Saturday, December 01, 2007

Pluralism and Democracy

The whole world seems to be having credentials enough on passing judgments on Taslima Nasreen, M.F. Hussain and the Indian government these days, so also I thought of joining the party!!!
I was seeing this debate on "we the people" on NDTV24x7 on "putting curbs on artistic freedom".....something like that.What I'd like to ask is what is artistic freedom? who defines it? for me its nothing but a politician's word, a word that has been coined for the sole purpose of getting your way out of embarrassing situations (something like what Ms Nasreen and Hussain sahab have encountered). Then in a most ridiculous way some bonehead lady (say this expletive can be artistic freedom!) on the show says that our Indian civilization is not ready for such openness and rationality, that our people are still under-educated. Are we Indians really fond of self-pity? of finding faults in our ways? and adulating about what our contemporaries in west are doing?Its not a question of being educated or not? A believer'd have been offended seeing those nude impersonations (on canvas) of Hindu goddesses, notwithstanding his educational qualification.
Its simply a point of crossing the line. The west exploded over those danish cartoons. In a plural society like ours there are a lot of lines, and being an influential person one should have a sense of responsibility to respect and defer all those lines.
The most pathetic party to all these fiasco s are politician's elected by us. See what BJP is doing, it is advocating Nasreen's case and it hounded Hussain like a mad dog, despite there being glaring similarities between the two cases. And who elects these politicians, its we....shouldn't we be ashamed of ourselves.
Why does CPI-M gets elected again and again in West Bengal, why do we elect proven criminals as our representatives? why hasn't a single politician been imprisoned?May be after all it is a question of people being educated....................

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