What tolerance? We killed Gandhi five-and-half months after Independence: Tom Alter

“What tolerance are you talking about," asks theatre personality Tom Alter, responding to a question on the intolerance debate in the country. “We killed (Mahatma) Gandhi within five-and-a-half months after Independence. If we can kill the Father of the Nation then who are others?”

He was speaking to Firstpost in Patna after performing in a play on Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The play was organised at SK Memorial Hall on 10 November to commemorate the birth anniversary of the first education minister of free India.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s famous line, “if you believe in the power of truthfulness, then why do you feel ashamed,” Alter said that “artists have always faced challenges but they keep doing their job”.

He said in India intolerance was nothing new, as it has “always been an intolerant society”. “All government have tried to curb the voice of dissent and criticism. My play Babar ki Aulad (Sons of Babar) was banned in Maharashtra when the Congress government was in power. I got death threats for my play on MF Hussain. And therefore there is nothing new in the ongoing intolerance debate, and I am not disappointed. I have been doing such shows for the past 15 years,” said the 64-year-old artist, adding “intolerance is in our blood but we should have control over it”.

Babar ki Aulad, the two-hour play written by former Union Minister Salman Khursheed and translated into Urdu by author Professor Ather Farooqui, is largely about the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, languishing in exile in Rangoon. The play swings between past and present, logic and emotion, fact and fiction and fantasy and reality. Directed by Dr M Sayeed Alam, the play was an insightful retort to the Hindutva propaganda, especially at the height of the Babri Masjid controversy.

The play on MF Hussain, produced and directed by Nadira Babbar, talked about the life of the celebrated artist. How the restless and carefree Hussain went through various phases of his life, experimenting and exploring. The play gave an insight into his early days in Indore’s Pandharpur, his schooling in Baroda, romance with the brush, his women, marriage, Indianness, ethos and his move to Mumbai. Following the controversy over his nude paintings of ‘Mother India’, the title of the play was changed from Maqbool Se Fida Tak to Pencil Se Brush Tak.

Asked about the spate of ‘award wapsi’ by poets, historians, authors, scientists and others, the Padma Shree awardee said, “anybody could retain or return their awards, depending on their wish. There is no need to either praise or criticise it”.

Coming down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, according to him failed to control the fringe elements, Alter said, “For the first time, we have got a Prime Minister whom people do not believe in. He is not at all bothered about Idea of India.”

About the mandate Biharis gave to Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan (JDU-RJD-Congress alliance), he said, “It is a message for political parties that the politics of hatred and communalism will not work anymore.”