The world is full of bigots, junk-theologists, Bible-thumpers, Gita-thumpers, Koran-thumpers, Granth Sahib-thumpers, Zend Avesta-thumpers and so on… and they are all people trying to take advantage of religion to gain some political victory. Political fundamentalists are those who end up banning stuff like creative texts, poetry, fiction, and even cartoons even as they get together to protest a similar act done by their rival group. Yes, truth is simply as sordid as this. It is only when these political fundamentalists take refuge in arms and weapons, they become terrorists.
Sometimes a Charlie Hebdo takes place… and people are gunned down. Sometimes it is just a jail term for cartoonists and anyone else who expresses a thought in any creative form anywhere in the world. The world of caricatures and cartoons doesn’t subscribe to any religion or political boundary… it is, in fact religion and politics that subjects them to scrutiny and punishment.
Look at what happened in 2012 in India… NCERT was directed to remove ‘offensive’ cartoons from NCERT textbooks. The then HRD minister Kapil Sibal remarked, “The text book will not be further distributed. We have great respect for BR Ambedkar. There is no question of maligning him. I was not a minister at that time. As soon as I got to know I have taken action. I however apologise if it has caused hurt and this is not a political issue.” The truth encouraging brains behind the inclusion of political cartoons in a school textbook (Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, chief advisors for political science at the NCERT) were asked to resign. In this case we see cartoonist in a mere protest-mode but political fundamentalists managing to silence them.
There is then the case of a cartoon depicting Mamata Bannerji in a cartoon that played on the word ‘vanish’ where a university professor was arrested for encouraging its circulation on the social media. Aseem Trivedi, another cartoonist was famously charged with sedition because he dared to draw cartoons ‘satirising widespread corruption among India’s political elite’. I must, however, admit that in none of these cases did the political masters order the cartoonists to be put in front of the firing squad… though their political fundamentalism is surely condemnable.
There are cases of Muslim cartoonists persecuted by the Jews… or anti-semite toon-makers punished for their daring the world over. So whoever says that Charlie Hebdo has happened for the first time or is a lone act of horror is incorrect. At the same time, killing a creative soul because it tended to over-step a few lines of propriety, is certainly condemnable. Poly Toynbee, writing in The Guardian, says that to make fun of is ‘the role of a satirical magazine: to stick two fingers up to propriety. It is a belch in the face of established taste and dignity. You can buy it or not, find it funny or not.’ After all, if we expect our cartoonists and satirists to remain within limits, it is the political fundamentalists too who need to rein in their terror impulses first. But Poly needs to be informed that both terrorists as well as free speech have the potential to over-step impropriety and kill innocent people or beliefs… and when about to cross this strangely subversive line, satire at least needs to stop, turn and continue to cock a snoot at everything and everyone who deserves it. The truth is that satire running amok is as condemnable as those erectile dysfunctional warriors who call themselves the keepers of religion when all they ever do is to create boundaries within boundaries. Come on, we already have too many boundaries to deal with…
I believe that when the Pope says: ‘There is a limit. Every religion has its dignity… in freedom of expression there are limits,’ what he means is when an idea, a verse, a paragraph, a painting, a drawing, or a caricature decides to condemn an idea, religion, caste, creed, or race, it must do it responsibly. I agree with the Pope whole-heartedly because condemnation either by way of a caricature or by way of a bullet has the potential to cross limits and become as intolerant as those we call ‘terror-mongers’. So yes, even cartoons do not have the liberty to go over-board just as we do expect protestors not to go over-board and turn into gun-wielding terrorists.
Well, I’ll shout ‘Je Suis Charlie Hebdo!’ but would also add ‘Je Ne Suis Pas LIMITED VISION!’ It is the vision of condemnation that must emerge from its immature cocoon and stop turning into a monster. We need cartoonists and satirists to go on with their form of protest without becoming terrorists… just as we need people who want to protest against any ill without also turning into gun-toting terrorists. All that I’m trying to say it both cartoonists as well as protestors have the right to go beyond subtle or slapstick humour and become political fundamentalists… let them just not cross the boundaries of impropriety and become terrorists.
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Je Suis Charlie! Je Ne Suis Pas LIMITED VISION!
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Arvind Passey
19 January 2015
