Only Courts Have Reached Cultural Level to Do Justice
Whether the misgivings of the four Judges stemmed from concerns over the state of civil society evolution — the people-don’t-know-their-own-minds argument — or a more narrow-focus doubt over the intentions of the Narendra Modi Government is, to my mind, a case of hair-splitting, writes Swapan Dasgupta in The Pioneer.
The net conclusion is inescapable: India can do with a prolonged bout of Constitutional handholding. Or to paraphrase Trietschke: ‘We desire, even against their stated will, to defend India from Indians.’ The judgment is troubling in its wider implications.
Across the Aisle: A Call to the Collective Conscience
In The Indian Express, P Chidambaram writes that the writers are protesting against events that have not only political overtones but have profound social consequences. Are all Indians obliged to conform to one notion of religion or food or language or dress?
A different view – dissent – is the essence of a free society. Suppose Voltaire had said “I disapprove of what you say and I shall put you to death for having said it.” Would the leader feel just “saddened”? What the writers are saying is the leader should feel outraged and should quell the dark forces of intolerance and violence.
Literary Politics? Writers Weren’t Disturbed by Past Riots Because Modi Wasn’t PM
If there is one thing that the writers’ revolt has proved it is that freedom of expression in India has never been more robust. Once Nehru’s niece set the revolt in motion, forgotten old fossils came forward to return awards nobody knew they had and every one of them got their fifteen minutes of fame, writes Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express.
They made newspaper headlines and appeared on prime time chat shows, no matter how stupid and unthinking their assertions. Some very stupid things were said. Writers who would have been adults during the Emergency said that the atmosphere of ‘intolerance’ today was worse than it was then. Really? How many of them have been jailed for saying this?
Out of My Mind: Varieties of Intolerance
Fighters for liberal rights cannot rely on any Government. Remember the Emergency. As Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie know, the secular are just as bad when their vote banks are at stake. Only civil society can fight and guarantee freedoms, not political parties, writes Meghnad Desai in The Indian Express.
Sudheendra Kulkarni has broken all rules. He has painted himself in all colours from CPM in his youth to BJP in his mature years and, despite being right wing, has written readable books! He openly excoriated Narendra Modi when he was chosen as BJP’s lead candidate. And yet here he is being attacked, literally and figuratively, by Shiv Sena whose brand of intolerance is its own.
In Some Measure, We Are All to Blame for Those Rapes
We do it because those around us accept or condone or forgive. They permit us. They indulge us. They don’t punish us. And who is the ‘they’ I refer to? Our parents, our siblings, our families and, ultimately, our society, writes Karan Thapar in The Hindustan Times.
To put it bluntly: we as parents, families, society are to blame. Our attitude — and, yes, I’ll go so far as to say our culture — has created these rapists and given them the confidence to rape with impunity. The Indian male has terrible faults but alongside him his mother, father, grandparents and, then, finally, the society they’ve created is to blame.
Handle With Care: The Big Takeaway From Nepal Fiasco
It is never easy for a big country to compel a small one to act in a certain way. It needs finesse and subtlety. India’s national interest is to have a friendly Nepal that does not fall into China’s hands. Diplomacy is the art of friendly persuasion — to align a neighbour’s interest with one’s own. This is where India’s diplomacy has failed, writes Gurcharan Das in The Times of India.
India should learn not to take Nepal for granted and respect its autonomy. Nepal would be happier if it shed its unwise fears. It should bear in mind that, unlike China, India has only created empires of the spirit, never of the sword. As Chinese scholar and diplomat Hu Shih said: “India conquered China culturally for 20 centuries without sending a single soldier across her border.”
Inside Track: Mark of Confidence
The Vigilance Bureau building is reportedly to be converted into the CM’s ‘advisory council office’ if Nitish returns as CM, writes Coomi Kapoor in The Indian Express.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar appears to be so confident of getting re-elected that after the poll dates were announced, he gave orders to the PWD to renovate 1, Anne Marg, the CM’s residence. He has also asked for a boundary wall to be demolished so that the adjoining Vigilance Bureau building is within the CM’s compound.
Longer Life Is the Greatest Form of Poverty Reduction
People willingly exhaust lifetime savings to gain a few more years of life. Roti, kapda and makan matter a lot, but life and death matter more, writes SA Aiyar in The Times of India.
Per capita consumption is often used to measure poverty by the media and analysts, but can be utterly misleading. I crossed swords with Arnab Goswami some years ago when an NSSO survey showed that 138 million people had been raised above the official poverty line, which was then around Rs 5,000 per month for an urban family of five.
Too Many Holy Cows, Let’s Just Stop Mixing Religion and Law
If we really want to solve problems like the beef crisis, we need to discuss the broader issue. What direction should we move in as a nation? Should we move to a common civil code and avoid any ‘one of those things’ laws that come from specific religions? Or should we keep some of these laws to avoid offending some groups? I’d like the former, writes Chetan Bhagat in The Times of India.
We could discuss abolishing the law that protects cows. But there is a caveat. If we only remove this law and let all the Islam-specific laws remain, it will be grossly unfair. Let political parties and religious heads decide to remove all religion-specific laws from our law books. Let us educate people on why it is important to do so. What we see instead is cacophony, posturing and a lot of finger pointing as political parties cater to their respective vote banks.
Reverse Swing: A Byte of Beef
If only India could be governed by the man who stifled a sob in Silicon Valley, and not by the man who stifles the science in his soul in response to a political murder, writes Tunku Varadarajan in The Indian Express.
There’s an old Irish expression: Street angel, house devil. It’s used to describe a man who’s jolly and bonhomous when out and about—in the pub, at work, in church—and, by contrast, unpleasant at home. While not suggesting that there’s any of the devil in Modi’s domestic persona, there’s no question that the man who administers India displays—when in India—none of the “street” niceties that he flaunts when he takes himself out into the wider world.
A Selection From The Quint:
Will Ramlilas Rid Uttar Pradesh of Its Communal Shadows?
Shiv Sena Trying to Revive Anti-Gujarati Sentiment to Counter BJP?
By Striking Down NJAC, Supreme Court Reaffirms Self-Perpetuation
Punjab on Religious-Political Brink: Is Badal Govt Losing Grip?
Beyond Giving Up Awards: Bending of Bengali Intellectual Spine