Circumscribing freedoms

If the unprovoked attack on the exiled Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasreen, in Hyderabad last Thursday amounted to criminal assault, the developments that took place in its wake are bizarre and point to a deeper malaise that afflicts both Indian society and the government apparatus. Ms Nasreen was in Hyderabad to release a Telugu translation of one of her many controversial books. Since the book-release function was held at the Press Club of Hyderabad, leaders of the Majlis-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) were assured of instant publicity for their planned assault on the writer. The news of the assault, even though it consisted only of hurling bouquets and books, received wide publicity even as Ms Nasreen was escorted by the police to a safe place. Civil society was outraged. Critics launched a broadside against the MIM and like-minded parties that sought to place curbs on an individual's right to free expression. One leader said that the MIM is no different from the Bajrang Dal.

But what was to follow was much worse than the original offence, which admittedly did little physical harm to anyone. An Urdu newspaper in Hyderabad carried a Muslim leader's statement congratulating the MIM on teaching a lesson to Ms Nasreen and lambasted secular groups for supporting her supposedly anti-Muslim writings. One group even rued the fact that MIM supporters had lost an opportunity to carry out the "fatwa" of eliminating Ms Nasreen, instead of having attacked her with only flowers. As if this were not enough, Allahabad University, where the writer was scheduled to deliver a lecture this week, has cancelled her engagements in a bid (it said) to maintain peace and order on university campus. A group of students which was opposed to Ms Nasreen and her visit to the university welcomed the decision and took out what was claimed to be a victory procession. Shades of how the film Parzania on the 2002 riots in Gujarat could not be screened anywhere in the state?

The police in Hyderabad did not cover itself with glory, either. While the MIM leaders who led the attack were charged with minor offences that allowed them to roam about freely, Ms Nasreen has been accused of having fuelled enmity among different religious groups and been booked under a charge which, if proven, could land her in prison for up to two years. There has been speculation that the MIM leaders have been allowed to get away lightly because the Congress in Andhra Pradesh needs the Muslim group's support. If that is not the reason for making the victim of assault face a bigger punishment than the perpetrator, what could it be?

The issue, whether to do with Ms Nasreen or Parzania, is if group strength can or should be allowed to muzzle individual voices of dissent. If such views offend the sensibilities of a particular group, there is legal recourse available to those who are aggrieved. Ms Nasreen's writings may or may not be of the highest literary quality, and may or may not be palatable to a religious group""just as Parzania was not, in a different context. But whether a society is free or whether its freedoms are circumscribed by group acceptability is a defining question; and if the state comes down on the side of those who seek to suppress unpalatable voices, then do we really have freedom of expression guaranteed to us?