Marauders, not
moralists
The Sri Rama Sena should be strongly disciplined; its origins thoroughly
investigated: SAHMAT
Press statement
We join all right-thinking people in condemning the criminal assault
on a group of women at a Mangalore pub by hooligans operating under the banner
of the Sri Rama Sene. We remind the public that this group (whose name has been
spelt as it is in phonetic loyalty to the Kannada language) is the same as the
Sri Rama Sena which carried out an attack on an exhibition mounted by SAHMAT in
August last year celebrating MF Husain’s contributions to Indian art.
We take note of the hurried and deeply embarrassed statements by
the leaders of the Hindutva cultural fraternity, dissociating themselves from
the Mangalore atrocity. Yet we denounce their concurrent assumption of the power
to legislate on what social practices are true and what are not, in their
relationship with Indian culture. These are not decisions to be made by a
sectarian political leadership.
The Sri Rama Sena was little heard of or known till it attacked
the exhibition that SAHMAT mounted in August to protest the exclusion of MF
Husain’s work from a major display and sale of Indian art that was mounted at
that time.
SAHMAT sounded the alarm then about this debutant group, spawn
of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP, both credentialled members of the Hindutva
family. And SAHMAT has continued to warn of the dangers posed by the new
organisation within the Hindutva fold, which has been showing the kind of
destructive energy that belies its fledgeling, newborn, character.
Clearly, the Sri Rama Sena has emerged out of the campaign of
hatred and intolerance that the BJP and its affiliates within the broader
Hindutva parivar launched many years back. The BJP leadership has issued some
hasty and embarrassed statements distancing itself from the atrocities in
Mangalore. But these have little credibility since the BJP continues to make
political capital out of the legacy of its baleful campaign of moral
majoritarianism.
We call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all those
who have participated in this atrocity in Mangalore or contributed to it in any
fashion. The prosecution should be purposive and should address all individuals
who bear constructive responsibility for creating the climate of intolerance
that made this criminal assault possible.
We urge the investigating agencies to pay attention to the
growing evidence that this is about more than an art exhibition or about an
incident in Mangalore that may seem trivial in relation to the scale of
atrocities perpetrated in the last two decades by the agents of majority
communalism. It has been credibly reported that the elements who directed the
Mangalore attacks were in intimate contact with individuals currently being
prosecuted for their culpability in the Malegaon bomb blast of September 29 last
year.
The individual identified as the leader of the assault on
SAHMAT’s exhibition last August was also the principal agent of a severe
transgression of the basic ethos of academic life when he spat at a college
lecturer who had been invited to a discussion on the scourge of terrorism at
Delhi University in November. Again, the Sri Rama Sena drew its moral and
ideological sustenance from the Hindutva parivar since the ABVP, a recognised
affiliate of the family, had prepared the ground for this act of barbarity by
pronouncing an anathema on the college lecturer invited to speak about his
first-hand experiences as a victim of so-called "terrorism" investigations.
The Mangalore incident shows that terrorism has several
manifestations and multiple protagonists. We appeal to the public to break out
of the template on terrorism that has been moulded by the Hindutva parivar and
to recognise that all offences against civilised norms of conduct and the rule
of law contribute to the triumph of terrorism.
The police and investigating agencies, we urge, should not fail
this test of standing up for the rule of law. Regrettably, their conduct over
the last many years gives us little confidence that they will.
Finally, we would like to appeal to the media to evolve a set of
norms on the coverage of such acts of criminality. We do not go along with the
stricture handed down by Karnataka’s director general of police, that the media
should have informed the authorities of this criminal gang’s intent once it got
advance notice. This is an issue that each media professional should resolve in
accordance with his or her own sense of civic responsibility and his or her own
ethical commitment.
We do believe however that the media should evolve a credible
set of norms on the coverage of criminal acts that it has advance notice of.
Clearly, the Mangalore hoodlums staged their criminal act in the belief that
they would, through the breathless reporting of India’s booming and thoroughly
irresponsible electronic media, enjoy a few minutes of nationwide fame.
If the media were to deny moral vigilantes the coverage that
they so desperately seek, it would deny them the oxygen of publicity that they
flourish on. Media professionals need, in this context, to clearly lay down the
norm that they will not succumb to competitive pressures and provide any variety
of coverage to the perpetrators of criminal actions, even when these are dressed
up in moral and political terms.