AwardWapsi and finger-pointing: Why the Right has to make its ideology coherent to win new converts

“Intolerance always existed in our society, didn’t it? People have got harassed, assaulted and killed over this or that. So what’s the hullabaloo about?” This response from the apologists of the Right to creative people returning awards in protest against growing intolerance is bizarre indeed. It’s as good as saying “sexual perversion has always been there in the country. If important people are talking about it openly and secretly endorsing it, what’s the big deal? Intolerance and victimization on the basis of ideology has been a fact of life in academia. Those with views other than that of the Left faced trouble, Bibek Debroy, Niti Aayog member, suggested in an interview to The Times of India . One felt the crux of the remark is: if it was happening then what’s so wrong if it is happening now? Terrific argument this, one must say. First, there’s tacit acceptance that there’s intolerance now, and second, it’s in someway justified. Clearly missing in this argument is the moral stand that what’s wrong is wrong. It cannot be justified and practiced on the logic of precedence. [caption id=“attachment_2497394” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Kundan Shah, Arundhati Roy and Dibakar Banerjee. Image courtesy: PTI and Getty images[/caption] Several filmmakers returned their awards yesterday. As did author Arundhati Roy in appreciation of the fact that creative people are making a political statement. It’s difficult to agree with her on many points, particularly her position Maoists, but her words – “If we do not have the right to speak freely, we will turn into a society that suffers from intellectual malnutrition, a nation of fools…” makes sense. The community of scientists, the least involved in political matters, has protested as have artists, writers and others. All of them see intolerance rising, only the apologists don’t. And how to they counter it: all of them are beneficiaries of Left or Congress patronage. They seem to have an answer for every possible situation. The only problem is the answers fall far short on the yardstick of logic and credibility, and the revenge approach is far too obvious. If nothing else works hide behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi and shoot from his shoulders. “There’s a conspiracy to malign the Modi-led government. People cannot just see him appreciated and be successful,” is the standard response. Whether such an approach does the image of the prime minister any good and whether this lot is working as his enemy or friend are questions that beg answers, but topic is different here. We are discussing the lack of intellectual clarity in the Right, which ideologically is a bundle of contradictions and from the look of it nothing beyond a mass of set beliefs, prejudices and grievances. It would scoff at the idea of Nehruvian secularism, claiming it’s no pseudo-secularism at all, but would confuse its own with majoritarianism; it would call for a Uniform Civil Code and would confuse it with a Hindu civil code; it would vouch for free market economy and liberalization at one end, at the other it would be more Left than the Left; it would like to believe in scientific temper and spirit of inquiry but would also make mythology central to thought process. In its present form the Right looks all wrong. It has not evolved beyond the siege mentality and pointing accusing fingers at others. That’s perhaps the region it comes across more as a divisive force than as a constructive one. While all others have been intolerant and illiberal, the charge sticks to it more comfortably. It’s high time the apologists, instead of creating more and more conflict zones or getting embroiled in the existing ones, get together to make the thinking of the Right coherent. It will win them more converts from the middle than justifying all acts indefensible.