Braving a heavy rain, more than 200 writers, social activists and intellectuals gathered at Chennai’s Valluavarkottam on Sunday morning to stage a protest march against the “selective outrage by a section of the writers, historians, artists and scientists who claim that the Central Government was not doing enough to curtail what they call the rising levels of intolerance in the country”.
Organised under the auspices of ‘Byignitedminds’, a collective of young professionals, the demonstration saw writers and artists questioning the authenticity of the claims and actions of a section of the intellectuals who returned their national awards.
Prakash Swamy, a US-returned writer, who addressed the gathering said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most tolerant and secular leader the country has seen in many years. Swamy, who had covered the October 2014 Madison Square Garden function of the PM, said that though the Ney York District Police had given permission for the programme, they did not allow a contingent of 300 Muslims who had come for the event. “It was following the personal intervention by Modi that the Muslims were allowed inside the Madison Square Garden. Modi had told the US authorities that the Muslims who had come to attend the function were his own blood and brothers,” said Swamy.
He also said that India’s poor image in the United Nations was removed by Modi through the speeches he delivered at the General Assembly in 2014 and 2015. “What I understand is that the people who returned the national awards never deserved the awards in the first place,” he said.
Speakers pointed out that according to the Union Government data, 965 people were killed in 1,000 communal riots during 2005-2013. More than 18,000 people were injured during the clashes and no body came forward to return the awards they had got.
“These intellectuals have clubbed four unfortunate and condemnable murders that occurred at different States in the country at different times and for reasons yet-to-be-ascertained and are mischievously leveraging these to create an atmosphere of confusion, anxiety, distrust and needless panic among the society,” said a statement released by “Byignitedmionds,” the organisers.