase.

Last week, Zacharia spoke out against such ridiculous moral policing. What right did they have, he asked, to barge into a woman’s house at midnight and drag her and her friend out to defame her?

Morally policing adult men and women was outdated and fascist, he pointed out, and showed how far the once enlightened communists had swung from their roots, how narrow their outlook had become.

The left lumpens were hurt. They collared the author on the street and expressed themselves the way they knew best. Then state CPM chief Vijayan defended their hooliganism with missionary zeal.

The attackers were hurt because Zacharia’s speech showed CPM leaders in a bad light, he explained. “What would happen,” he reportedly said, “if a speaker tried to cast aspersions on Christ at a meeting attended by Christians only?” Clearly, in Vijayan’s world, these Christians— normally associated with turning the other cheek — would pounce upon the speaker and rough him up.

And evidently in Vijayan’s communist world, CPM leaders were the new gods. Criticising them was blasphemy. Ironically enough, this is not an alien notion for communists. History is full of examples of left fundamentalism and fascism.

But in India, communism did have a human face, it had a liberal, democratic attitude, it supported free speech. At least in the cities. In rural, invisible India such liberalism is often absent, and left fascism rules in communist strongholds. Today, we are upset because that crass village reality has invaded our quaint urban space.

These lumpens were members of CPM’s youth wing, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). Smothering freedom of speech is not exactly democratic behaviour, but then political words are not expected to behave like ordinary words with mundane dictionary meanings. Like people in politics, words in
politics are untouched by ordinary rules.

Put in perspective, the Zacharia incident is hardly shocking. Mob
intimidation has long been a part of power politics in our country. It’s just that writers and artists are usually attacked by right fundamentalists, not left fundamentalists.

The excruciatingly slow justice system, almost crippled by a corrupt administration and crooked investigative process, encourages goonda raj.

If we value democratic freedoms, apart from opposing hooliganism we need to recognise and oppose fundamentalism whatever its colour.For freedom of speech is too precious to give up.

The writer is editor,The Little Magazine.