Off-centre | Udaipur beheading: Time to decry religious extremism
As widely reported, Justice Surya Kant of the Supreme Court of India, referring to Nupur Sharma, the former spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party, remarked: “This lady is single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country.” The honourable judge of the highest court of the land was responding to the submission of Sharma’s lawyer, senior advocate Maninder Singh, that his client’s life was under threat.
Let us recall that Sharma had already apologised, but Justice Kant was not satisfied: “She was too late to withdraw”; moreover, she had apologised “conditionally,” and that “sentiments” had been “hurt.” Justice Kant added, “She should have gone to the TV and apologised to the nation.” Sharma was pleading for the multiple FIRs filed against her to be clubbed, but the two-member bench presided over by Justice Kant, was not convinced: “The conscience of the court is not satisfied.”
Without questioning the wisdom of the Supreme Court let alone its ruling, one might wonder, as a concerned citizen of this country, what the implications of Justice Kant’s remarks might be. If Sharma is “single-handedly responsible for what is happening in the country”, does this mean that Riaz Akhtari and Ghouse Mohammad, the killers of Kanhaiya Lal, the tailor lynched in Udaipur, are not guilty of the crime of murder? I am sure this is not what the honourable Justice Kant meant.
The law of the land will, of course, have to take its course. If so, could Justice Kant have meant that hurt sentiments can justify taking innocent lives, disregarding the law of the land? Once again, I am sure that that is not what the honourable justice had in mind. The only logical conclusion that one might derive, from the court proceedings as reported in the media, is that people holding responsible positions, not just ruling party spokespersons, must exercise utmost caution. Far from losing their tempers, they must not take offence, even when provoked but refrain from hurting religious sentiments and hold their tongues.
But shouldn’t the highest court of the land also condemn those who are quick to take offence, not just those who happen to give offence? Are, moreover, blasphemy, sacrilege, apostasy, and such religious offences to be recognised in a so-called secular country such as India? Should those who take offence also take the law into their own hands and administer theologically sanctioned, but patently illegal, punishments, including horrifying and ghastly beheadings — sar tan se juda, as the hate-filled slogans go? Perhaps, we shall have to await the pleasure and sagacity of our honourable judges, as also on the right opportunity, to pronounce on such matters?
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But, to be perfectly honest, I am not entirely surprised that this horrible hate crime in Udaipur is being blamed, directly or indirectly, upon the indiscretions of one person while we fail to call out Islamist fanaticism for its violence and hate crimes against humanity. About 95 years back, the killing of the editor-publisher of Rangeela Rasool, Mahashe Rajpal, the founder of the famous Hindi publishing house, Rajpal & Sons, was similarly justified and the killer praised by several eminent personalities.
Doesn’t it seem obvious that we, as a state and society, have been somewhat lax, even apathetic, about religious hate crimes? That is why I must take a line quite contrary to the one cited earlier. I believe that this is the opportunity to rectify our past mistakes. We must say in one voice that there is no room for blasphemy punishments meted out by private agents in our republic. No political party or religious group should be allowed to justify such acts. No religious ideology can legitimate acts of crime and hatred against those who do not subscribe to it.
It is true that organised religions, like dogmatic ideologies, tend to brainwash their adherents and create false consciousness. Untold crimes, in which millions have been slaughtered, enslaved, oppressed, and displaced in the past have been justified in the name of such systems of belief. We must stop trying to defend them or being apologists for what is unpalatable about the inhuman and inhumane aspects of such creeds.
Blasphemy, sacrilege, and apostasy — such terms and ideas have no place in the modern world. No more appeasement politics; no more soft-pedalling extremism; no more looking the other way when hate and prejudice are being taught in state-funded religious schools; no more selective and one-sided condemnation of so-called “Hindu fascism”; no more tolerance of the utterly intolerant and violently ignorant.
As Karl Popper famously put it in his “paradox of intolerance”: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
While we isolate the enemies of the free society and the state, we must also reign in the continuous anti-Muslim rhetoric that is being spewed day and night on social media. It is the extreme elements that need to be continuously monitored, isolated, and overcome. But day-to-day relations between communities must remain peaceful, even cordial if India’s future is to be secure.
We cannot have a continuously divided polity and fragmented society based on religious, regional, linguistic, or caste identities. The state must be fair to all, treating citizens alike, regardless of their identities. Our country was divided on religious lines. In post-Independence India, we almost lost two states to religious extremism, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. We are still highly susceptible to religious intolerance, bigotry, and chauvinism. Now is the time to put an end to them in our land.
This is the second and final part of a two-part series. Click here to read the first part.
The author is a professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.
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Makarand R Paranjape
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