Indian Ayatollah?

In 1999, Osama Bin Laden, and Ayman al-Zawahiri organized a press conference at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan to declare that USA and India were their biggest enemies. Reassured that the recent victory over Russia was a direct result of the assistance it rendered to the Taliban, the United States ignored this threat and paid for this mistake with the loss it suffered in 9/11.

Praveen Swami needs to be reminded firstly, that the violent fervor of the fanatic's mind does not make decisions based on the statistical leanings of economic or geo-strategic data. After all, the fact that Osama was a millionaire himself should wipe out every notion of the idea that an increase in per-capita income necessarily means fundamentalist threat is mitigated.

Secondly, to equate the fundamentalist with the religious is a grave error not only unworthy of an accomplished writer like Swami but also carries with it a whiff of fundamentalism of an anti-religious kind. Swami should note that "god's armies" are doing more good in the world (as missionary charities etc.) than bad and should chose his words accordingly.

Needless glorification of a below-par writer

Praveen Swami seems to be living in a distant fictional future which not only is entirely theoretical, but also extremely fascist for denying its inhabitants the fundamental right to believe and to live according to those beliefs. If how public money is spent or punishment meted out in a democratic country is tied up inherently with religion and culture, then any attempts at engineering social change by assuaging the masses to give up their ontological theories (which are as epistemologically valid as any other) instead of improving those political and juridical setups in a truly secular way (i.e. without the use of mind-control propaganda that tries to sway the public into either side of the faith/disbelief debate) smacks of nothing but totalitarian designs.

It would behove Swami to recognize that there are two kinds of secularism and the theoretical and dated definition that he ascribes to is not at all conducive to peace and progress, Instead what is needed is a vision that sees reality not through the theoretical lens but as it really is. Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion is how we Indians define secularism which is a part of our culture and heritage. This newfangled hard-line opposition to theism however, is ill-informed and ill-willed.

As for Rushdie, is his opinion on anything really worth incurring the hurt and heartburn of thousands (even lakhs) of Muslims? and Meera Nanda has already been criticized so much for her hatred of religion, that the article paints a biased picture of her career as a scholar by not mentioning the reactions her so called theories have evoked.

Wikileaks didn't start the fire!

It can be credibly argued that the simmering discontent in Tunisia exploded in public anger when WikiLeaks published the cables on the U.S. ambassador's assessment of corruption by President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The Tunisian uprising, then, was triggered by the WikiLeaks revelations, and fanned by the Internet.

- The Hindu (Feb 23 / 2011)

My Response:

Its almost an insult of the Tunisian people and their revolt to say that they did it because a website (about which a handful of them knew) told them to. Wikileaks was one of the many factors that justified the revolt in the eyes of an Assange-worshipping media, but to say that it started the whole uprising is to make a dent in the causality of history.

It is highly improbable that the Tunisian uprisings were "triggered by the Wikileaks revelations" firstly because these leaks were hardly revelations for a public being ruled over by a corrupt dictator for over 24 years. That there was already a "simmering discontent" nullifies any possibility of Wikileaks being a cause for the uprising. Secondly, no country on the brink of revolt needs a Wikileaks to find out the right muhurat to end the lethal combination of poverty, unemployment and political repression affecting the masses for more than two decades. Wikileaks just happened to coincide very beautifully with discontent which was about to boil over anyway.

In Defence of Cerebral Liberalism

Parts of the keynote address delivered by Lord Anthony Lester at the 17th Commonwealth Law Conference in Hyderabad earlier this month resonate strongly with the call for "muscular liberalism" given by the British PM a day earlier and seem quite insensitive to the cause for concerted tolerance which has propelled the cultural narrative of India this far into its history.

Lord Lester's opinions on the decadent and primitive nature of Indian Penal Code struck me as only partially right to the extent of his legal observation that the "IPC was enacted to suit British needs". However, his assertion that section 295-A of the IPC was spreading hatred and that it was against the spirit of free-speech seemed to me not only odd but grossly misinformed. For the following reasons:

1. Currently, Judicial decisions under this section tend to punish undertakings of "deliberate and malicious intention" towards religions or religious sentiments of people. If, however, our lawmakers decide to jump on the bandwagon of reckless liberalism and make amends to this part of IPC -- so that it becomes difficult to punish such acts -- it would clearly tantamount to a state of cultural lawlessness for the state will no longer be able to protect the dignity of its believing masses. While in an ideal regime of free-speech raising offence (regardless of context) can not be seen as a crime, raising religious offence is just as much a crime as mental harassment (and for roughly the same reasons too).

Moreover, attempts to ignore all offence raised by the letting-loose of free-speech standards will require parallel amendments in the law of contempt of court, and that will only mark the beginning of overhauling the whole legal framework under the constitution and ultimately reveal deep-seeded hypocrisies. A small but perfectly fitting example is the recent culling of the "I hate Ambedkar" page by Facebook.

2. Freedom of Religion, as guaranteed by our constitution, inherently contains a duty on every citizen to refrain from insulting the religious sentiments of others, there is however, a very human limit to how much the tolerant will tolerate the intolerant (i.e. those who do not perform this constitutional duty), Section 295-A makes sure that our civilization steers clear of indecision and confusion when faced with such a paradox of tolerance. Subsequent Judicial decisions upholding the need to be crystal clear about the secular nature of Indian multiculturalism have justified the use of Section 295-A as an effective legal tool.

3. It must be noted, also, that this section of IPC does not punish a person for mere criticism of religion or religious practices, rather it is the "wanton vilification or attacks upon the religion of any particular group or class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion"^[1] that is/are punished with fine and imprisonment (up to 3 years). Even by European standards, I doubt this language or the legislation it frames will seem anti-humanistic to anyone. It isn't always easy to clearly define and ascertain the nature of a religious attack but that hardly warrants a repeal of the section on the whole.

4. If then, Lord Lester like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens (whom the Marxist Philosopher Terry Eagleton collectively refers to as "Ditchkins") believes that it is religion itself that stands in the way of more liberal standards of jurisprudence, he needs to be reminded that Section 295-A is also implicitly protecting the rights of atheist citizens and if interpreted broadly enough, it protects the religious interests of the entire gamut of believing and non-believing people of the nation (including the followers of faiths yet to be created).

How then, may one ask Lord Lester, is this Section of the IPC hindering free-speech or encouraging hatred? It seems only to be an innocuous legal step forward from the dark ages and seems only to protect the innocent from the wicked. It does not take a legal genius to realize that the reconciliation of the universality of freedom of speech with the particularity of religious discipline can never occur by lowering our guard against the malafide intentions of misanthropes; yet this is precisely what any further amendment (in favor of so called free speech) or repeal of section 295-A will bring about in this hostile ecology of conflicting world-views.

Liberalism may flex its muscles at European gatherings but in India we must take every 'ism' - be it seemingly good or bad - with a grain of salt and remember that "by reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all". For any blind adherence to instrumental reason will breed insensitivity and ingratitude towards positive and life-affirming traditions. For example, what Lord Lester fails to notice about the statement that the IPC was "enacted to suit British needs" is the fact that some British needs are also plain Human needs. Needs that humans have yet to outgrow. Such as the need for knowing with certitude that one's epistemological, ontological and theological convictions - however simple or complex they might be - will be well respected and protected by the community at large until science completely eliminates the need to hold (m)any such convictions.

^{[1] From the report of the Select Committee preceding the enactment of Section 295(A)}

No, Dissent is not the essence of Democracy

With one smooth stroke of rhetorical fluency Badri Raina (Dec 19th, Open Page/Isn't Dissent...), with a little help from Voltaire, dismissed all the profundity of Arundhati Roy's anarchist statements by 'allowing' her the right to disagree with the official view of Indian state on the issue of Kashmir.

Like Arundhati Roy, the author's critique is unique only to the extent of articulation - and if it is novelty of articulation that counts as opinion these days, then I invite the reader to ponder upon a few inconsistencies and contradictions I found within the article.

Beginning with the title - I do not know what the inclinations of the author are on the ideological compass of the political landscape but even the moderately informed thinker will have a hard time digesting the fact that dissent is (being proposed as) the essence of democracy. Any dissent, I believe, pervasive enough to become the essence of any political ideology (not just democracy) will only dissolve that ideology - and the political framework it supports - into an order-less, hopeless mess. Dare I also mention, that for it to be a democracy in the first place, some people must "agree" with each other. Dissent can not be the basis for any kind of social contract except a mutually endorsed anarchy. Therefore, dissent is not the essence of democracy.

The same contradiction also resonates with the last paragraph where the author tries to point towards the First Amendment of the American Constitution as a possible solution for a more liberal inclusion of dissenting voices into the public consciousness. The author seems to forget, that in America too, the freedom of speech isn't absolute. The doctrine of "Clear and present danger" continues to protect the constitution and state but since they are the world's oldest democracy, their tolerance for radical speech is obviously higher than ours and the two relative values can't really be compared.

It is true that dissent is the humble acknowledgment that every decision can become an object of revision, but what is perhaps more true is that dissent for the sake of dissent will never allow us to find out when it is the right time to revise our basic decisions such as the decision to constitute ourselves as a democracy. Whether the ideals enshrined in the constitution are open to such revision remains a matter of debate until we're old enough (as a democracy) to express dissent against the basic structure doctrine of Indian Constitution or upon finally being in agreement that we have all reached the ideals we sought.

Its almost a dirty job but someone has to do it by reminding the author that perhaps in "India" Arundhati Roy is exalted as a revolutionary but in "Bharat" she has made the blood boil of many a tax-paying-citizen who is yet to understand the nuanced difference between Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism. Religion and Nationalism therefore, remain for the majority of our country folk, the equivalent of what Plato called "Noble lies" and contribute more to the stability of the country than most liberals would have us believe. The Government of India has once again, swallowed a bitter pill by charging Roy with Sedition.

The author accuses the Indian state of sinking to a new low in democratic self confidence and I want to ask - was our democratic self confidence ever higher than this? A nation that was wrenched from the hands of a world power on the principles of non-violence and peaceful dissent must always be wary of those very principles working against it as it moves towards more emancipatory levels of inclusion.

To diffuse peaceful dissent peacefully is the call of the hour and although I myself do find the charges of sedition leveled against Roy a trifle extreme, I reluctantly acquiesce knowing the sensitivity of the issue and the fragile nature of our unity-in-diversity.

WikiLeaksLeaks

Another letter to the Hindu:

The WikiLeaks scandal shows how the cultural logic of late capitalism epitomizes banality and glorifies the redundant in its effort to allay the everyday ennui of modern life and redeem every last drop of sensation even from a scandal of marginal magnitude.

The latest case of leaking of diplomatic cables especially highlights how even the superfluous can be deemed revolutionary given the right packaging. That diplomats are also entitled to their own opinions is a fact as much in support of free-speech as the case made out to be in Julian Assange's latest tweets against amazon.

For most of us, therefore, Assange's megalomania and attempts at social engineering seem to be revealing little in terms of novelty and hold nothing in terms of innovation. All he seems to be telling us is that there are pipes within the concrete walls of our homes through which our feces occasionally flow. Well, we already know that.

(An edited version of this letter was published in The Hindu on Dec. 07, 2010)

Relative Impeccability

The Following is a reply sent to letters@thehindu.co.in in response to this article.

Ex. Supreme Court Judge V.R. Krishna Iyer expresses great pain ("Submission of Suspicion", Dec. 1) at being "morally molested" by Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati's statement to a bench of supreme court that: "If the criterion [of impeccable integrity] has to be included, then every judicial appointment can be subject to scrutiny. Every judicial appointment will be challenged." But his reaction smacks of that typical preemptive defense that is usually found to have its roots in deep and vulnerable insecurities.

In-fact our entire Judiciary suffers from this "holier-than-thou" attitude that is derisive of the very institutions of equality it proclaims to promote and protect. For the astute reader there is nothing in Vahanvati's statement that warrants such revulsion and scorn as V.R. Krishna Iyer seems to direct at it. All Mr. Vahanvati seems to be saying is that the standards of integrity are relative and that no Judicial appointment is above a morally absolute and Ideal notion of integrity. Jesus Christ said something similar when he proclaimed "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone". The Attorney General is not in his naiveté proclaiming that the integrity of every judicial appointment is already compromised, but he is merely stating that should the standards of integrity be made ideal (as opposed to pragmatic) enough, then even Judiciary can come under suspicion.

It is high time that the Judiciary realizes that in today's world where nothing is absolute, and knowledge abounds and people ask more and more difficult and fundamental questions, its (Judiciary's) supremacy is not be something that will be taken for granted. Judiciary should no longer compare itself to Caeser's wife who was above and beyond suspicion ex-officio, instead judiciary today is much like Lord Rama's wife (Sita) who was not only suspected but also had to prove herself and her purity through a trial-by-fire.