Barun Roy: United by hate

We are living in a world of dogmatism and bigotry

Remember John Lennon? The singer and songwriter who was born in October 1940 in Liverpool, UK, and assassinated in New York City in December 1980, an iconic figure associated with The Beatles from 1960 to 1969? A dreamer who imagined a future brotherhood of man and hoped “the world will live as one”? We are indeed living as one, but there’s no brotherhood. It’s a world united by hatred, dogmatism, and bigotry.

Everywhere, from the US and Europe to Australia and South Africa, and, nearer home, from the Philippines to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, we see the levels of patience, tolerance, and respect for others’ views eroding. People forget there can be no such thing as absolute freedom. Just because freedom of speech is a fundamental right, one simply cannot go out and accuse any stranger of being a cheat or a thief or a killer.

Two hundred years ago, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-1891), the famous educationist, reformer, and scholar, wrote a letter on the subject of education: “The dogmatism of educated Indians is in no way less than that of the Arabs. They believe that, since the writers of their holy texts are all-knowing rishis, they are infallible. Citing European scientific writing, they laugh at Indian rituals.” Centuries have gone by but the mindset hasn’t changed at all. Despite the spread of modern education and scientific knowledge, lynchings still take place on the mere suspicion that one is a witch or a fake sadhu or has violated norms dictated by a male-dominated society.

On September 29, 2009, four members of a poor Dalit family in Maharashtra were brutally killed after they had been sodomised, raped, and paraded naked because their 19-year-old daughter had completed secondary studies. In September 2005, Vishram Patil was hacked to death. He was an English professor in a Jalgaon college affiliated to the North Maharashtra University and had raised questions about financial irregularities. He also accused G N Patil, brother of former president of India Pratibha Patil, of misappropriating funds collected for felicitating her and for tsunami relief. On September 21, 2005 he was murdered near his house in broad daylight. We are witnessing an eerie continuation of this tradition of cold-blooded murders in the Vyapam scandal in Madhya Pradesh.

Such atrocities happen when law and order breaks down. There may be laws banning all kinds of racial discrimination, but they mean little unless they are enforced.

Internet postings continue to peddle hate. Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians snipe at one another, expressing extreme suspicion and anger. Surely these postings provoke criminality. But it seems there’s little we can do about it. It is almost impossible to conceive of an apolitical police force. Controlling the police is a ruling party’s handle to stick to power. That’s true as much in Asia as elsewhere. It may be less so in the US, but even there, an individual police official may have his or her own biases, which get expressed from time to time.

Respect for the judiciary is also a big factor in the maintenance of law and order. If there is no respect, people are bound to take the law in their own hands. We see that happening all the time — mobs taking up the cudgel in their own hands and beating suspects to death on the flimsiest suspicions of wrong-doing, like stealing or sexual harassment. Even seeking information under the Right To Information (RTI) law appears to be a punishable offence. In a decade of RTI, 39 activists have reportedly died because they were trying to find out the truth, thus offending their communities.

I recall a conversation I had in 2010 with a boatman as I and a group of 20 other artists from Kolkata were sailing to Narail, a district of Bangladesh which is part of the Khulna Division, to attend a workshop organised by the Bengal Foundation Gallery of Arts. Besides being a journalist I happen to be an artist. Referring to the December 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the boatman said: “If that incident happened now, I would not have been here today. I would have promptly left Bangladesh for someplace else. That unfortunate event has changed the entire equation between Hindus and Muslims, and living in this country has become unbearable.”

Can faith in the judiciary be restored to a level that people can depend on? It seems highly unlikely, as Justice Leila Seth, 83, a former chief justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court recalled in a recent issue of Civil Society magazine. She said: “I made a statement in the Lok Adalat that there were 30 million cases pending all over India. And I still hear there are 30 million cases pending... In the lower courts the number of pending cases is phenomenal.”

On the question of protecting the values in the judicial system, she said: “You can only protect it to the extent civil society helps you, but you still have to take people from the same society. What are the aspirations of a lawyer? Lawyers can earn in a day what a judge earns in a month.” There you are. No one could have hit the nail harder on its head.