It is time for academics, intellectuals and artists to join hands to keep extremist groups on the defensive.
JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Is India going to put its liberal values and adherence to freedom of speech aside? Sadly yes, as is evident from the power extremist groups are gaining in that country day by day. A group of leading Indian and international academics have criticised Penguin-India’s decision to strike an out-of-court agreement with a group that has vehemently opposed a book by Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History. Instead of fighting the case in courts in order to come to some logical conclusion, the publisher in question decided to recall and destroy all the unsold copies of Doniger’s book.
India is fast changing in an already changed world around it. Its most famous artist of the present times, the late MF Hussain, was forced to flee the country by religious extremists. Not only extremist Hindus, but other religious groups are also not behind when it comes to trying to stop and threaten the very essential freedom of the right to free speech, by violent means.
One would expect India to move forward in a new century, but sadly, it is not only India but its neighbours as well, which are also moving towards medieval times. It is time for academics, intellectuals and artists to join hands to keep extremist groups on the defensive. Historian Ramachandra Guha has put this issue in perspective by declaring: “The answer to a book one doesn’t like is another book, not a ban, or legal action, or physical intimidation.” Let us see whether extremist groups will ever come forward with a pen and a paper, and not a gun or a sword.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, February 28th, 2014.
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