Barkha Dutt is a rising star in the Indian media — one of the journalists that makes the Indian news channel NDTV worth watching. Though she gets stuck doing silly stuff sometimes (I saw her interview Brad Pitt a few months ago; oy), Dutt is one of the few journalists that I’ve seen on Indian news channels who isn’t just a glorified “news reader.”
She’s also a very sharp columnist. This week Dutt notes a double-standard in the way Indian secularists have responded to the recent physical attack against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, in which a number of elected officials actively participated. Nasreen, for those who don’t know, is a controversial author — she’s from a Muslim background, but has essentially renounced Islam. She’s in exile from Bangladesh after getting hit with a Fatwa; for the past several years, she’s lived in India, though the government has refused to issue her a permanent residency visa.
In a recent column in the Hindustan Times, Dutt compares the assault on Nasreen to an event that took place in Vadodara, Gujarat, just a few months ago, where politicians from the Hindu right sacked an art exhibit at the University of Baroda:
At the heart of the matter is a larger debate on whether political correctness has twisted our response to the principle of individual liberty. Have our politicians in particular been shaped by a kind of hypocrisy that makes their utterances on creative freedom just humbug and little else?
To compare the difference, think back to how the secular and liberal establishment reacted when goons from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal attacked the faculty of arts in Vadodara. A young student was arrested for painting Jesus Christ and Lord Vishnu in a style that employed sexually explicit visual metaphors. The dean of the school was suspended, but no action was taken against those who trespassed the university, infiltrated a private exhibition and used brute force to gag artistic expression. The opposition and outcry at that time was spontaneous, vocal and unrelenting. Most of us protested against the idea of fettering imagination with do’s and don’ts. We didn’t really care or even know whether the art in question was of a commendable quality. It’s the principle we stood up for.
Yes, fear and repression may be permanent citizens in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. But the fact is that this attack on Taslima Nasreen doesn’t get to be played by different rules just because it took place on Congress turf or because the mob was led by Muslims instead of Hindus. The two incidents are inarguably mirror images of each other. (link)
On the basic point that the attack on Nasreen in Hyderabad is the mirror image of what happened in Vadodara, I find it hard to argue. Indeed, the story is the same in both cases: members of the political arm of a religious community decide, arbitrarily, that a creative work is offensive, and persecute the artist responsible. In one case, the political goons were Hindus, while in the second the political goons are Muslims — and in neither case are any of the political goons likely to be punished.
On the question of whether there is a double standard at play here, I’m not sure — it’s seemed to me that the outrage over the attacks on Nasreen amongst the secular left has been nearly as strong as it was after the incident in Vadodara. SACW, for instance, has had several incensed postings on the Nasreen incident (indeed, I found Dutt’s column through the SACW listserv). Granted, there haven’t been protests on the street in support of Nasreen, but the event in question just happened a couple of days ago. So I don’t see the double standard… yet.
Incidentally, Barkha Dutt had another razor-sharp column a few weeks ago, on another double standard — this one involving terrorists, civil liberties, and Mohammed Haneef.
shake head what did she expect? free speech for furthering discussion between people, not hurting their religious feelings. 😉
Perhaps sitting outside India you don’t watch dozens of Indian news channels and consider only newspapers as media?
Reaction to Gujarat incident was almost instantaneous – while Nasreen incident just made a good reality TV with no reaction from professional secular protesters. I think that is what Barkha Dutt is pointing out.
One need not wait few days to protest in the era of 24×7 televison.
Was wondering how SM had not featured the Nasreen issue yet. My guess would be that Barkha Dutt may have jumped the gun a bit. This article was published on the 10th (and maybe she started on it on the 9th itself) and from what it seems like the incident did not happen much before. Maybe the NDTV/HT were one of the first to pick up the story since I see a lot more coverage of it on HT/NDTV and their first coverage was the 9th (on a digression, in the cesspool that is the desi media, HT and it’s financial subsidiary The Mint are definitely a pleasure to read). Other news papers seem to have picked up the story on the 10th/11th – don’t see The Hindu covering it though but I may be wrong. Plus the CPI issued a condemnation statement on the 10th and maybe Dutt did not catch that before she went trigger happy. That said, Dutt is usually good with her reporting and this may be a one off. Unless she wants to become another ‘I blabber without rhyme or reason for the right’ Arun Shourie.
Perhaps sitting outside India you don’t watch dozens of Indian news channels and consider only newspapers as media?
I do get NDTV and Star News (Hindi) at home, but not the 5000 other news channels that have cropped up lately.
Admittedly, sitting outside India my perspective on the scale of the coverage is a little limited. I’m not hearing the ‘word on the street’ — it’s more like ‘this is what my mother-in-law seems to be interested in today’. (Incidentally, today, she was more interested in the nuke deal than Taslima Nasreen)
Reaction to Gujarat incident was almost instantaneous – while Nasreen incident just made a good reality TV with no reaction from professional secular protesters. I think that is what Barkha Dutt is pointing out.
I would have to agree with iFOB – and to my mind the excessively muted reaction is symptomatic of the deterioration of the Left everywhere, not just India.
A couple of op–eds.
What exactly has she said or written for the Mullahs to issue the fatwa. All I have read is that she has said Quran needs to be revised and women are not treated well islam. Even here I do not have the exact quotes. Can some one post a link to her comments that has irked the Muslims so much…
Dear Amardeep,
You might find Abi’s blogpost on what he calls Barkha Dutt’s secular shrillness an interesting read; here is what he has to say in his update:
Were the goons in the first case legislators?
The original quote was: “I’m not in favor of minor changes. It serves no purpose. The Koran should be revised thoroughly.” (Statesman, May 9, 1994).
But she later said that she had been misquoted and clarified her position –
“I do not hold the view that “the Koran should be revised thoroughly,” because I think it is impossible to revise the Koran….Why should we try to change a religious text which is held as sacred by many? My view on this issue is clear and categorical. I hold the Koran, the Vedas, the Bible, and all such religious texts determining the lives of their followers as “out of place and out of time.” We have crossed the socio-historical contexts in which these were written and therefore we should not be guided by their precepts. The question of revision, thorough or otherwise, is irrelevant. We have to move beyond these ancient texts if we want to progress. In order to respond to our spiritual needs, let humanism be our new faith.” [link]
Of course this clarification did not help at all. It’s definitely not just this one quote that triggered the subsequent events though. She had been writing on oppression of women, atrocities against Hindu minorities, patriarchy, in general, and making enemies for a couple of years prior to 1994. Wiki and her homepage have the timeline.
A couple of articles in a similar vein from the news tab by other authors.
Dilemma of an Indian Muslim
Taslima and the soft underbelly of liberalism
Here’s the timeline for the Baroda incident:
The attack by Niraj Jain and his army of goons happens on May 9. The massive protests — simultaneous ones all across the country — that Barkha talks about happened on the 14th. Five full days later!
Here’s the timeline for the Hyderabad incident:
The attack by the MIM goons happens on July 9. Barkha pens her outburst on the 10th of July. Just one day after the incident! Barkha wants action, and she wants it now! She seems to demand immediate protests that will satisfy the kind of instant journalism practiced by TV channels like hers.
As it turns out, there have been many protests by various organizations, including some Muslim ones. They have all been spontaneous, and hence uncoordinated. (I have linked to some — and only some — of them in my post; see Guru’s comment at #8). Also take a look at Ammu Joseph’s post, in which she says, “All five of the nationally circulated English dailies I subscribe to (and others accessed online) immediately published editorials condemning the attack in strong terms.”
It’s just that Barkha is not interested in covering them. Who needs facts when one has opinions?
I wonder what Christopher Hitchens would say about all this! 😉
Oops. Make that August 9 for the Hyderabad incident, and August 10 for Barkha Dutt’s article.
I wonder what Christopher Hitchens would say about all this! 😉
If you ever want to see “Hitch” I recommend a late lunch at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, weekend… He is pretty damn cool!
It’s funny. If you read the condemnations from the so called “secular folks”, if it has one line condemning MIM (the Muslim fanatics) it would have the following three paragrpahs condemning everyone from Togadia / Thackeray / Golwalkar to Hindutva and how it is responsible for everything..
🙂
It’s funny. If you read the condemnations from the so called “secular folks”, if it has one line condemning MIM (the Muslim fanatics) it would have the following three paragrpahs condemning everyone from Togadia / Thackeray / Golwalkar to Hindutva and how it is responsible for everything..
Except… that’s not at all what we’re doing here. Nor is it what Barkha Dutt wrote.
So what exactly are you talking about?
In general, the standards are lower for Muslim thugs compared to Hindu thugs. Neatly fits in with the stereotypes that some people hold of Muslims as less “decent” (class), less Indian, more violent, and sometimes even as more dirty people. Never mind that a lot of these things are correlated with poverty. It’s not so much “we will let the Muslims riot because we hate the Hindu fundamentalists more” but rather “there is no controlling the Muslims. They are brutes”. Some of these stereotypes come from the movies. Parallels can be seen in the attitudes towards some communities in the US.
Right, I should have been more clear. I was talking about the articles in the Indian press.. “The Hindu” etc..
“the government has refused to issue her a permanent residency visa.”
I got the crux of your article but the above statement i found most annoying. The indian government has goto be one of the most cowardly,gutless limping establishment anywhere in the world. Here you have million of people against an individual(nasreen) in bangladesh, as a result of which she’s fled and come here, and yet the government pretends like it doesnt care. By giving her a residency visa ie legal refuge, they could have sent out a strong message that violent means of protests, including issuing fatwas, is just not done.
Also remember, Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was first banned in India. Why? Well, i suppose coz the gvment didnt want to hurt/or wanted to appease the large muslim base in this country.
This reminds me of the MF Hussain fiasco in his portrayal of Hindi Dieties in the nude. I don’t think the intensity of the reaction to the 1998 Bajrang Dal attack to Hussain’s home is any different from the reaction now. I am an outsider in both cases and was never really directly exposed to word ‘on the street’.
This doesn’t make sense to me. If Muslims were indeed considered thugs, violent and less Indian – Gujarat riots wouldn’t have gotten the coverage it did in the Indian media. Nevermind the fact that the State government wasn’t held responsible until much later.
You can add to that the notion of them being a voting block to be appeased. Treated like sheeple if that sounds appropriate?
They could have, but why alienate their precious vote bank? 🙂
I feel that attack on Taslima Nasreen is one step more insulting than other fundamentalist ‘protests’ (irrespective of religions the fundamentalist belong to) because of the way a woman (and an elderly man) was assaulted in this case. I was appalled by what I saw in the video and dumbstruck by the loonie words of the MIM leaders in which he says ‘We should have hit her much more…she was let off too easily’. I am amazed that no one in the discussion finds that disturbing … oh well …. desi mentality.
The Nasreen and MF Hussain situations make India look incredibly backwards. I looked at the MF Hussain paintings online and for the life of me could not figure out was so objectionable. Here is a guy who from what I can tell is a humanist and uses ideas and images that any Indian of his generation would draw from. But that’s besides the point….India must abolish these ridiculous laws that bar hurting religious sentiment.
“The Nasreen and MF Hussain situations make India look incredibly backwards”
Agree on that; Time to update India’s image abroad.
Barkha Dutt is pure left supporter. She always try to show the Indian Tradition, Religion (especially Hinduism) has bad things only. How can she be the good journalist, if she does not respect the Indian tradition, & religion?
Very true…i totally agree she is always anti -indian and i wonder how could she represt the face our nation through media…we must chuck her out of our indian media…people of her catgegory should not be even allwed to stay in india..and she comes on news channels and speaks against india..idiot lady….please leave our country..send her to her favrite pakistan