India Journal: Indias Addiction to the Monochromatic Narrative
India Journal: India
Its been a few months since I last penned my thoughts on any issue of consequence. The self-imposed reticence was not a result of a dearth of topics but it was borne out of a monochromatic addiction that seems to be plaguing public life in India an addiction to one truth, one voice, one thought and a corresponding aversion to dissent, alternative explanations, ideas or hypotheses.
We have witnessed this addiction in the Parliament where noise triumphs over coherence, in culture where censorship prevails over freedom of expression and in politics where a challenge to state policy attracts cases of sedition. In such an atmosphere of intolerance, where communication is neither sought nor desired and only the state-sponsored monologue prevails, perhaps silence is the most potent form of protest. Still, I offer a hesitant note of dissent, prompted by the recent ban in Gujarat of Joseph Lelyvelds new book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India.
In case youve been sleeping under a rock or too glued to the cricket for any other news, the book has caused a firestorm of protest over its suggestion, according to reviews and not according to the book itself, that Gandhi may have been in love with another man, described as an architect and bodybuilder called Hermann Kallenbach. The book, even though it has yet to be published in India, was widely condemned by those who considered this suggestion to be insulting to the great man resulting in the state of Gujarat banning the tome and the state of Maharashtra considering a ban. The voices, if there were any, that might have said the book was not a Ruritanian romance but merely a reproduction of historical record that was worth airing were drowned out by the outrage.
How did we allow this to happen? For a nation founded on principles of diversity and multicultural existence, we seem to have a remarkable tolerance for singularity of thought in the public domain. Consequently, as we see in the response to the Gandhi book (or, more accurately, reviews about the Gandhi book) there is zero tolerance for an alternative version in face of an official one. Whatever else 2011 may bring for the Gandhian legacy, it has already witnessed the destruction of its most cherished symbol: tolerance.
From deleting abusive Facebook pages to banning insulting books to potentially criminalizing perceived disrespect against the Mahatma, the Indian state is leaving no stone unturned in preserving Gandhi as a national icon while at the same time annihilating Gandhi as an idea of plurality and acceptance.
Ordinarily, one might have been tempted to laugh off the frivolity of the states efforts at the preservation of an image. But there is nothing light-hearted in the calculated manner with which dissent is being destroyed in public life. A legendary painter M.F. Husain in exile, an erudite author Arundhati Roy booked for sedition, others like Rushdie and Lelyveld more cruelly censured and censored
these are some of the real symbols of our democracy and not fossilized national icons who, if they had been alive today, would have been shamed by the mockery of their ideals.
Truth is not a concrete object lurking in a dark corner that one can discover and proclaim proprietary rights over. It is constructed, distorted and manufactured by the forces of the media, production, religion, culture and politics every day. Hence, any governmental attempt to monopolize the truth and censor a book that hasnt even been published here by indulging in crystal ball gazing is its own insult to our great democracy. Of course, thats to say nothing of the fact that this monochromatic condemnation of the book will almost certainly ensure that it will sell extremely well when it is finally published here. Had official India not jumped up to condemn it, there is a good chance yet another biography of Gandhi would have sat quietly on bookshelves; there is no chance of that now and I strongly suspect even on the streets of Maharashtra and Gujarat, unauthorized copies will be snapped up.
There are no constants in public discourse; todays dissenting opinion often paves the way for tomorrows majority verdict. Hence, it is important to allow and even encourage dissent. Let the book reach its targeted audience. If people are genuinely aggrieved by its contents, let them take recourse as offered by the law. But in the name of the man whose memory the government is trying to protect, let us not close our minds to alternative explanations and realities. Let the monologue end and communication begin
