The murder of three well-known rationalist writers in the space of two years, the public lynching of a Muslim man over a slice of meat, the ad hoc imposition of beef bans in several states, the cancellation of gazal legend Gulam Ali’s concert and now a paint attack on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) adviser for organising the launch of a former Pakistan foreign minister’s book in Mumbai.
The communal cauldron in India is boiling over with the shrill rhetoric of intolerance and the returning of the country’s highest literary award by more than a dozen writers in protest against the murders is a reflection of that grim reality. But even that unprecedented protest has only triggered a few murmurs of discomfort from the ruling BJP establishment and a brazen silence from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The trend of returning the Sahitya Akademi award was started last week by Nayantara Sahgal, a niece of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and a renowned author, whom no one certainly can accuse of partisan bias.
The authors’ protests continued to grow even as a batch of hooligans from Shiv Sena dumped litres of paint on Sudheendra Kulkarni on Monday for organising the launch of Khursid Kasuri’s memoir. Kulkarni, once a trusted aide to Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and former BJP chief L.K. Advani, delivered a fitting snub by continuing with his public engagements as black paint dripped from his clothes. It was a very successful putdown and Kulkarni’s blackened face will surely trend on social media. But for India, with its long history of a resilient democracy, what will not be forgotten any time soon is the strangling of the voices of dissent, whether over meat, music or a memoir.
