The Hindu : BJP reigns and RSS governs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 27, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

BJP reigns and RSS governs

By K. G. Kannabiran

Writing is inevitably linked to democracy and is in that role a protest against injustice and iniquity. All our development and progress were centred around writing and free speech.

IS IT seditious or would it amount to an offence at all to write about the large-scale killings of Sikh community members in and around Delhi immediately after the assassination of Indira Gandhi? Is it seditious or would it amount to an offence or misdemeanour at all to write about the large-scale manslaughter in Gujarat?

These genocides will not only be recorded but will also be written about for a long time to come. Writing about these episodes is part of freedom of speech and expression. In fact, the major part of writers' free speech and expression is to write about these injustices. And, by writing, to transmit the poignancy and trauma experienced by the victims; to educate the people about the injustices heaped upon the victims and thereby strengthen their resolve to oppose these practices. This, the writers have the unquestioned right to do.

Atrocities cannot be glossed over as unfortunate, anonymous law and order problems, by portraying them as undetectable, by their very nature. Nor can routine prosecutions ending in expected acquittals a decade after be considered rendering of justice. The killers of Indira Gandhi and the former Army chief, A. S. Vaidya, were all apprehended, tried and hanged according to the rule of law.

Such care was not bestowed in the apprehension and trial of the politicians who led the mayhem against Sikhs in 1984. We would be unjust to ourselves to write about the violence in Gujarat without reference to the first genocide enacted in this country. The quest for justice of Darshan Singh Kauri, sole surviving witness to the murder of her husband, will be written about.

When it is said that the Muslims in Gujarat need justice, political justice, it does not only mean redress for the injustices, crimes and indignities they were subjected to, it also means justice in its social aspects. What is the responsibility of the writer towards these tragedies and what is the content and extent of his freedom as a writer? Look at the rights that have been trampled in the course of the violence. Their right to reside and settle has suffered a near total eclipse. Their right to carry on their trade, avocation, occupation or business was deprived; their right to life and liberty was totally deprived without any reference to law and in total violation of laws enacted to protect life and liberty of the people residing in the country irrespective of whether they are citizens or not. Despite the express right to practice and propagate their religion, their places of worship were desecrated. Their rights to free speech and expression, assembly and association were rendered meaningless by the terror unleashed on them. In short, their women, men and children were reduced to non-persons.

Confronted with such a colossal assault and the trauma that will follow what is the responsibility of a writer. The only writer who dealt with this subject was Sartre in his brilliant "Why Write". I do not think any other writer dealt so comprehensively on why and for whom does one write. "The writer's universe," says Sartre, "will only reveal itself in all its depth to the examination, admiration and the indignation of the reader, and the generous love is a promise to maintain, and the generous indignation is a promise to change and the admiration is a promise to imitate; although literature is one thing and morality a quite different one, at the heart of an aesthetic imperative we discern a moral imperative."

The freedom to write should never be allowed to be tampered with. For, writing is inevitably linked to democracy and is in that role a protest against injustice and iniquity. All our development and progress were centred around writing and free speech. It is ironical that free speech, which is the very basis of all our political institutions and is basic to political progress, should be the first causality in times of crisis. The state, defined comprehensively in the Constitution and set up explicitly to uphold and promote these values, has become over a period a value in itself and supersedes the raison d'etre of its very existence.

Primarily and basically, the right to free speech is political in character and when it is not in immediate danger of forfeiture the struggle is carried on in the sublimated atmosphere of the court.

The right is presented in the court very respectfully and the court only examines the procedural requirement for the exercise of power to extinguish or limit the right and the victory secured may very often be on the basis of non-performance of a mandatory requirement before exercise of power. Thereafter it has always been the effort of the Executive using the legislative power to checkmate the court.

Any action taken on the ground that the writings on the Gujarat violence are anti-establishment can be challenged in court as the accusation does not amount to an offence of sedition as defined by Macaulay. Look at the complaint and the seriousness with which the complaint is received. The RSS lodges a complaint with Jagmohan, Minister of Culture, against the Sahitya Akademi Secretary, Satchidanandan, for having written poems on the violence in Gujarat. This complaint is entertained and a similar complaint is made to the BJP president and the latter writes to the Minister of Culture to cleanse the Ministry of leftists.

It was also suggested that awarding of senior and junior fellowships should be taken away from the Akademi. Whether anti-establishment writing is an offence or not, it has to be eliminated by administrative decision.

This trend has serious portents for freedom of writing. The writings born out of this regimentation will set the parameters of free speech. The attempt to stifle writers' freedom and the attempt to subvert the constitutional governance is simultaneous in this case. We have been witness to such subversion more vividly from the experiment in Gujarat onwards.

The Constitution was intended to be operated in a parliamentary democracy — Westminster style — where the Executive, a Council of Ministers is accountable and answerable to Parliament.

The country is now confronted with a peculiar situation. We are ruled by the BJP, which is a parliamentary political outfit of the RSS and is compulsively accountable to that body. It is not like the Congress giving directions to its legislature wing.

Here, the people elect their representatives and the latter are accountable and responsible to a non-elected entity which does not believe in contesting elections. The RSS, neither accountable to the people nor to Parliament, is setting up its apparently independent political wing and governing the country indirectly. The BJP reigns but the RSS governs. How do you square governance with the Constitution?

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