COMMENTARY

self-declared principal contradiction

based on just the issues of class. There are
many contradictions in the political system
we live in, as they have existed earlier,
and the need of the hour is to give them
all equal primacy because no ones contradiction with its solution necessarily
solves the others. Let us take the case of
caste or gender or religious- or other
identity-based contradictions. Would they
disappear or even get muted if the class
contradiction is resolved? Many erstwhile
socialist countries are a living testimony
to the fact that this was not necessarily
the case. In fact, by making such an
argument about a principal versus nonprincipal contradiction, we undermine
the transformative possibilities that our
us versus them might throw up.
If the them can be aptly captured in
various combinations of an image of a
Brahmin upper-class male, the us

should surely be a combination of a Dalit,

an Other Backward Class, a non-Hindu,
a female and the working class and notthem segregated along these categories.
And I think it is primarily a theoretical
lacuna because all political praxis after
all flows from a particular theoretical
construct. Let the political opposition
both in theory and praxis be a genuine and an organic combination of these
theoretical constructs which has the
potential of producing a powerful resistance. I saw this with my own experience
in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
The slogan of lal salam of our days has
been transformed into Jai Bhim lal
salam, which has a huge potential for
the progressive movement in general.
But I think, so far this opposition, at
least in its intellectual discourse, seems
more like a common minimum programme rather than a genuine amalgamation

The Persuasions of Intolerance

Janaki Srinivasan

By branding every critique of

development policies as an
anti-national conspiracy to stall
investments and growth, not
only are arrests, threats and
murders of social activists and
journalists justified, development
itself gets defined as a fact. It is
telling that truth is the weapon
used to close off primarily three
categoriesnation, development
and religionin public discourse.

Janaki Srinivasan (janakisriniv@gmail.com)

teaches political science at Panjab University,
Chandigarh.

18

s violations of freedom of expression pile up, how productive is it

to defend freedom on the ground
of tolerance for dissent? Marking out
an opinion as dissent paradoxically
enables the consolidation of the mainstream consensus. There is a clear shift
in the arguments deployed to curtail
free expression of ideas from hurt sentiments to truth. Such a shift is taking
place in a public culture which requires
individuals to have opinions, but is incapable of sustaining critical dialogue.
The political resolution adopted at the
recent national executive meeting of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) declared
that refusal to hail Bharat was tantamount to disrespecting the Constitution.
Party leaders and ministers have consistently qualified their support for freedom
of expression to exclude any activity
critical of the country and the only utterance of the Prime Minister Narendra
Modi on this issue was to castigate the
agitations over the clampdown of dissent as distractions from the agenda of

of ideas flowing from these different

strands of thinking, some of which are
Marxist or subaltern or feminist in nature. A common minimum programme
has taken us thus far but no more.
With time and engagement, it has the
potential of becoming an intersecting
unity as opposed to an alliance. The job
of the opposition is to creatively engage
with these debates, and instead of seeing them as fissures in the advance of
their respective movements, see them
as having a transformative potential
even for their own respective agenda.
The ruling establishment realises that,
so, they want to nip it in the bud, something that became amply clear in JNU
earlier and Hyderabad Central University (HCU) now. It is time that those who
stood with JNU should stand with HCU
as well if they want this political project
to materialise.

development. Convinced that the JNU

(Jawaharlal Nehru University) moment
is to its advantage, the BJP intends to
play the game of anti-nationalism and
simultaneaously blame victims and opponents for creating diversions. While the
list of violations of freedom of expression
in India over the past two decades runs
long, the breakneck speed with which
instances are now piling up makes it
imperative to look beyond the violations
and ask what is distinctive about the
current debate over freedom and dissent.
Why do these attacks on individuals and
institutions have such popular traction
as can be ascertained from the public
response at offline and online forums?
Right to Dissent
Op-ed columns and editorials of (primarily
English language) newspapers seem to
run on a track parallel to the debates on
television channels and social media
platforms. On the one hand, leading
commentators as well as editorials have
reiterated the classic liberal argument
for tolerance, that is, no idea, however
offensive, marginal or unconventional
in the face of public morality and discourse ought to be restricted unless
there is a clear risk of tangible harm to
others in society. On the other hand,

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free exchange of ideas enriches public

discourse, hence, protection of freedom
of expression and tolerance of dissent is
required of any democracy. However,
this argument seems to lack persuasive
appeal at the present juncture, met as it
is with impatient dismissal; rather it has
the paradoxical effect of both creating
and widening the gap between the
mainstream and the marginal.
Consider the issues on which the
views and activities of individuals and
organisations, indeed entire institutions
like JNU, are being called anti-national
Afzal Gurus execution, death penalty,
the Kashmir dispute, insurgencies in the
North East, the record of the Indian
armed forces in conflict areas, including
the human rights violations enabled by
the provisions of the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Acts, the phenomenon
of Naxalism in predominantly Adivasi
belts of the country or the practices and
beliefs of Hinduism. In each of these, the
public discourse is already marked by a
range of perspectives which have generated a rich and ongoing political and
intellectual dialogue. This is evident
from not only scholarly research, media
commentaries and investigative reportage but significantly include the states
own reports, commissions and parliamentary debates.
Through the catch-all category of
antinationalism, this dialogue is sought
to be erased from the public sphere. The
modus operandi in every flare-up is strikingly similar, that is, to use the arm of the
state and the media, especially personalised new media platforms, to create
public frenzy around specific statements
or slogans. Through this frenzy, certain
views and perspectives are first projected
as hitherto unheard and unacceptable,
whereas the favoured perspective is
repeated as the truth and a matter of
common sense. Thus, marking out an
opinion or argument as dissent is a
process which itself produces the mainstream consensus but presents it as extant.
Thereby, a range of already existing
perspectives are rendered unthinkable;
entire issues are sought to be removed
from the realm of discussion and hence
politics. Formal reiteration of the right
to dissent thus papers over a process of
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

april 23, 2016

drawing new boundaries within the

public discourse. Defending those under
attack on the grounds of the right to dissent ends up consolidating these boundary lines, instead of making a convincing case for tolerance.
Insult to Indian/Hindu Culture
This has been made possible by a clear
shift from the previously popular language of hurt sentiments, insult to
Indian/Hindu culture or the danger of
westernisation of Hindu culture used to
justify restrictions on freedom of expression, as seen in the protests against the
films Fire and Water, Valentines Day
celebrations or M F Hussains paintings
of Hindu goddesses. The language currently deployed is that of truth which axiomatically becomes incontestable.
While an appeal to tolerance is possible
if sentiments are hurt, truth need not
brook any opposition. Truth is its own
reason and refutation is not possible; indeed truth is asserted as a fact wherein
facts are delinked from the notion of
evidence. Love jihad continues to be
asserted despite all evidence as a fact.
Perumal Murugan was hounded for
writing a fictional work about a tradition
denied as false by caste and Hindutva
groups. In every case of lynching and
harassment for consuming or transporting beef, the police have sent the meat
for testing, thereby acknowledging the
rightness of the assault in case it turned
out to be beef. The Minister of Human
Resource Development, Smriti Iranis
famous DurgaMahishasur reference in
Parliament proclaimed the truth of Hinduism which ruled out any tradition of
worshipping Mahishasur.
Whether it is Kashmir or North East,
the complex histories of the formation of
Indian nation are deemed as false by
simply asserting the fact of the integrity
of the nation and its borders. The patriotism of the armed forces becomes a truth
which automatically falsifies evidence
of human rights violations. By branding
every critique of development policies as
an anti-national conspiracy to stall investments and growth not only are arrests,
threats and murder of social activists
and journalists justified, development
itself gets defined as a fact. It is telling
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that truth is the weapon used to close

off primarily three categoriesnation,
development and religionin public
discourse, for these are the very categories that have been prised open by the
politics and academics of the past decades through the axes of caste, gender,
region, ethnicity and ecology.
Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi assertions
have achieved not just silent political
revolutions, but have created visible
countercultures involving heterodox
practices and alternative readings of
stories and myths which reject monolithic Hinduism. Attention to the specific
experiences and histories of regions and
minorities have enabled critical evaluation of Indian nationalism. Struggles
against the destruction of ecology, livelihoods and culture entailed by a development based on growth and extraction of
natural resources indicate loss of faith in
the claims of progress. These articulations of heterogeneous and contested
experiences are being flattened to produce an alarmingly simplistic narrative
of the country masquerading as truth.
Assault on Thought
It has been pointed out that the targeting of individuals and institutes engaged
in knowledge and creative production is
an assault on thought itself (Patnaik
2016; Mehta 2016). The aim is to restrict
the possibility of argumentation and
exercise of critical faculties in society. It
would be useful to look at what makes
such an assault possible at the current
moment. While universities are indeed
under seige, the record of the education
system in nurturing critical thought and
dialogue in public discourse is seriously
deficient. The expansion of education
at all levels in the past three decades
has been phenomenal. From 43.57% in
1981 to 64.8% in 2001, literacy levels
stood at 74.04% in 2011. Likewise the

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gross enrolment ratio (GER) moved from

41.9% in 1981 to 58.6% in 2001 to 87.4% in
2014 for middle school (Classes VIVIII),
from 30.09% in 2001 to 52.21% in 2014
for high school (Classes IXXII) and from
8.1% in 200102 to 23.6% in 201415 for
higher education (1823 age group)
(MoHRD 2014: 2324; MoHRD 2015: 3).
This has created, justly, aspirations
for better standards of life and social
mobility but the education handed out is
incapable of fulfilling these aspirations.
Without romanticising premier higher
education institutes like JNU, Film and
Television Institute of India (FTII) or
Jadavpur University, it is important to
locate their achievements (high academic
quality, social justice in student composition, democratic campus culture, student
teacher coordination) within the overall
scenario of higher education institutes
in the country. We find that the standard
studentteacher relationship is marked
by a performative subservience and its
other side, nepotism, where teachers
look at student politics with disdain or
fear even as they jostle to grab the low
hanging fruit of political party connections. Violence and money power have
been normalised in campus life, especially
in student politics, and this has proved
intractable despite typical institutional
responses of increasing surveillance and
formulating stringent rules.
The problems faced by education
institutes are not merely fund cuts (if
public), teacher absenteeism, the culture
of guidebooks which is only aggravated
by centralised commercialised marking
and consequent grade inflation, but the
congealed local and regional politics which
make any changein syllabi, evaluative
modes, pedagogyan impossible task.
Over one-third of all those enrolled in
higher education are in arts programmes.
But instead of a basic grasp of the
concepts and theories that could enable
better skills for the job market and
better intervention in the public debate,
students pass out with degrees obtained
on a deadened and repetitive rendition of
ideas which clearly have had no resonance with their experiences.
Higher education institutes rush to
introduce market-oriented courses without first imparting basic skills of critical
20

reasoning and argumentationof reading, comprehension, analysis based on

evidence and creative exploration of
sourcessome of which are required
even by the market and are indeed life
skills. Students come to higher education
from an already skewed and unequal
grasp of these skills, camouflaged by
high pass percentages like 75% for Class
X and 76.8% for Class XI in 2010 (MoHRD
2014: 9). Access to good education is
a privilege which emanates primarily
from cultural capital, but also from hard
work, sheer luck (of being taught by inspired teachers) and significantly from
the remnants of social justice policies
which have brought diversity (in experiences and hence research agendas) to
public institutes.
Conclusions
In a provocative essay, Herbert Marcuse
had argued that the idea of tolerance
had lost its radical liberating potential as
it was being used to perpetuate those
conditions which prevent and erode the
possibility of the exercise of reason and
autonomy by individuals. This was
accomplished through what he called
the systematic moronisation of adults
and children alike by publicity and propaganda. The widening gap between the
spread and content of education has
crucial implications in the context of a
public culture which demands a constant public presenceoff and online.
While there is indeed greater awareness of events taking place across the
world, an individuals sense of self and

social standing is tied to the constant

urge to espouse rather than form opinions
and listen to others. If you are not liking,
sharing, commenting constantly and not
part of what just went viral; you are
deemed without any identity. No wonder
opinions are being made on the basis of
visual media rather than the written
word and on bytes extracted from
speeches and interviews or sweeping
judgments already pronounced on the
utterance in question. Opinions are
communicated as news, and consumed
as facts of public discourse. The scope
of dialogue is severely compromised in
this new form of public culture for the
language and form of dialogue is out of
sync with the slanging matches which
seek simplistic and singular concepts
and disparage nuance. Apropos Marcuse it can be argued that tolerance has
lost its persuasive power as it is not able
to compete with the thrill of trolling,
high decibel television debates and
physical violence in public life. These
offer a shortcut to public engagement
with the righteousness of being on the
side of truth.
References
MoHRD (2014): Educational Statistics at a Glance,
Bureau of Planning, Monitoring and Statistics,
Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Government of India, New Delhi.
(2015): All India Survey on Higher Education
201415 (Provisional), Department of Higher
Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi.
Mehta, Pratap Bhanu (2016): An Act of Tyranny,
Indian Express, 16 February.
Patnaik, Prabhat (2016): The Assault on Thought,
Telegraph, 22 March.

Oral History Archives

On behalf of EPW, the Centre for Public History, Srishti School of Design, Bengaluru,
has put together extended interviews of 30 individuals associated with Economic
Weekly and EPW.
These are interviews with present and former staff, readers, writers and trustees, all
closely associated with the journal.
The interviews cover both the EW and EPW years, some are of the 1950s, others the
1960s and some even later. Each interview lasts for at least an hour and a few are
multi-session interviews.
The interviews maintained in audio files (with transcripts) are available at the EPW
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Individuals interested in researching those times and the history of EW/EPW may write
to edit@epw.in to explore how the files may be heard and used.

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