Worst of times

We stand close to a state where our liberties may be overtaken, and it is time we saw the menace and confronted it with determination.

ON June 6 in Thane in Maharashtra, a group of some 70 or 80 men led by a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Vinayak Mete, attacked the house of Kumar Ketkar, editor of Loksatta. The attackers belong to a little-known group of bigots called the Shiv Sangram. They threw stones and bricks at Ketkars house, smashed window panes, smeared tar across the doors and windows and tried to break into the flat, in which attempt they were fortunately unsuccessful. Inevitably, they also burnt copies of Loksatta on the road.

All this was because Ketkar had written an editorial in which he criticised the State government for deciding to erect a 309-foot-tall (92.7 metres) statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian Sea off Marine Drive, spending crores that could have been spent on developmental work in the State.

The editorial was critical of the government and did not say anything about Shivaji, but that was not what these bigots were interested in. They apparently resented the fact that Ketkar dared to refer to the erection of a statue of Shivaji. They conveniently overlooked what Ketkar himself pointed out, that Shivaji Maharaj did not go around erecting statues, he instead attended to peoples problems.

The attack cannot, however, be written off as the action of a lunatic fringe. It has more sinister implications. It is a manifestation of the growing menace of extremism in different avatars in civil society. A leading newspaper carried a story some weeks later of the growth of networks of extreme Hindu organisations, which are known to very few but which appear to have a common agenda: using religion to foment hatred and using physical force. Three of these groups are the Sanatan Sanstha, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and the Dharmashakti Sena. This last organisation held a rally, it is reported, where its members wore military fatigues.

The publications of these groups refer to attacks on Hindus by anti-Hindus and laud former Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh leader Golwalkars exhortation that weapons should be countered with weapons. They are scathing about the present governments weak record in dealing with Islamist terrorism and repeatedly call on Hindus to unite.

These three groups there are presumably others already have cells across Maharashtra and Goa, according to the newspaper report, and one of them, the Sanatan Sanstha, has centres in New Jersey, Brisbane, Melbourne and Dubai.

The growth of such extremist units needs to be seen in the context of the enormous power that is wielded in Gujarat by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its associated groups and by the Chief Minister himself, who in a recent speech declared that Gujarat was quite capable of managing its affairs if the Centre did not raise taxes from the State a veiled reference to the fact that it could well do without the Centre, in other words, without the rest of the country. It has to be seen in the context of the fact that the BJP has been able to form a government in Karnataka and that in election after election it has secured the mandate to govern even if, in some cases, this is with the help of political partners.

The attack by the Shiv Sangram on Ketkars house has been condemned by most parties across the country and a number of organisations, not the least of which is the Editors Guild, but some others have maintained a studious silence. It is easy to guess which these parties and organisations are.

The fact is that extremism is not only growing, but it is being allowed to grow and not only among Hindus. The real danger is that it is part of a larger propensity the propensity to counter an expression of views by someone, a writer or political personality, with violence. And with this, there is the other worrying factor, the indecisive nature of the response to such attempts to suppress a persons right to express his or her views. The best lack all conviction, wrote the poet W.B. Yeats, sadly, And the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Why should this happen? Why do we not stand by our commitments to free speech, to democracy and to democratic institutions, things for which earlier generations fought and often paid dearly for, with their lives or with years in prison? It is true that a great deal of all this is taught to our children in schools. They are told about the Constitution, our fundamental rights and freedoms, but merely telling them is clearly not enough.

Somehow, we do not seem to have been able to make it real enough to matter in a very direct, personal sense to each member of the younger generation. The strong impact of television and the commercial world that it projects through the vast number of advertisements may well be a factor in all this, but surely we have had television around for long enough to know how to use it for purposes that are not wholly commercial or designed to make money.

The Central government runs the biggest and most widely spread network of radio and television centres. Could these not be used in a meaningful manner to counter the insidious menace of extremism in different forms? This is not just a noble ideal, one that needs to be commended to the authorities as a worthwhile ideal. It is more of an emergency plan that needs to be considered.

It would be wrong to look at our growing urban areas and our villages and conclude that the aberration of extremism is a problem that can be tackled locally or with some perfunctory action. A time will come when there will be no time left, when good intentions will be overtaken by stronger and less palatable emotions and hysteria. It happened in Germany in the 1930s; let us not forget that the Nazi Party was elected to power and that Hitler was elected Chancellor of the Reich.

This is the danger that no one seems to be taking very seriously, certainly not the Right, the BJP and its allies, for instance. But of all the groups and organisations, they need to be the most worried. This is a menace they will find difficult to handle. If the United Progressive Alliance government appears to be indecisive and hesitant, the National Democratic Alliance could find that firm action is an option that does not exist, should it come to power.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must lift itself up to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it is enjoyed. These are the words written above one of the grand, arched entrances to the North Block of the Central Secretariat in New Delhi. This message may have sounded patronising when it was written but is coming very close to our own darkest anxieties: We stand close to a state where our liberties may be overtaken, and it is time we saw the menace and confronted it with determination.