Aamir Khan has rights, so do his critics: Here's why I won't call you unpatriotic, Pratap Bhanu Mehta

By Rupa Subramanya I stand here to articulate an angst that I and many citizens feel. Weighing in on the controversy around Aamir Khan’s claims of rising intolerance in India, Pratap Bhanu Mehta throws his considerable heft behind those who’re criticising Khan’s critics. The angst derives from the fact that Mehta, an Oxford and Princeton trained political scientist with unimpeachable credentials, widely touted as India’s leading public intellectual, should make such an illiberal and disingenuous argument. After two paragraphs of boiler plate introduction, Mehta tips his hand in the third paragraph where he initially concedes “people can legitimately disagree with Aamir”. Exactly. Free expression is the core liberal value at play here. And just as Khan has the right to express his concerns about rising intolerance, his critics equally have the right to express themselves freely, that they believe he is wrong. After this perfunctory, fleeting and indirect reference to free expression, Mehta bizarrely twists the argument by claiming “we’re experiencing an insidious closure of language itself”. With all due respect, it’s Mehta himself who’s guilty of this. What, exactly, does this have to do with whether Khan’s critics are free to speak or not? Nothing. [caption id=“attachment_2524858” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Aamir Khan. Reuters[/caption] In this same astonishing paragraph, Mehta, a trained social scientist, blithely dismisses data analysis as “false scienticism”. In other words, to point to the data, as I’ve argued previously, which doesn’t support the claim that there’s a rising trend in communal incidents (the only proxy we have in the data for presumed intolerance) in Modi’s India, is dismissed as “yesterday’s story”. From a scholar who himself frequently uses data — which by definition must be from yesterday or earlier — such a reaction truly boggles the mind. Is he suggesting that it’s legitimate to use data if it supports one side of the debate but not another? Or it’s legitimate in his research but not others? Don’t get me wrong. Data in India is far from perfect and incidents of communal violence may be poorly reported. But it’s a far cry from saying we need to improve our data collection and analysis to nihilistically dismissing all such analysis as unhelpful or misleading. Take a different example. In many western countries, there’s a perception that large scale migration of Muslim refugees, for example fleeing the Syria conflict would pose a serious security threat. A cruder version of this asserts that most if not all terrorists are Muslims. Of course such assertions could be masking bigotry but let’s take them at face value for argument’s sake. Would the correct response be to throw up your hands and say data is yesterday’s news, or instead point to the evidence that contradicts this belief in the hopes of setting the record straight? Mehta’s second move is to argue that a “coded form of intolerance is patriotism”. In other words, he’s saying that Aamir Khan’s critics are implicitly challenging his patriotism. While this certainly doesn’t apply to all of his critics, some of whom are simply registering their disagreement with him, it could apply to others. The correct response, for a liberal like Mehta, would presumably be to say that claims and counter claims of patriotism are a distraction in what is fundamentally a debate about freedom of expression or an empirically testable claim around whether intolerance (as measured for example by communal incidents) is on the rise. But instead, and this really is the most disturbing aspect of this piece, he invokes patriotism in a grand rhetorical gesture on “his side” of the debate. He does this by berating Khan’s critics as unpatriotic because, essentially, they aren’t able to admit they’re ashamed of their country in some respects, whereas self-respecting and virtuous folk like Mehta are able to admit they’re ashamed of their country on some occasions. Mehta argues: “Patriotism invoked as a closure, rather than a starting point, is the worst form of chicanery.” Here again I’m afraid Mehta’s description of what’s going on better fits Mehta’s own piece than those he’s trying to criticise. To see why, look at how Mehta concludes this rhetorical and emotional part of his piece: “The norms are being set by people with small minds, resentful hearts, constricted souls and hateful speech. Every patriot should be worried about this and, yes, be ashamed.” For a liberal for whom free expression is a core belief, to invoke heavily charged and emotive concepts like patriotism and shame to punctuate his arguments is chicanery. In effect, Mehta purports to be the “conscience keeper” of 1.25 billion people and decide what is patriotic and what is shameful. What exactly does this have to do with the core question of Aamir Khan’s right to speak freely and that of his critics to do the same? Nothing. In fact, this entire piece is one gigantic work of obfuscation, which ignores this key question to which there’s a simple answer—both he and his critics are entitled to express themselves so long as they do so peacefully and in conformity with the law of the land. Or perhaps he might have brought his considerable expertise as a social scientist to weigh in on the testable proposition that intolerance is on the rise in India. Instead, we’re treated to a diatribe against empirical analysis that would make the most nihilistic anti-empirical philosopher proud and a meditation on patriotism and shame which would make the staunchest neoconservative upholder of traditional values proud. But for Mehta, a distinguished social scientist and leading liberal voice in our intellectual space, to make such arguments is downright shameful. What’s more, he gives fresh ammunition to a data free commentary scene which pronounces from an armchair on vital questions of the day. He also emboldens those anti-intellectual and pseudo-intellectual critics and commentators who’re deeply suspicious of data, quantitative analysis and critical thinking especially when it contradicts their own unexamined beliefs or prejudices. And lastly his disingenuous framing of the Aamir Khan controversy not as a simple question of his free speech and others but in terms of emotive, vague, illiberal and manipulable concepts like patriotism and shame further distorts and constricts the space for genuine liberal discourse in India. But then all of this is just my opinion and I won’t call you unpatriotic if you disagree with me. Rupa Subramanya is a Mumbai based economist and commentator and co-author of Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India, Random House India (2012). Follow her on Twitter @rupasubramanya