If there was any hope that the Government of India would intervene to restore some dignity to l’affaire Taslima Nasreen, it stands dashed. In the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee invoked India’s traditions of large-heartedness towards those who sought its shelter, and our “civilisational heritage which is now government policy”. But before anyone could read into his words a promise of grace towards the much hounded Bangladeshi writer and a belated commitment to the freedom of expression in general, Mukherjee added a pre-condition: the guest must “refrain from activities and expressions” that may “hurt the sentiments of our people”. In other words, Taslima Nasreen is welcome — but. This is disappointing to say the least, and mean-spirited in fact.

It is an ironic fact of India’s democracy that questions of individual liberty and freedom of expression have never quite attained primacy. Examples abound of governments resorting to censorship and bans and of political parties condoning and even colluding in the erosion of individual freedoms whenever the moral police has loomed large or a vote bank is presumed to be under threat. The attack on a graduate student at the Faculty of Fine Arts in MS University in Baroda happened in Modi’s Gujarat. But the ransacking of the Bhandarkar Institute during the controversy over James Laine’s book on Shivaji happened under the watch of the ‘secular’ NCP-Congress regime in Maharashtra. The Left’s abject surrender to the politics of petty pragmatism on Taslima Nasreen is in keeping with a general lack of commitment to the democratic ideal of individual freedom. The BJP’s hectic championing of Nasreen’s cause only reinforces the impression of expediency trumping principle — the party’s singular driving force is to embarrass the UPA.

... contd.