Congress, Left join hands to protest intolerance: Is it time for NDA to change DNA?

After writers returning their Sahitya Akademi Awards and several people from the film fraternity returning their National Awards, the Congress seems to have taken a cue to speak out against incidents like the murder of several rationalists, the Dadri lynching and the killing of two Dalit children in Uttar Pradesh. Even as Congress president Sonia Gandhi met President Pranab Mukherjee over the rising intolerance across the country — amid jeers from the ruling NDA government — the leaders of the party including Rahul Gandhi marched against the issue to Rashtrapati Bhavan on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_2493662” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Romila Thapar in a file photo. Image courtesy: Penguin Books India[/caption] And if reports are to be believed, these incidents have also managed to unite Left scholars with the Congress. The Economic Times reports that Congress party’s think tank, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies (RGICS), is planning to host a conference titled “No peace without freedom; no freedom without peace: securing Nehru’s legacy and India’s future: Agenda for Action”. The conference will be attended by a host of scholars who will speak on the issue, including historians Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib. T he report says that the two-day event — part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary celebration — will be inaugurated by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi is also likely to deliver an address on Saturday. Earlier in October, historian Thapar had expressed her concern over incidents of intolerance, and the role public intellectuals can play to create debate on it. She had told The Indian Express, “If public intellectuals take a position, the least that happens is that more people begin to think about what’s happening. They may not immediately agree but a little thought, a little doubt enters the mind.” A group of 53 historians had also put out a statement on 30 October against the rising intolerance. “When it is hoped that the head of government will make a statement about improving the prevailing conditions, he chooses to speak only about general poverty; and it takes the head of the state to make the required reassuring statement, not once but twice. When writer after writer is returning their award of recognition in protest, no comment is made about the conditions that caused the protest; instead the ministers call it a paper revolution and advise the writers to stop writing. This is as good as saying that intellectuals will be silenced if they protest,” the statement was quoted by The Indian Express as saying. But is the government giving them a patient hearing? Far from it. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dismissed these protests calling them politically motivated. “Those returning awards are playing politics by other means. They are rabid anti-BJP elements,” Jaitley had told reporters in Patna last week. Stating that space of the Left has reduced, he claimed that those returning awards were in a way electioneering against the BJP in Bihar polls. And even the march against intolerance was termed as ‘joke of the century’ by Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu. He had said on Monday , “They are meeting the President to talk about rising intolerance. The Congress talking about intolerance is the joke of the century. It is like the devil quoting the scriptures.” Instead of going into a debate, it appears the voices of dissent against intolerance whether towards a certain ideology, food habits and even religion and caste, are simply being dismissed. And amid talk of development, there is a risk of losing sight of the fact that development is not just numbers. As Firstpost writer Gouri Chatterjee had said in an earlier report , “Instead of lending a friendly ear, trying to allay their anguish, the Modi government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is bent on confrontation. They will not stoop to conquer. As if accommodation of an opposing point of view would be a sign of weakness that a macho government cannot countenance.” Perhaps, even as the march and the conclave take place, it is time for the NDA to address opposing voices with constructive debates instead of dismissals out of hand.