In the battle between fatwa and rule of law latter does not stand a chance!

In 1988 Rajiv Gandhi banned Satanic Verses, a book written by Salman Rushdie well before dubious fatwa was issued by Ayatoallha Khomeini in Iran. Iran mind you is Islamic republic and India is supposed to be secular democracy. Same Rajiv Gandhi government with the help of  more than two third majority had overturned a supreme court judgement by constitutional amendment in Shah Bano case. Two decades later Salman Rushdie a POI(person of Indian origin) card holder wanted to attend a literary festival in Rajsthan and Deoband was quick to issue a fatwa against him. Shameless/spineless response of our government made sure that fatwa is honored and Rushdie cancels his visit. From 1988 to 2012 nothing changed and forget about secularism even rule of law is not upheld by such spineless submission. In India this  unique kind of competitive secularism is practised wherein political parties can go to any extent to appease religious fanatics specially if they think such action would  influence electorally important minority community ahead of all important UP elections.

This is not the first of such instance, in 2006 Da Vinci Code movie was banned in six Indian states Punjab, Goa, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. India must be  only democratic country to impose ban on Da Vinci Code.

Now let us look into below two curious cases to understand how selectively this government acts

1) Few months back Arundhanti Roy shared stage with Kashmiri extremist Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao and various other people representing groups which had only one thing in common that is India hatred. She along with Geelani delivered extremely seditious, provocative anti India speech in the heart of the capital. Delhi police was forced to register FIR as few citizens approached it however no further action was taken.Congress government displayed tremendous tolerance in the name of freedom of speech.

2) Supreme court ordered release of Maoist ideologue Binayak Sen and law minister of the day Virappa Moily was quick to issue a statement that we need to rethink about the sedition law.  Dr Sen was also offered an important position in planning commission. In this case also congress government shown magnanimity in accommodating a person who supports violent armed action to overthrow democratically elected government.

These instances show that spreading anti India venom can be tolerated but you dare not utter a word which will hurt the sentiments of religious group considered as largest vote bank.Question that need to be asked is if this government  can let so many people get away with anti national speeches/writings then why it does not go extra mile to welcome  an author of Indian origin who is cautious enough in not making any reference to book which he wrote some 24 years back

This opportunistic politics of congress has its roots in Khilafat movement, congress started supporting  Khilafat  agitation in 1920.Ottoman Empire collapsed in world war 1 and position of Caliph(religious head) was abandoned. Khilafat  agitation was launched by Indian Muslims against British empire to influence an intervention from them. For all its religious significance to Muslims in India the issue had absolutely nothing to do with Indian independence movement but Mahatma Gandhi married those two issues and Indian national congress whole heartedly supported Khilafat cause. Whatever may have been merits of Khilafat issue but congress had set an extremely bad precedent by accommodating a religious cause in a national political movement to win mass Muslim support.

Protecting citizen’s constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech is the primary responsibility of government and it can not shy away from it even if it feels doing so makes some loony fringe group unhappy and jeopardizes it’s  campaign in an important election. 

Anurag Choudhary