How come there was never an ‘awards-wapsi' programme either in 1977 or 1985IJ Unless there are credible answers, the theory of ‘intolerance' being currently floated by politically-displaced persons will not wash
Dozens of writers, artists and noted intellectuals have been returning the national awards received by them because of the so-called climate of ‘intolerance’ in the country since the Narendra Modi Government took office. Is there any truth in this accusation that, suddenly, India has emerged as an intolerant society over the last 18 monthsIJ More importantly, is it proper to associate a national award which is given by the Indian state to an individual for excellence and public service, with an individual or a party or a GovernmentIJ
Among the ponderous statements made by those who advance this theory is that a “a dangerously pervasive atmosphere of narrowness, intolerance and bigotry” prevails in the country today and that the rulers of today advance “a monolithic and flattened view of India’s history”. How does this square up with the deplorable support lent by current members of this school or their predecessors to the fascist regime imposed by Indira Gandhi in the name of the Emergency during 1975-77 or the even more unforgivable and deafening silence observed by this group after the anti-Sikh pogrom unleashed by the Rajiv Gandhi Government in October-November, 1984IJ
It took some time for everyone to realise that this invidious campaign was being orchestrated from behind the scenes and stage-managed for political purposes. A hopeless minority of leftist intellectuals whose illegitimate stranglehold over key national institutions was coming to an end, had begun to drum up support for a spurious campaign. However, when some members of the silent majority of Indian intellectuals spoke up, they gave a fitting riposte to the “manufactured dissent” against a duly elected Government and the mandate of 2014. In a statement titled, ‘Hypocrisy and Indian History’, a group of 50 eminent intellectuals demolished the fabricated claim that India had become an intolerant society overnight. They zeroed in on the real patrons of intolerance — the leftists — and said many academics have suffered discrimination and virtual ostracism because they would not toe the line. Further, the leftists had made various institutions, the “arenas of power play and political manipulation”. In effect, the leftist School succeeded in projecting itself as the one and only school, thus “crushing debate and dissent and polarising the academic community”.
These intellectuals said that the “values and traditions of plurality that India had always cherished in the past” are precisely those this School (the left) has never practised. We call for an unbiased and rigorous new historiography of India”.The signatories to this statement include Dilip K Chakrabarti, Emeritus Professor, Cambridge University; Prof BB lal, former Director General of Archaeological Survey of India; Prof Dayanath Tripathi, former Chairman of ICHR; MS Sriram, retired professor and Head, Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Madras; Amartya Kumar Dutta, professor of Mathematics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata; Godabarisha Mishra, professor and Head, Department of Philosophy, University of Madras; S Krishnan, associate professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay; and Michel Danino, guest professor, IIT Gandhinagar and member, ICHR.
Following the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in June 1975, the Government successfully convinced the Supreme Court that fundamental rights stood suspended, including the right to life and personal liberty. The Attorney General told a Constitution Bench that, if a policeman shot dead a citizen who walked into a police station, there could be no legal remedy or relief. As a result, thousands of political opponents of the Congress were jailed without reason and many opponents of Indira Gandhi were tortured and murdered by the police. Can there be any better example of a ‘dangerously pervasive atmosphere of intolerance’ than thisIJ Yet, just look at the list of individuals who appeared on the Padma awards’ list in January 1976 and January 1977 ,when Indira Gandhi’s dictatorship was at its worst:
Satyajit Ray, Kl Shrimali, Malcolm Adishehiah; Naoroji Pirojsha Godrej; Mallikarjun Mansoor, Shyam Benegal; Ismat Chugtai; Prof Yash Pal; Gurmukh Singh Musafir; Bashir Hussain Zaidi; Ali Yavar Jung; MN Srinivas; Chinna Moulana; Shri Ram Bharatya; Ustad Qureshi Allah Rakha Khan and dozens of others. Shall we now declare them all to be supporters of fascism or shall we distinguish an award given by the Indian state from the person holding the office of Prime Minister at a given point in timeIJ
let us now turn to 1984 and the barbaric pogrom unleashed by the Congress on the Sikhs. The Ranganath Mishra Commission that probed the dreadful spiral of violence across north India said that 3,874 people were killed in the violence, of which 2,307 were from Delhi. Plus, 131 gurdwaras were destroyed or damaged in Delhi alone. The commission found that these mobs comprised people with “sympathy for the Congress (I) and associated with the party’s activities”. Though troops were available in the national capital, the Army was not called in, according to Gen AS Vaidya, the Chief of Army Staff at that time. The Nanavati Commission of Inquiry concluded that Congress goons who led the mobs “were assured that they would not be harmed”. Can there be a better example of “a dangerously pervasive atmosphere of narrowness, intolerance and bigotry” than thisIJ
Yet, within weeks of the slaughter of over 3,800 Sikhs in a Congress-led massacre, dozens of eminent intellectuals figured in the Padma awards announced in 1985; and there was not even a murmur from the School that has now launched the current counterfeit campaign. Among those who were awarded in 1985 and 1986 were: Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Gurbaksh Singh, Surinder Singh Gill, Gurbachan Singh Talib, Thakhazi Shivashankara Pillai, Durga Das Basu, Justice Sadat Abul Masud (all Padma Bhushan); Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah and Ela Bhat among others (Padma Shri), and Mahasweta Devi,
Were they all a bunch of insensitive people who closed their eyes to what the lynch mobs had done or were they making a distinction between the Indian state and the man who was Prime Minister and the party that was in powerIJ Whatever it be, how come none of the troubled souls of today raised their voice against the Rajiv Gandhi Government that presided over the most heinous assault on a religious minority in India or against those who took home their Padma AwardsIJ
Also, how come there was never an ‘awards-wapsi’ programme either in 1977 or 1985IJ Unless there are credible answers to these questions, the theory of ‘intolerance’ that is being currently floated by politically-displaced persons will not wash. Actually, it sounds rather hollow and silly.