The Pope? How many divisions does he have?” is supposed to have been the response of Josef Stalin when he was told that the Pontiff may want him to stop oppressing Russian Catholics. How could a mere Pope, without an army of any kind, stand up to the mighty Russian forces, Stalin may have thought. But someone like the Pope, with his vast following, does not need conventional weapons — guns, tanks and rocket ships. He commands through faith and ideas.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is making the same mistake about those from the creative community. When some authors declared they would return their awards to the Sahitya Akademi to protest against the organisation’s silence in condemning the killings of prominent writers, who were its members, they were ridiculed. Why should an elected government care for some obscure writers? Could any of them win an election?
Since then, the spark lit by the writers has grown into a conflagration of sorts. Many more — writers, artists, filmmakers, scientists — have come forward and not just returned their awards, but issued strong statements about the growing atmosphere of intolerance. The word “intolerance” is like Kryptonite to the BJP’s supporters, who go ballistic and attack person rather than the issue being raised. What must irk the party and the government is that the voices these very writers, artists et al, with no electoral clout, no standing beyond their own limited circles and not a tiny percentage of the vast popularity of Narendra Modi, are being heard all across the world. Not just in literary salons or tiny festivals, but in the mainstream media. Anish Kapoor’s article about the “Talibanisation of India” may strike many as an exaggeration, but it carries weight.
Soon this impression reaches boardrooms and policy circles; “Intolerant India” has become a kind of buzzword and Mr Modi, who had kept a studied silence about the subject in India, had to confront it when a reporter asked a question in Britain. This should bring home to the government and its supporters an inviolable truth — a nation is not just known by its glorious history, its cultural traditions, its military prowess, its growth prospect, or indeed the popularity of its leaders. What also counts is how it deals with its dissenters, its mavericks and its outliers.
The truth is that the BJP, for all its political acumen, is at sea when it comes to managing the creative community — filmmakers, artists, and writers. It has many supporters in the film industry and MPs like Shatrughan Sinha, Hema Malini, Kirron Kher, and Vinod Khanna in its ranks. Yet, when it comes to placing someone to head the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), it can only come up with the name of a non-entity like Gajendra Chauhan. Its brightest idea for the boss of the Censor Board is Pahlaj Nihalani, whose previous work includes classics like Aag Ka Gola and Aag hi Aag. No literary figure, or artists of any repute figures among its supporters.
Yet, it yearns to gain credibility. Vasundhara Raje, one of the more erudite and sophisticated members of the party, roped in Anish Kapoor and a few others to be members of a cultural panel, probably to give the body a bit of prestige. No sooner than Kapoor criticised the intolerant environment in India, he was dropped. To Kapoor, this dismissal hardly matters. But the BJP comes off being small minded — unable to deal with independent-minded people. It wants the Anish Kapoors of this world because they bring respectability and esteem. But it gets jittery when they speak up. This is a dilemma the BJP will find it difficult to resolve. Artists and writers will always be liberal. The BJP finds liberalism and independent mindedness uncomfortable.
So it does what it knows best — reaches out within its own pool of supporters who will be pliant to the powers that be and comes up with the Chauhans and the Nihalanis. These are just the better known names — all across the country there are mediocre writers and artists who have been supporters of the party and its ideology and they are all waiting for a call to head this committee or that organisation. For all its electoral success, this is one area the BJP has never been able to crack. The party and its fellow travellers like to think that the mysterious “Left” has hijacked the intellectual discourse all these years and is now chafing at the tables being turned. If this thought comforts the Right, let it. But the sorry fact is that the Indian Right has not been able to nurture, or even encourage any serious intellectual or creative tradition and is still uneasy at the idea that a historian, or an artist will always be independent minded.
As a party in government, the BJP should, instead of ridiculing them on the nightly news and questioning their motives, reach out to writers and artists. The likes of Gen. V.K. Singh saying that that those making allegations of intolerance have been paid won’t help; it shows petty mindedness and a refusal to acknowledge other points of view. Mahesh Sharma, as the minister for culture, is a completely misguided choice. The BJP might well ask why it should build bridges with those who are opposed to them. That is a shortsighted view. The party is in power and governments should be expansive. Intellectuals play a crucial role in society and are the conscience of the nation.
This is a government acutely conscious of its image abroad. Mr Modi’s forays to global capitals, his outreach to investors, his love fests with the Indian diaspora have raised his and the country’s profile. But all this will count for nothing if the world reads about the killings of intellectuals and the protests by writers. In today’s world, it is not just tanks, planes and ships that matter; this is the age of the power of ideas and of global creative networks that come together whenever one of their own is threatened. Alienating these networks is a bad idea.
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