THE GATHERING STORM

THE  GATHERING  STORM

Writers of India have united in protests and over a hundred writers and thinkers have marched on the streets of Delhi.  What they have demanded is the obviation of any intimidation of free artistic formulation and an unchained freedom for the artist. Murder is not a response to the penning of #dissent or expression of a differing opinion.

We should be pleased with this spontaneous reaction of an otherwise passive community like artists who prefer to have their opinions expressed through their talents in artistic reflection. Taking to the streets is alien to their nature and being compelled to do this speaks of the provocation that has driven them to this pass. When aggregated across the various languages writers and their fans do form a substantial constituency.  To the politicians who seek mass followings of any kind (even of the multitudes of devotees of God-men and Babas) this must seem a considerable challenge. They can ignore it only at their peril and so they try to meet it in the only way they know – the way of the street - organising a counter challenge of wiling collaborators in public and the not so cleverly concealed intimidation in private.

Now we have a gaggle of scientists from various laboratories including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research protesting the imposition of policy by ideologues with no great achievements in science upon their Institutions.  This is also of a piece with the long drawn protest of students of The Film and Television Institute of India who contest the appointment of a pedestrian film actor to the high position of Director of the Institute. Again we find practitioners of the visual arts and performing arts taking part in the protests.  Today a clutch of filmmakers have also returned the very prestigious awards.  Protests have also filtered down to students who were being ridden roughshod on the non-NET scholarships and who marched against the UGC.

What do these disparate groups have in common?  Why have they called it a ‘collective onslaught on reason’? The ‘perverse consistency’ of the BJP would make it respond uniformly to all of these with a single answer stating that they are all Modi-haters. An otherwise sober Finance Minister has now called them  "rabid anti-BJP elements." Unable to distinguish shades of gray and accustomed to only the black and white of obsequiousness or hate they have to lump all varieties of opposition into one corral and then proceed to attack them more with emotion than with reason curiously labelling it as #intolerance..

But the protestors must see hope in the recent past.  Language, Literature, Art, and the very many other soft arts and sciences have an overwhelming power beyond their silent strength.   It was the Bengali language and its promoters that crystallised the birth of Bangladesh; it was language and the denial of status to Tamil that gave rise to the deadly LTTE and a prolonged crisis in Sri Lanka; it was the fraternity of lawyers that toppled the military dictator Musharraf in Pakistan. What will take place in India when the various trickles of dissent and discontent growing across this vast land combine to form a mighty overpowering wave?   That will be the gathering storm against which the gossamer umbrella of the Parivar will be no protection.