[Reader-list] A Modest Proposal to End All Controversies on Freedom of Expression in India

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All, (apologies for cross posting on Commons Law, Reader List and 
Kafila.org)

As we know well by now from the freedom loving sentiments  (that are 
expressed loudly and frequently) by all sections of the guardians of 
social order in India, (that is Bharat, that is Hindustan), the real 
reason why certain insignificant documentary independent and student 
films, contemporary art exhibitions in university campuses and 
performances are banned, and their heinous perpetrators arrested has to 
do with the general populations right to sleep undisturbed each night 
and not to see anything other than cricket matches, news about cricket 
matches, election analyses, kaun banega crorepati, Abhishek Bacchan's 
wedding, and yoga on TV.

Why should anyone in their right mind want to see, read, listen to or 
even think about anything else?

Consider the folly that some students in Kottayam have recently 
contemplated, making a film on of all things 'Homosexuality' .

see - http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth/msg/91c668142e58c20c

Or, of the students in the Fine Arts Department of M.S.University in 
Baroda who went ahead and organized an exhibition of student work that 
contained offensive erotic imagery.

see - 
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=8f2213c7-4b12-4e48-9b7c-40302cd7a968&&Headline=Vadodara+art+student+lands+in+jail

  Both of these moves have been met with swift and timely responses. The 
offending students in Kerala have been expelled by the Christian 
educational institutition where they were enrolled, and the offending 
art student in Vadodara, one Chandramohanm has been arrested by the 
local police at the urging of Hindutva minded citizens.

There are only two things we need to learn from incidents of this 
nature. The first is as follows -

Actually, all that people need to do is to insist that only the self 
appointed guardians of public morality (of all stripes and shades) have 
the right to appear in any broadcast, exhibition, film or other forms of 
mediated communication. We need every channel to broadcast morally 
cleansed reality TV all the time. How else will this nation boldly 
venture where none other has gone before - into that heaven of bliss and 
freedom known as ennui for the billions.

If, for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we only had priests, hindu 
holy men, muslim divines, chistian priests, dalit messiahs, communist 
apparatchiks, gandhian crusaders, and secular activists, politicians, 
moral crusaders and do gooders of every stripe and persuasion on TV, in 
public fora, on web sites - acting as artists, as film directors, VJs, 
crooners and even as item number specialists or porn stars then all our 
cultural problems would be solved. Think of how fetching Dr. Praveen 
Togadia would look in a leather thong.

Our national cultural life would then be like an undending and refined 
Republic Day pageant, full of approtiately attired folk dancers, 
uplifting martial music and tasteful tableaux of ancient heritage, 
combined with images of modern progress and development. That would be a 
fitting expression of the very soft power of an awakening and shining India.

The public would also, by this strategy, get its fill of salacious and 
erotic content, (rss pracharaks would be filmed having more sex with 
every gender and form of life, inheritors of the BJP legacy would be 
seen snorting cocaine, Christian evangelists would be seen in the throes 
of real estate speculation and Muslim holy men would be seen imbibing 
their favourite form of spiritual succor in the form of halal scotch and 
the secular guardians of public morality would be doing what they do 
best - making money for the cause by setting up yet another special 
exploitative zone).

The guardians of public morality would themselves guarantee that the 
salacious and sleazy content  offered to the public would be 100 percent 
patriotic, in keeping with Indian tradition and un-subversive as it 
would be produced by people like themselves (whose motives are above and 
beyond question).

This experiment has been briefly and successfully undertaken in 
neigbouring countries like Afghanistan, where, the supervision of the 
entire matrix of communication by the 'Committee for the Suprresion of 
VIce and the Promotion of Virtue" during the brief Taliban interregnum 
did not result in any loss of cultural content, or lack of 
entertainment, for the general public. It just ensured that the Talibs 
had the authority to purvey the right kind of high minded and halal 
sleaze. Hey, no one can quite tell whether what you have behind a full 
burqa is full frontal nudity or not, right. So all you need to do is to 
dress everyone up in full burqas to ensure that everyone's erotic 
imagination runs riot. Similarly, if the guardians of public morality 
were to erect permanent visual barriers in front of medieval Hindu 
temples, the general population could speculate at leisure (and to a 
hitherto unimagined pornographic excess) as to the actual content of the 
obscured sculptural friezes. I would heartily welcome this measure as a 
form of highly evolved and consciousness altering Yoga for the mind.

I propose that we all arrange for noisy demonstrations and organize 
lengthy electronic petitions to demand that the entire reins of 
communication and expression in India be handed over to a truly secular 
and representative board of guardians of public morality which would 
include - representatives of every religion (minority, majority or 
micro-minority), every political party recognized by the election 
commission of India, the cricket control board, the motion picture 
association of India and at least 4 morally upright page 3 celebrities, 
two selfless activists from public life, three television anchors, two 
sahitya academi winning authors who are unknown and therefore 
un-controversial, and five art critics and curators. I also propose that 
this committee be headed (for purposes of spiritual and ethical 
direction) in rotation, by one of the Shankaracharyas who is not accused 
of attempt to murder and the at least one member of any Waqf board 
anyewhere in the country who is also not a history sheeter.

The second thing we need to learn is as follows - (and this emerges 
naturally from the contours of the first suggestion outlined above in 
this proposal).

The successful realization of the demand that the field of cultural life 
and activity be entirely taken over by the current guardians of public 
morality woul allow the rest of us to be finally freed from the pursuit 
of culture so that we can get down to other serious business. Like 
thinking more precisely about how to illuminate a few guardians of 
public morality from below with the help of the right kind of chemicals. 
I always knew that if those of us who practice culture right now, 
stopped doing it, and started practising inorganic chemistry instead, 
the entire political field would be much more interesting, and perhaps, 
incendiary. That is why I can now understand the wisdom that my elders 
had when they used to advise me to study science and not arts after my 
10th board examinations. I regret that I did not listen to their advice.

I have not so far come across any right thinking guardian of public 
morality calling for bans on textbooks of inorganic chemistry. And as 
far as I understand, that is where one can learn about things like 
Cyclo-trimethylene-trinitramine, (popularly called Cyclonite, Hexogen, 
or somewhat loosely -as- 'Research Department (composition)X') - a 
substance first offered to the public for its medical and healing 
properties by the German chemist called Hans Henning in the 1890s and 
later developed for a variety of uses.

[To know more about this substance - see the Wikipedia entry at -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX]

  It is my view, (and I would like to see this debated, so that my 
arguments can be sharpened and refined by being made subject to rigorous 
criticism) that the selective, precise and well timed use of the 
knowledge gleaned from textbooks of inorganic chemistry can be a far 
more effective means of artistic, literary and cultural criticism than 
anything that anyone can learn in any art  or media school or university 
deparment of literature, theatre or film studies.

When, and if, the successful takeover of culture by the guardians of 
public morality in India has been undertaken, it will be time to 
re-enter the field of public cultural criticism and activity, well armed 
by the healing properties of Hexogen.

regards,

Shuddha