Intolerance is no longer a bumbling oaf or a brainless goon. Yet it continues to be both an oaf and a goon, although it now goes about calling itself creative. Well, there is freedom of speech in our country, and so we see these oafish goons adopting the newest tricks in the closet of vandalism to seem creative.

‘Look at our creativity in intolerance,’ one such goon gloated, as he pointed to the way his horde used fire-torches, swords, lathis, daggers, spears, and even country-made pistols. Well, I could see on the television screen the way these marauding multitudes tore Aamir Khan’s poster to make it seem as if was standing naked when the poster wasn’t torn… or the way they smashed doors and windows to make them useless to be even used as handles for brooms! Yes, there is certainly a lot of creativity in intolerance now.

Yes, these goons have infiltrated the social media, sit on the panels on TV debates, and even go around announcing that anyone who calls them intolerant is actually not thinking straight.

They don’t seem to realise that they are intolerant of creativity, of creative freedom, of the right to express creatively through the arts, and of a creative interpretation of the current shape of the social matrix. These are people who will enter cinema halls just as easily as they do auditoriums, art galleries, theatres, and other venues where they can be audibly and visibly intolerant.

It isn’t a stand-alone case of PK – the movie that I am talking about… there are the attacks on Hussain’s paintings, the beating up of couples in parks and restaurants, the fatwas on what to wear and what to read, the total misinterpretation of lovers from two different religions wanting to marry, the different versions of con-versions, and the way the dalits get treated… this is certainly not the complete list of all that attracts the goon gangs of this country. There are plenty of other issues and even if there is a phase where there is nothing that deserves their attention, they will create one. After all, intolerance needs a lot of fuel to keep it live and kicking, quite literally.

The strangest fact is the way the political decision-makers at any time in the history of India have gone on to encourage and nurture intolerance. If it isn’t intolerance that has caste at the bottom, it will be one where gender comes to the fore… or age, or religion, or professions, or geographical boundaries, or language, or even books, plays, films, and paintings. People who are involved in this big show of intolerance never seem to realise that it is not they who are being discriminated but it is they who are using violence to become ‘an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.’ However creative they become in their expression of intolerance, all they will ever spread is disorder and petty squabbling… never peace and harmony.

Charles Simmons has written: ‘Bigotry and intolerance, silenced by argument, endeavours to silence by persecution, in old days by fire and sword, in modern days by the tongue.’ Well, I must admit that wherever I have seen intolerance, there has always been persecution by fire and sword and tongue and also bullying on the social media. The current trends that are obvious show that mere argument, however logical it is, can never silence intolerance. I guess, intolerance needs intolerance as a counter. I don’t mean a slap for a slap or a bite for a bite… I mean we need to have a zero tolerance towards intolerance.

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Article published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 29 December 2014

2014_12_29_The Education Post_The Real Fiction

2014_12_29_The Education Post_The Real Fiction

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Arvind Passey
01 January 2015