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It is almost embarrassing to watch talk shows and debates where they discuss ‘free speech and expression’. I came across a recent episode of Faze the Nation featuring smart-woman Sagarika Ghose and some silly guests. It was regarding Taslima Nasrin’s recent article in a Kannada daily that sparked protests killing two. As put best by Swapan Dasgupta in the show, the only violation in the Karnataka incident was a copyright violation by the Kannada daily that printed Taslima’s article without authorization. The alleged original article was this — printed years ago in an Outlook India edition.
The two jokers who were guests kept throwing words like sacrilegous and blasphemy. It is outrageous how they claimed they were all for free speech and expression except within the barriers of religious tolerance.
For all kinds of fundamentalists and religious watchdogs : Listen up dudes, if your god cannot handle blasphemy or defend himself/herself, maybe you need to move to a better god. There are lots of gods out there; it’s a free market — so choose a good one and get the hell off television.
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In the same vein (which is an anger vein, as you can see), I also want to address the issue of M.F. Hussain being offered citizenship of Qatar. Smart-man Vir Sanghvi pointed out that India shamed him by sending him into exile, but he will shame India if he accepts the citizenship offer from Qatar, which is hardly a democracy. One excerpt :
Now that he has chosen to live in Qatar, the Hindutva-wallahs will ask the obvious questions: How much freedom will he have there? Of course the Arabs will let him paint naked Hindu goddesses. But will they let him paint anything that even remotely offends Muslims? Anything that offends the royal family? Nude portraits of previous rulers of Qatar? Or even, nude portraits of Arab women?
These are crude questions. But sadly, the answers are as crude. Husain will have no artistic freedom in Qatar. He will be no more than a court painter to a medieval monarch. So has he chosen to live in a society that values the artistic freedom that he says he is denied in India? Or has he just taken the soft, very profitable, option and forgotten all about artistic freedom?
He misses the point like a meteor that is headed towards Mercury but hits Pluto instead. What Hussain does of his own volition is none of our concern. He could go to Qatar, Dubai or China — or decide to sit on top of a tree in a garden. The fact that he was driven out by Hindu fundamentalist forces is the only fact that should be up for debate.
So here’s my view: if he wants to stay abroad, fine. That’s reasonable. But he should not turn his back on his own country. He should not surrender his Indian nationality and opt for a passport offered by an undemocratic regime – all in the name of artistic freedom.
As long as we are all using ‘should’ in reference to other people, maybe you should STFU.
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The cartoons of the Congress have offered full security should Hussain decide to return back. Will the same cartoons provide security to Salman Rushdie — the Islam offender for The Satanic Verses — who has been roaming around the world since decades now, has married 4 times and has been involved with novelists, supermodels, actresses — Padma Lakshmi, Riya Sen to name a couple — and it has come to a point now where this sentence continues and I have no idea what I was talking about.
Yeah, cartoons. So the old cartoons over at BJP are totally all weak in their knees for Salman Rushdie, but mention M.F. Hussain and they’ll jump like a million ants entered their dhoti.
Truth is, none of them care about freedom of speech or expression. Then again, truth is — if they wanted to — they could safeguard these freedoms quite easily. Anyone who is willing to provide security to M.F. Hussain can bloody well do the same for Salman Rushdie and vice versa. So just say that you care about your voters who are stupid enough to die with their gods and ego instead of living a worthy life, and we’ll all be good. Please don’t appear on television shows and harp about freedom of speech and expression. You have no clue what it means.
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As for the two who were killed in the protests in Karnataka : if they were protesting against the article on roads whilst rioting, I’ll find it very hard to sympathize with them.
This video has made my day — ironic, since it’s already midnight. But FWIW, almost one year late, I came across this video of Sagarika Ghose interviewing (rather, trying to interview) Ram Jethmalani regarding the Manu Sharma/Jessica Lal case.
This is called totally pwning someone :
I can hear the birds chirping; I can hear the raindrops falling; from a Chinese guy, I got a bargain; life is looking up again.
Much thanks to @flyyoufools for the tip.
P.S. : If you are visiting the blog for the first time, please think about subscribing to the content — if you liked it.
You know an issue is serious when they let Sagarika Ghose loose on it. Ergo, Mr. P. Chidambaram’s advice to Delhiites, which was in bad taste, is a big issue now.
The topic on yesterday’s Face The Nation was : Chidambaram asks Delhiites to behave: Are Indians rude and ill-mannered?
At the beginning, 88% percent agreed. By the end, 95% agreed. The host was Sagarika Ghose.
You conclude. I am not saying anything, I just present facts.
If there is one news channel that has truly mastered the art of delivering news, it is CNN-IBN.
First, they select some news worthy enough to be a breaking news, like all others. Say for e.g., the SRK incident.
Second, they run recurring stories of it, like all others.
Third, and this is what makes them intellectually superior and different, they let Sagarika Ghose loose on their “in-house talkers” like Lord Desai, to debate if the whole brouhaha was justified.
This technique, which I can only hope they have patented, gives them more mileage off a news than anyone else.
To quote Mr. Barney Stinson, this technique is a game-changer — like the forward pass, the slam dunk, and that haircutting technique where they hold it between their fingers and then snip.
Immense respect comes.
A WT# question comes in another one of those endless debates about poverty and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Sagarika Ghose to the panelists in Face The Nation : But would the film have been such a success had it not been set in a slum and say, in a university?
Well, the title wouldn’t have made any sense firstly.
The debate has other gems by an unknown sociologist Sherry Sabharwal : My request to Danny Doyle is next time concentrate on something like a university.
So I propose we draft a list of must-have-scenes for all Western directors aspiring to make a movie in India.
Did I mention that all the panelists haven’t seen the movie yet ?
Edit : Thanks to Anorak for pointing out the missing URL.
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