People's Democracy

EDITORIAL

Stop This Vigilantism

The RSS has concluded that the recent rout of the BJP in the UP assembly elections was due to the fact that it was not aggressive enough with its Hindutva agenda. The message is clear. In the days to come, all the tentacles of the communal octopus are bound to flex their muscles in sharpening communal polarisation and spreading deeper the venom of communal hatred.

This, naturally, would be accompanied by fascistic intolerance unleashed by the `cultural’ vigilantes of the RSS. This is precisely what happened recently at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara in Gujarat. The local VHP `moral police’ barged into the fine arts department of the university where students had put up some paintings as a part of their internal assessment. The VHP vandalised the paintings claiming that they offend their sentiments and sensibilities. The award winning student Chandramohan was assaulted and roughed up. In typical BJP-led Gujarat style, the police acted promptly by arresting the victim of this horrendous incident and not the attackers! Not satisfied, the pro-vice chancellor of the university acting in a manner of being more loyal than the king suspended the dean of the faculty because he defended his student! Chandramohan had to spend nearly a week in jail before getting bail. The dean continues to remain suspended. In the meanwhile, the VHP vigilantes have laid siege to the university, perhaps the premier fine arts institution in the country which had been the home for eminent artists of the likes of Bhupen Khakkar, K G Subramaniam etc.

Naturally, this outrageous fascistic assault has been condemned by all democrats, across the country, as a brazen affront to the Indian Constitution which guarantees the freedom of expression. But, such incidents appear to be the order of the day in Gujarat under Narendra Modi. Popular films like Parzania which documents the post-Godhra communal pogrom of 2002 has been banned from being screened in Gujarat theatres. M F Husain’s gallery in Ahmedabad is vandalised, part of an unprecedented chain of obnoxious events forcing one of India’s greatest living artists to virtually live abroad in exile. Continuous threats are issued that Husain would be arrested the moment he sets foot in his own country.

In a classic case of the kettle calling the pot black, the fascistic `cultural police’ of the RSS tentacles accuse the likes of Chandramohan and M F Husain of promoting enmity and hurting religious sentiments of the people. (The arrest warrants are under Section 153 (A) of the Indian Penal Code which relates to this precise charge.) The pretensions to moral outrage comes from a government in Gujarat whose top police officers shoot innocent couples after branding them as LeT agents!

The BJP, in the meantime, has come out in a brazen defence of the cultural vigilantism displayed by the RSS tentacles, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal. Speaking at the BJP’s parliamentary party meeting, the leader of the opposition, Advani, has stated that the BJP could not support a concept of personal artistic freedom to hurt religious sentiments. And, of course, what is not stated is that the RSS/BJP/VHP/Bajrang Dal are the only ones who can judge on such matters. The fascistic storm troopers will, thus, as always and anywhere, be both the prosecutor and the judge.

What makes this incident at the M S University all the more outrageous is the fact that routinely students display copies of many temple sculptures in their academic work. In this particular instance, as well, this occurred. In any case, these exhibitions were, as stated above, part of the internal academic assessment and not meant for any public display. Nevertheless, even if they were, will the saffron brigade now target the temples at Khajuraho and Konarak for their sexually explicit sculptures?

Clearly, the motivation behind such attacks by the self-proclaimed defenders of religious sentiments is to sharpen communal polarisation for political and electoral gains. The casualty, in the process, are the very freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution. It is high time that the secular democratic public opinion must rise unitedly to put an end to such a situation in which self-styled cultural vigilantes of the RSS tentacles can violate and deny others the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution.