The Ramayana will lead to communalism!

I came across an article when I was browsing through Wikipedia. Apparently the hugely popular TV series, Ramayana was initially delayed because it was felt it would lead to communalism! Many a time one feels that the government or the powers-that-be are over cautious about people's reactions. We as a country seem to be very scared of ourselves. We pride ourselves on being a pluralistic society. However we reek of intolerance. The recent attack on Shanti Bhushan, after his Kashmir remarks are a case in point. I vehemently denounce his remarks, but after all, as a citizen of India, he is free to air his views. Remember the quote misattributed to Voltaire - "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Secularism might be a term that is semantically new to India (considering its long history). However India has always been nothing but tolerant of other cultures and practices. The "religion" Hinduism itself gives everyone the choice to worship (or reject) a deity as s/he pleases. Where is this tolerance in India today? The right wing parties might be pilloried for intolerance, however the pillorying parties are guilty of appeasement themselves. Our culture of appeasement and our knowledge of our own intolerance are probably what prompt the authorities to ban what might be even slightly provocative.

There exists a "work of art" called Piss Christ. M F Hussain (intentionally or unintentionally) represented Bharat Mata and Sita in the nude and was hounded out of the country. I can only wonder what would have happened to the creator of the aforementioned photograph in India.

On the other hand, as I have argued before also, the hounded parties might not be totally innocent. M F Hussain used a term noor-un-ala-noor in a song (a beautiful qawwali by the way) in his film Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities. Following Muslim protests at apparent use of Quranic words in a song the artist withdrew the movie. I do not know if he has ever apologized to all the people whose sentiments might have been hurt because of his paintings. One is reminded of the following story. Once a woman was walking on a pavement, twirling an umbrella in her hand. A man walking behind her was finding it difficult to avoid her umbrella. He went up to her and said, "Madam, your freedom ends where my nose begins!"

Moving on, there has been a recent news article saying upper class fares might be increased. In India, as probably in most places, freight rates are a very important source of revenue and profit. Businesses suffer high freight rates which are kept high to minimize the increase in the passenger fares. The government probably feels raising sleeper and other lower class (to quote Shashi Tharoor, the cattle class, another incident which raised a huge hue and cry) fares might lead a to a wider outpouring of popular anger against the government. I would like to suggest a simple alternative - ensure people do buy tickets on all trains. I am very sure there are thousands of people who hitch a ride on local and route trains without a buying a ticket. In some places in Bihar and Jharkhand there are people who travel in reserved compartments without tickets. Probably policing these people will increase the railways' revenue and at least temporarily remove the need to increase any fares.

Saare Jahaan se Achcha

There will probably be very few Indians (at least from the northern part of the country) who will not have heard of the song, Saare Jahaan se Achcha by the poet Mohammed Iqbal. It is widely considered to be a patriotic song in praise of India. But how many people know that the poet proposed a separate nation for Muslims which became the Pakistan concept and that he later disavowed the song? Also Iqbal is the national poet of Pakistan. Maybe understandably, the song is little known in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Read this article.

This country is weird in its inclusivity. Accusations have also been made against our current national anthem that it is in fact a song of praise addressed to the British Monarch. Tagore himself acknowledged that he was asked to pen something in praise of the emperor, but he ended up addressing it to God and not to the British monarch as this was something that he could not do.

Remember the controversy some time back to change the lyrics of the national anthem as Sindh is no longer a part of India? The final verdict was that Sindh refers to the people and hence the word need not be removed. Thus India has consistently been a mixture of people - tolerant and zealous/bigoted. When will all Indians finally understand this and live amicably with one another?