Agenda Market

Kalburgi to Kulkarni, killed, condemned

By Papri Sri Raman

Four generations of my family have lived in India. I am proud to be an Indian and I will not allow anybody to question my patriotism. What provoked the mild-mannered actor Naseeruddin Shah to burst out thus? He is just one of a billion Indians who do not need to prove ‘how much’ Indian we are. Buddha’s India is shamed by the agenda market the country is today and each one of us need to rethink the meaning of the word ‘coward’ and label cowards as such..

The actor was speaking to a media that had its own agenda, of an event that had its own agenda. Like theatre or a book, it had a long prequel, so long that even the panelists were sleeping at the event, the launch of a book that will not make any difference, cannot sweeten seventy years of bitterness. Speaking on the controversy over his participation in the launch of former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri's book, Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove in Mumbai on 12 October, Shah said it was the first time that he was ‘reminded of his Muslim identity’, the day after he was trolled on Twitter for saying good things about the book. A clear attempt at digging out identity politics where none exists. The old man from Bisada village in Uttar Pradesh had nothing to do with any book except the holy Quran; he was lynched in early October by a mob in a 21st century Mars-roving India, just as in the middle-ages. His son works for the Indian Airforce and is as patriotic as you and I. He was killed because of a rumour that there was beef in his fridge. It wasn’t one of the Alfred Hitchkock-type deadbodies, and we are not ready to buy obscurantist arguments that ‘beef’ is a dead cow, it could be a bull. Let us not justify plain crime with bullshit. Let us not waste the Supreme Court’s precious time on having to deal with Twitter/Facebook cases, when clearly both, the BJP-led Maharashtra government and writer Shobhaa De had one agenda, drawing attention. Surely, the Maharashtra assembly has more serious matters to deal with than order screening of films in multiplexes; it’s like respective state governments ordering booktores to display regional language books in their airport and mall shops. LetGhulam Ali sing in India. Let some things be private, government does not have get into books, films, music etc.

But, of course it does. Because it has an agenda. It all started with the Maharashtra government and why, because Mumbai is in election mode. The beef ban happened in Maharashtra some months ago and the media playing its own politics, tossed it so much that its reverberation could be heard in distant so-long communally peaceful Bisada. The same with the north Karnataka district of Dharwad, where politics is influenced by Maharashtra next door.

Malleshappa M Kalburgi, a reputed writer, scholar and academic who had served as the Vice-Chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi was shot dead by unidentified men at Dharwad two months ago, because he was a rationalist who spoke against idol worship. After the killing, Bajrang Dal leader from Mangalore, Bhuvith Shetty, tweeted, ‘Then it was UR Ananthamurthy and now MM Kalburgi. Mock Hinduism and die dogs (sic.) death. And dear KS Bhagwan you are next.’ The killers are modern, they know how to use social media. Kalburgi’s killing imitated the Narendra Dhabolkar killing in Maharashtra in 2013. He was an author and rationalist and ounder-president of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an organisation t set up to eradicate superstition. Sanatan Sanstha leader Jayant Athavale, in his paper Sanatan Prabhat, said ‘births and deaths are pre-destined and everybody gets the fruit of their karma….Instead of dying bedridden through illness… such a death for Dabholkar is a blessing of the almighty’. Dhabolkar was shot dead by motorcycle-borne assailants while on his morning walk at 7 am. The 77-year-old Kalburgi had just about finished his breakfast. The eyewitness accounts are chilling. ‘The moment Kalburgi came to the door, the man shot him between his eyes from close range. He calmly walked away, got onto a motorbike parked outside and escaped’. It is killing the same way, pretending devotion at a prayer meeting. Killing an unarmed person is cowardice. Neither of these killings were without political agendas, majority supremacy to eliminate ‘rationalism’ and rule by imposing obscurantism on people. The painting of Sudheerendra Kulkarni’s face is one more addition to agenda-driven incidents. Kulkarni is no political innocent, having interned with the CPM and maturing with the BJP. There were so many cities, Delhi more than anywhere else, to host Kasauri’s book launch. Why choose Mumbai? Because, Kulkarni knew Mumbai is in election mode. His being the head of Observer Research Foundation, headquartered in Mumbai had nothing to do with it. The panelists at the book launch were noted lawyer and historian AG Noorani, journalist Dileep Padgaonkar and Naseeruddin Shah. As Shah pointed out to a provoking media, the book ‘has nothing about India’ except diplomatic observations made in the context… its about Pakistan.

Kulkarni, obviously, had his own agenda. He got into limelight just in time for the releases of his own book, Music of the Spinning Wheel.He not only became headline in national dailies, the very next day he was lecturing in Udipi under the auspices of the Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies at the Manipal University, ‘Mahatma Gandhi belongs to the present and future’, Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age, ‘My journey from Mahatma to Marx, and Back’ and on ‘When Music of the Spinning Wheel Mingled with the Music of Beethoven’ etc. In an India where books are not about quality of content but about the high-profile of the author, Kulkarni knows how politically significant his move to be known as a ‘Gandhian’ is with the blessing of both the left and the right, both political dispensations condemning the attack on him.

The Shiv Sena, a minor ally, of course had its own agenda. It is flexing its muscles to impress Mumbaikars ahead of BMC polls. Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city, always has been, more than Delhi or any other city in India. A notice from the SC to De on ‘Marathi’ films highlights the Sena agenda before municipal polls. After painting of Kulkarni’s face, the six activist-culprits claimed they did it because Kulkarni was hosting a Pakistani (traditionally there are thousands of Pakistani visitors in Mumbai at any point of time) and they met Uddhav Thakery at Matoshree and were reportedly ‘patted’ for their good work. Sena leader Sanjay Raut has said, ‘If we can give Param Vir Chakras and Veer Chakras to the soldiers fighting with Pakistan, then what's wrong in felicitating people who allegedly smeared Kulkarni's face with black paint to protest former Pakistan foreign minister’s book launch in Mumbai?’

Three eminent writers from Punjab, Gurbachan Bhullar, Ajmer Singh Aulakh and Atamjit Singh have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards like several other authors includingNayantara Sehgal, Sara Joseph, Uday Prakash and Ashok Vajpeyi demanding that the Akademi speak out against the killing of member Kalburgi and other rationalists and against the ‘communal’ atmosphere in the backdrop of the Bisada lynching. Referring to ‘returning of the awards’, poet Ashok Chakradhar, in a poetry festival in Delhi said, no one knows, remembers or cares you had such an award. You need limelight, so you find reason to return awards. Namwar Singh, on Saturday questioned other literary icons on why they were returning their Sahitya Akadmi awards on alleged grounds of rising intolerance in the country.

Singh said the awards were not given to them by the Centre, but by the Sahitya Akademi.

"I respect all my colleagues, but they should not have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards. The awards were not given to them by the government, but by the Akademi," Singh said here. Namwar Singh,on Saturday questioned other literary icons on why they were returning their Sahitya Akadmi awards on alleged grounds of rising intolerance in the country.

Singh said the awards were not given to them by the Centre, but by the Sahitya Akademi.

"I respect all my colleagues, but they should not have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards. The awards were not given to them by the government, but by the Akademi," Singh said here.Hindi authorNamwar Singh says, they should not have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards. The awards were not given to them by the government, but by the Akademi ‘….they should not return the Akademi awards….the awards were not given them by the government…’ New age writer Chetan Bhagat has the last word, ‘So, should I return my award?...I haven’t got it yet.’ Perhaps political parties need to find more solid manifestos than such cheap tricks and writers like Bhagat need to lead the protest against mindless killings of ‘rationalists’, whatever that means, lynching old men, painting faces… because of various agendas.