Guest relations

Atithi Devo Bhava (which loosely translates into "The guest is god") may be an extreme expression of traditional hospitality, but External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's admonition to Bangladeshi writer Tasleema Nasreen to "behave" because she was a guest in India must surely rank as an absurdity. It is difficult to see on what grounds Mr Mukherjee, as a senior representative of an ostensibly secular and liberal government, could have made such a statement. Is there a code of conduct for people granted temporary visas, as Ms Nasreen has been? Has she broken any Indian laws? There is no gainsaying that Ms Nasreen talks too much "" as handlers assigned to her have complained "" and the attention she commands is quite out of proportion with the quality of her literature. But bad writing and loose talk can hardly be construed as crimes "" journalists and politicians do both all the time with impunity. Mr Mukherjee has thus laid himself open to charge of cynically pandering to the realpolitik of appeasing the Left, with whom he has been parleying to break the deadlock over the nuclear deal with the United States.

The facts speak for themselves. Dwikhandita, one of the books among many authored by Ms Nasreen that appear to have offended Islamic sentiments, was written in 2002. It was banned by the West Bengal government in 2003 "" six months after Bangladesh banned the book. Despite this, the state and central governments had no problem in granting Nasreen extensions to her temporary visa for the past few years. Nothing has happened in the intervening four years to have prompted sudden demands last month for Ms Nasreen's expulsion, and the outpouring of communal anger in Kolkata, a city with a long tradition of tolerance. But coming within days of the growing crisis in Nandigram, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that provoking anti-Nasreen sentiments proved a convenient way of diverting public attention from the ruling Communist government's Stalinist approach to problems in that distant rural enclave.

For the Congress-led government, l'affaire Nasreen can be construed as a useful way of killing two birds with one statement. By allowing her refuge in India, the government has been given the opportunity to display its liberal, secular face; by officially asking her to "keep quiet" it has pandered to the fringe of Islamic opinion just ahead of the communally-charged Gujarat elections, where its chances of victory look slim. More to the point, it has afforded the government an opportunity to offer the Left a quid pro quo face-saver at a time when its support for the United Progressive Alliance was growing shaky over the nuclear deal.

The trouble with exploiting the Nasreen crisis with cynical political motives is that it chips away at India's reputation for tolerance and liberalism "" qualities that paradoxically appear to be diminishing as the country's economy reaches new heights of economic success. The attacks on an art student at the University of Baroda and artist MF Husain's forced exile are two examples of just where pandering to intolerant sentiment, irrespective of religious hue, can lead. In an India that is opening its doors to foreign investment, technology and management concepts, intolerance "" especially when it is government-sanctioned "" can hardly be the logical way to go.