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The most overused phrase in recent times must surely be “It has hurt the sentiments of…” I have deliberately not finished that sentence.

You could fill the blank with religions, castes, communities, ethnic groups, neo-tribes of different kinds, in short every kind of collective there is. All of them feel hurt and aggrieved at some time or the other, and all of them let the world know it immediately.

Just look at the past few weeks. Hindus, or more accurately Hindutva groups, have been outraged a lot. How dare the

Archaealogical Survey of India(ASI) raise questions about the existence of Ram? Why should a judge suggest that a temple be shifted? As for Karunanidhi’s wild rhetoric, he must immediately apologise or else.

In none of the above cases, has the context been considered. The ASI might have done little more than given its professional view when called upon to do so.

The judge may have responded to fears that the temple under question could be under threat from terrorists-after all, as he said, there are several other ways it could be attacked.

As for Karunanidhi, public memory is very short and our sense of history limited, but his mentor and guru Periyar used to show much more disrespect to Ram than issuing mere statements. Periyar has left us long ago, Ram happily survives.

Consider also the fact that in the Siddhivinayak case, the judge was hearing a petition about a wall that has been declared illegal, which has occupied public land with the connivance of the authorities and which has caused untold misery to residents of the area.

And here you have politicians expressing their anger about a judge’s statement, rather than talking about upholding the law! And all this for what? To protect their religion, their God (who can look after himself) or their personal vested interests?

The Ram Setu issue is not about religion or faith at all. The great protector of Hinduism, the BJP, had initiated the project under its watch. The party knows that it is a crucial project, not the least because of security reasons.

It also knows that invoking Ram’s name in vain will not get it any votes any more — this is not India of the 1990s. Yet, it raises the gratuitous religious bogey. Why? Because its leaders have run out of ideas and also know that if they didn’t, the more extremist Hindutva groups would do so and undermine it.

The Congress, which wants to be all things to all people, throws its secular principles out of the window. The circular is withdrawn, the hunt for scapegoats begins and the party turns into a soft, saffron hue. It’s a smart move, because Sonia Gandhi doesn’t want to be seen as anti-Hindu; as for principles, what are those?

It’s not only the Hindus, or Hindutva elements, who are into this grievance game. Muslim elements play it successfully, getting angry about books and cartoons and everything in between.

No one wants to upset them, so no one even challenges the self-styled representatives of the ‘Muslim community.’ The first one to reach the media and shout into the mike is the first one to be heard, the silent majority be damned.

The Christians, who kept their objections discreet and wrote polite letters to the papers about their representation in movies, have now caught on. Ban The Da Vinci Code, they cried some time ago and our I&B Minister, always looking around for something to ban, almost obliged.

In this melee, the liberal faces a dilemma. (I use the word liberal a bit too liberally, but you will know what it means.) He doesn’t want to offend anyone needlessly, though he understands that the Pravin

Togadias do not speak for Hindus. But this dilemma forces the liberal voice to criticise those perceived to be ‘attacking’ a religious group, thus implicitly ending up on the same side of Togadia and his ilk.

This is dangerous territory indeed. The notion of community rights goes against the Republican spirit, and to hand over such rights to a group is to undermine the individual.

The moment a Muslim cleric is allowed to speak on behalf of his entire community, the individual gets diminished, as we have seen in scores of cases recently. Pandering to community rights leads us to make mistakes like in the Shahbano case or more scarily, like the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

The correct liberal response therefore is not to criticise Karunanidhi for ‘hurting religious sentiments’ but do so for playing a cynical game. He knows that his constituents will love what he says and the BJP will get riled, so he plays his crafty little tricks.

On cue, the BJP attacks him, the Congress requests him to keep quiet and all of us join the chorus. Well-meaning intellectuals step in to say Karunanidhi shouldn’t have done this. The hardcore elements of all religions are happy. No one wants to know what the ‘Hindu’ thinks about it all, because his voice doesn’t count.

Email: sidharth01@dnaindia.net