Tolerating intolerance

The brutal assassination of M. M. Kalburgi doesn’t mark an isolated event in our recent nationalist repertoire; it rather represents a continuing pattern.

We can detect its deadly marks not only in the bullet wounds inflicted on the bodies of Narendra Dabholakar and Govind Pansare but on the yet to heal wounds of the still alive Shakeer, an unknown young Muslim man from Managalore whose only crime was talking with and lending money to a Hindu woman colleague of his. Shakeer’s assailants were a bunch of Bajrang Dal activists who stripped him naked and tied him to a pole besides delivering him liberal blows and showering him with choice abuses. Unlike Kalburgi’s murderers, who perpetrated the deed leaving the people and the police clueless, Shakeer’s assailants carried out their assault in broad daylight in full view of cameras.

Comparing a murder with an assault might be a bit outlandish, but the hallmarks of the incidents give room for comparison. Both the incidents that took place in Karnataka- once considered a progressive state, but now fast degenerating into a hub of rabid intolerance and fanaticism-were allegedly engineered by the affiliates of the same rightist fringes who seem to be emboldened by the presence of men of their own ilk in places that matter.

Arundhati Roy had compared the Hindutva brigade- it will be misnomer to call it a fringe group now since it has colonized even our prime spaces- to a hydra-headed travelling circus. What we witnessed in Karnataka in the last few days were two acts probably committed by its two separate heads, or perhaps tails, which like the scorpions’ are as venomous as its heads. They demonstrated to the world how despite being a mature democracy, a country can easily fall prey to mob psychology’s wanton vagaries.

All extremists - be it IS variety flourishing in Levant or the Inter Service Intelligence sponsored ones thriving in Afghanistan or ISI marked ones fast proliferating in our free communalist friendly market - believe in curbing dissent, monopolizing discourse and policing boundaries. Their DNAs have the same Neanderthal aversion towards counter views and alternative voices. Just as the IS is doing a greater disservice to Islam than what Bush could imagine, the Hindutva is inflicting a heavy damage to the image of Hinduism as a religion of tolerance and accommodation.

But what is particularly unsettling about present day India, which is witnessing a silent but sudden descent from Nehruvian vision of synthesis and pluralism to the Parivar version of exclusionism and obscurantism, is the high level of tolerance towards intolerance that we seem to have internalized. How else can we explain away our passivity at the spectacle of a whole crowd setting itself upon a hapless man with such devilish rage and demonic passion? Adding insult to the injury are those comments that are being circulated in the social media calling the victim the choicest abuses and suggesting that he received his just deserts.

When such a psychology reigns, it will be impossible for free discussions to thrive and for the likes Dabholkar or Kalburgi to freely express their views. We have often prided ourselves to be a more mature and progressive democracy compared with our neighbours like Pakistan and Bangladesh. The fact is that it had been so and our pride was never misplaced. But now we are in danger of going their way. Or probably falling into greater depths beyond which they plummeted. It is not the isolated instance in which a Pakistani court asked the authorities to rebuild a Hindu temple destroyed by the Muslim fanatics which prompts one to make this observation. But the travesty of justice that was so evident in the investigation into the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.

Dabholkar was a fearless rationalist whose iconoclastic zeal cost him his very life. But the Maharashtra police made a mockery of his heroic spirit through a farcical inquiry that was conducted into his assassination. Thanks to the intrepid journalist Ashish Khetan, we got to know how the Pune police bungled the investigation. The officers in charge of the investigation were no small fry: the man at the helm was Gulabrao Pol who had been decorated with all kinds of honours including a President’s medal. But instead of following vital leads, which any blind man could see, this illustrious Sherlock Holmes of the Maharashtra police sought the assistance of a Godman called Manish Tewary to solve the murder mystery. Mr. Tewary, according to Pol, is no ordinary mortal but possesses the ability to conduct séances and communicate with the dead. In other words, he can through a ritualist process and make the souls of dead people inhabit in his body and then reveal exactly what had befallen them.

When Khetan approached Tewary, he was generous and conducted a séance in the journalist’s presence. Thus he momentarily became Dabholkar himself. But when Khetan spoke to him in English, the latter couldn’t reply nor understand a word of what he was saying. The real Dhabolkar was fluent in English but his soul incarnated in the soul of Tewary couldn’t understand a word of English!! Khetan informs us how Pune police for months on end pursued the clues offered by Tewari through his séances (Outlook July 14-2014). A lot of government money went into the farcical investigation conducted by Pol- Tewary combine before the case was eventually handed over to the CBI. The CBI has been equally lax in its enquiry and was hauled up by the court for its inexplicable lethargy.

If it were any other country police officers like Gullabrao Pol and Godman Tewary would have been brought to book for wasting public money and making a mockery of investigations. But in our country where ministers are busy gloating over the glories of our ancient achievements in plastic surgery and nuclear warfare the weird is now being the norm. One’s only hope here is in the purveyors of ancient Indian achievements in the field of forensic medicine and criminology. Sure, they will be able to nab the murderers of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi. Till that happens, we shall put up with these happenings of the kali yuga.

(Dr. Umer O Thasneem is an author and Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of Calicut. The views expressed here are personal. He can be contacted at uotasnm@yahoo.com)