Intolerance in Contemporary India – a Statement

India has witnessed a curious spectacle these last few weeks. A section of the nation’s intelligentsia has expressed outrage at a perceived mounting intolerance in society. In the forefront are the usual pallbearers of Indic civilization - Congressmen of various hues, Marxists, Leninists, even a handful of Maoists. The target is clear and explicitly stated - none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who much to their dismay led his party to a clear majority in Parliament. Failure in the elections is now sought to be avenged by other means; it helps if the media (or sections of it) serve as cheerleaders.

An initial joust was witnessed in accusations of attacks on Christian places of worship. It fizzled out when the actual culprits were nabbed.

Then, the murder of a resident of Uttar Pradesh, allegedly because he consumed beef, is certainly condemnable, but how is the Central Government to blame? Uttar Pradesh is a state infamous for violence of every kind. Had the Centre intervened and dismissed the State Government under Article 356 of the Constitution, for failure to uphold law, the protest brigade would have found another stick with which to beat it. The murders of Mr. Dabholkar and Mr. Kalburgi happened in states not ruled by the BJP; yet loose language is bandied about.

This same intelligentsia chooses not to remember that there has been no justice for victims of the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 and the farmers killed in Nandigram in 2007 under the Congress and Left governments respectively. In fact, when the CPIM led Left Front government, professing to serve the “proletariat”, fired upon and killed innocent farmers it was a constituent of the UPA-I at the Centre and a close partner of the Congress party. A similar silence followed when in 2010 the hands of professor T.J.Joseph, in then CPIM ruled Kerala, were chopped off, simply because of his belief and articulations. There are other sins of commission, too many to list.

But the equation of the RSS with the terrorist Islamic State by an AMU scholar is simply breathtaking; it embarrassed intellectuals from his own community. As an eminent scholar of Islam he would be aware of its own recorded history and the ISIS’s self-documented abuse of human rights, including beheadings and wanton killings, not to mention rape, enslavement, et al.  

All in all, the protests are much ado about the declining clout of a pampered section.

We therefore urge the people of India, who have repeatedly demonstrated great sagacity and wisdom, to not be diverted by a false narrative, and to focus, as they have done and continue to do, on the vision and aim of achieving unity, progress, growth and on seeing India become a great nation under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

 1.      Dr. Lokesh Chandra, President ICCR

 2.      Professor S.L.Bhyrappa, author, novelist, National Professor, Sahitya Akademi National Fellow

 3.      Professor Kapil Kapoor, former Pro-VC JNU, Chancellor, Mahatma Gandhi Antar-rashtriya Hindi Viswavidyalaya, Wardha

 4.      Professor Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Professor Emeritus University of Cambridge, Member ICHR

 5.       Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri (Akkitham), leading Poet, Sahitya Akademi Awardee, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Awardee.

 6.       Professor Sumatheendra R Nadig, poet, author, Karnataka Sahitya Akademi  Awardee, former UGC Emeritus Fellow, former Chairman National Book Trust.

 7.       Professor Purabi Roy, Member ICHR

 8.        Professor Jayanta Kumar Ray, National Professor

 9.       Dr. Meenakshi Jain, Member ICHR

 10.    Professor Santisree Pandit, University of Pune

 11.  Professor K.Gopinath, IISC, Bangalore

 12.     Professor Aswini Mohapatra, JNU

 13.    Professor Sacchidanand Sahai, Member, ICHR

 14.     S. Ramesan Nair, Poet, Lyricist

 15.    Mrs. Sreekumari Ramachandran, Novelist, short story writer

 16.    Professor C.I.Issac, Member ICHR

 17.    Madampu Kunjukuttan, Author, Screenplay Writer

 18.    Mrs. K. B Sreedevi, leading novelist, Malayalam

 19.    Dr. Gautam Sen, former Professor LSE

 20.    Dr. Prakash Shah, Associate Professor, Queen Mary University, London

 21.   Dr. Saradindu Mukherjee, Member ICHR

 22.    Dr. Nikhilesh Guha, Member ICHR

 23.    Shri T.S.Nagabharana, Film Director, Karnataka

 24.   Dr. Dodda Range Gowda, academician and former MLC

 25.   Professor Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Chaudhuri Charan Singh University, Meerut

 26.    Dr. Inakshi Chaturvedi – Associate Professor University of Rajasthan

 27.   N. Kuttikrishna Pillai, author, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Awardee

 28.   Dr. Madusoodhanan Pillai, Academic Director, Bharatiya Institute of Research, Tiruvananthapuram

 29.   Professor Mohan Kashikar – University of Nagpur

 30.   Professor Gopala Reddy – Osmania University

 31.   Professor G.Ram Reddy – Osmania University

 32.   Professor K.K.Mishra – Banaras Hindu University

 33.  Prof Meleth Chandrasekharan, Writer, Author

 34.  Professor Maduraiveeran – University of Madras

 35.  Dr. R.Radhakrishnan – Asst Professor, Symbiosis University Hyderabad

 36.  Professor Ramakrishnan – Madurai Kamaraj University