Over-milking the holy cows

Excerpts from a column by Swapan Dasgupta in the Sunday ToI (for the full text, click here)

My sense is that the professional petition writers were confronted with an awkward dilemma. They had to weigh their instinctive commitment to a liberal ethos and historical maturity against the weight of political correctness. For a long time, enlightened voices have sought to distinguish between reactionary and progressive assertions of identity. All grievances, they have held, are not equal; some are more equal than others. In short, there are no uniform standards: judgment is always dependant on the context.

The Dalit activists who flagged the cartoon controversy were not remotely concerned by the use of a Shankar cartoon as an imaginative relief from the drudgery of high school lessons on the Constitution. What agitated them was the depiction of Babasaheb Ambedkar as a mortal, a mere political player. In their agitpropinspired imagination, Ambedkar was an icon and had to be depicted with the reverence associated with calendar art.

Just as many crude Hindutva-types couldn’t countenance departures from Raja Ravi Varma’s portrayal of the sacred and went after M F Husain, the upholders of Dalit identity were outraged that Ambedkar could be presented as a caricature—and that too in an officiallyapproved textbook.

This mindless attachment to literalism should, ideally, have been debunked, if only for the pursuit of enlightened education. However, when it comes to Dalit issues, or for that matter any issue centred on the self-expression of communities that are in need of empowerment, liberal principles are expediently set aside. Doing otherwise would invite charges of hegemonic conduct—and that’s just not on in a world infected by political correctness.

The Constitution accorded a special status for the victims of social oppression to facilitate the eventual creation of a level playing field. Turning the world upside down and creating new hierarchies were never the goals. Yet, India is sleep-walking its way in that direction, unmindful that equality as an ideal is still worth fighting for.

Well said, Sir!

City-based Advocate A V Amarnath has filed a public interest litigation in the High Court seeking the shifting of Dr B R Ambedkar’s statue in front of Vidhana Soudha to some other place on the same premises (Vidhana Soudha) to pave way for Bangalore Metro rail work. - - "The organisations which are politicising the issue are causing a great hardship, severe inconvenience and a huge loss of public money. The state government ought to have taken appropriate steps to shift the statue”, he said. - - -The petitioner sought directions to the government in this regard. He also sought protection and assistance to BMRCL to shift the statue from its present place.

For the full report in the New Indian Express, click here

If a handful of misguided Dalits can hold up the Metro work in the name of sentiments, we are not too far from going the Maharashtra way, where the state can be held to ransom, by the Shiv Sena and its variants, even for a member of the 'family' catching a cold.

And, it requires a Amarnath to move the courts to help the state develop its spine - absolutely sad state of affairs!

Well, for this act of Mr Amarnath, apart from many similar acts of his in the past, he is going to be my nominee for the Namma Bengaluru award this year.