Noted writer Nayantara Sahgal, who recently returned her 'Sahitya Akademi' Award over the Dadri lynching case, has said secularism is under threat like never before and that individual freedom and rights have to be protected even these are guaranteed in the Constitution.
Sahgal, the niece of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, underlined that secularism is part of the Indian culture "because for centuries we have had inputs from other cultures and all these have combined to what is India."
Asked if she feels secularism is under threat, she replied, "it is under threat today as it has never been before. Because today, there is a move, we cannot yet call it policy because when Narendra Modi made his campaign speeches (before 2014 LS polls) they were all about development.
"There was never any indication or suspicion that what was being promoted or would be promoted under his rule would be Hindutva, which has been the Hindu Mahasabha policy from the 1920s. Now that we see happening."
Referring to incidents involving some right wing elements, she said, "we call it by fringe elements, but those elements are so many and have done so much damage that the nation is rising up against it. That one sees a threat one never saw before because they are promoting what they would like to see a Hindu Rashtra, in other words a Hindu Pakistan. The people of India, I am convinced, are not going to submit to that."
Interacting with the media here on the sidelines of 4th Chandigarh Literature Festival, the Sahgal, 88, said the idea of India is guaranteed in the Constitution and it gives every Indian right to live, eat, worship as he/she chooses.
Referring to the Dadri incident in which Ikhlaq, 50, was killed, Sahgal said, "this poor man was lynched on suspicion of cooking/eating beef." She emphasised that "The freedom is something which always has to be protected even if may be guaranteed to you in the constitution.
Every generation has to make sure these freedom and rights guaranteed are there and defend them if they are attacked."
The Dehradun-based writer said the idea of India "is not something that began with Independence, secularism is not a policy that began with Independence and just to say now on we are secular. Secularism is part of Indian culture, because for centuries we have had inputs from other cultures and all these have combined to what is India. Many religions, many cultures have gone into making this."
"We are not Indian Muslims, Indian Hindus and Indian Christians. We are Indians and that is what the protest is all about. If you have seen the protests, these have gone way beyond freedom of speech. It now concerns the very fundamentals of India, the whole idea of India," Sahgal said.
The writer, who received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1986 for her English novel 'Rich Like Us (1985)', said a cross-section of people including writers, filmmakers, scientists, sociologists and others were protesting increasing intolerance towards right to dissent in the country.
Citing her own example, she said, "Take myself, I am a North Indian and where I live is the cradle of Hinduism. It is also the home of some of famous architecture of Islam, food and manners of Islam. So, I myself am half-Islamic in culture. I am fragmented because so many things have gone into making us.
"In my case, I am Muslim by much of my culture, I am Hindu by birth. If these cultures are part of one person, how do you separate them? This is the meaning of India, and this is what secularism means, it is not something to be adopted as a policy.
"The day it was recognised as being the case was through the national movement which was led by Mahatama Gandhi from 1921 right up till Independence. That was the first political formation in India that cut across region, religion, language, caste, class, gender, everything and brought all these together in one national movement and that defined our secularism and that is what Independent India recognised as its identity."
Claiming that the prevailing situation of the country is "very pathetic", Sahgal said an attempt was being made "to bring down an iron curtain on the freedom of thought, let alone freedom of speech as that comes later. You have to think like me, I would not allow you to think any other way, this is the classic fascist technique which was followed by (Adolf) Hitler."
She went on to add, "We are seeing signs of this iron curtain coming down on the freedom of thought...eminent directors of our premier institutions are being replaced by the obedient servants of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, who are totally unqualified, except to promote Hindutva. These premier institutions were founded during (Jawaharlal) Nehru's governments. Now, they are being reduced to the puppets of the RSS, that is why I say these are fascist techniques."
Sahgal said "Golwalkar of the Maha Sahba admired Hitler greatly. Today, you see Mein Kampf selling in all the shops. I was driving from Delhi and Jaipur and a bookshop had a pile of this book."
When asked if India's image would be harmed if the current situation prevails, she replied, "naturally, if you are going to have these horrors happening in our country, the world is going to hear about it. Writers from 150 countries have supported the writers protest against the supression of dissent at a recent conference which was held at Canada."
Asked whether some political forces were behind these protests, Sahgal said, "I don't think one single writer belongs to the Congress. I myself was born and brought up in a Congress family and I don't belong to the Congress, much less my fellow writers, as I said we never meet."
Sahgal said it was "absurd" to say that the protesting writers and artistes belong to Congress or are Left-liberals. She said she was recently in a literary festival at Mumbai
"where a man came up to me and shook my hand and said how much he admired what I had said and he was taken with my arguments. As he was leaving, he said 'I am a Modi man' and I told him that what he said was so valuable to me. I told him this is the country where you can be a Modi man and I can vote for someone else and we don't need to kill each other."
Replying to a question, she said, "Before the elections, we knew Modi's RSS background. When people say that a humble tea seller has become prime minister, I would say if
A chaiwala had become PM of India, I would have been very proud, but he was a very powerful chief minister of Gujarat..."
Asked if returning awards is the best way to protest, she said, "These are the ways one can non-violently protest. Those who are opposing us are protesting with violence, through murder, through threat, through saying if you don't stop writing we are going to kill you."
About the protests, she said, "These were so spontaneous. Protests have been there from historians, sociologists, writers, artists, filmmakers, even the President of India has spoken three times.
"Nobody asked anybody. What a senior minister in the government is calling manufactured protests is so wrong, because we are writers from different parts of India, who have individually responded. It is completely spontaneous. I don't think anything of this kind has happened in any country in the world when the writers have been supported by other disciplines, economists, scientists, sociologists."
Asked if she had mulled over before taking the step, Sahgal replied, "My concern began for this particular state of affairs when I was in the Hindu literature festival in Chennai, a little over a year ago. When Perumal Murugan had been forced to say I am dead as a writer.."
"I said at the Hindu festival that we should support Murugan. That was my first speaking it as it were."
When asked the whole timing of awards being returned and subsequent protests was being questioned, she said, "That too is absurd. This protest was specifically connected with supression of freedom of speech."
"As regards myself they say where were you when the Emergency came and anti-Sikh riots came, Emergency came in 1975, I was on the Sahitya Akademi's Advisory Board for English with two other writers. I requested the Akademi to condemn censorship because the Akademi is the citadel of literature, but they refused to raise their voice and I resigned from the Advisory Board."
About the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Sahgal said, "When anti-Sikh riots came, I was vice-president of PUCL, I was one of the founder members, PUCL was the first organisation which detailed what had happened and we named names and our report was published, so there is no question of my suddenly realising."
She, however, said that the Dadri lynching, "Was the final straw, because that was such a brutal act that is what took the whole issue beyond the realm of freedom of speech. It became a question of the whole idea of India being destroyed."
