As disturbing as the controversy over why Salman Rushdie was misled into believing that his life, and the literature festival, would be endangered if he turned up at Jaipur is the manner in which the home ministry opted out of taking the lead role in a security-related situation.
It may be technically correct that law and order is a state subject, but when the larger issue of the nation’s global prestige is at stake, and when more than one state government is involved (Maharashtra and Rajasthan in this case), North Block’s confining itself to the sidelines reeks of cowardly irresponsibility. Since the Rajasthan government has stated ― in one of few official comments on the shameful development ― that the Intelligence Bureau had provided inputs, the union home ministry was fully aware of what was brewing. Hence its taking the PMO-line of distancing itself from impending trouble was by design, not accident. P Chidambaram always has something to say about everything, this time he kept his lips zipped.
It requires no political pundit to conclude that the silence was induced by the upcoming assembly elections: in UP particularly, where the Muslim vote can prove decisive. So, UPA-II decided not to risk electoral reverse by openly opposing a call from the fundamentalists. As Taslima Nasreen would confirm, and MF Husain’s exile reconfirmed, fundamentalists of all hues have massive political clout.
The bottom line, however, remains that the image of Indian society as regressive and intolerant will spread. Worse, that for all the lofty ideals spelt out in the Constitution and frequently mouthed by the national leadership, the commitment to freedom of expression is merely superficial. There is reason to sympathize with the organizers of the festival that the Rushdie affair has detracted from the overall success of the event, perhaps also to accept that there is some merit in Chetan Bhagat’s criticism of that writer.
Yet who can deny that the shameless efforts to keep Rushdie away ― they were launched as soon as his attendance was made public ― have undone much of what the festival had set out to achieve. Fundamentalism has no place in modern society and a nation on the world stage, a status India insists it has attained. But when it is a matter of capturing the en bloc “Muslim vote” all principle is abandoned. Hopes of a revival of Congress fortunes in UP matter more to Manmohan, Sonia, Chidambaram etc than executing a Constitutionally-directed duty.
