http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/The-soft-Emergency/articleshow/55974814.cms
Celebrate secularism, pluralism and freedom of expression in Bangladesh? That's precisely what happened earlier this month at the remarkable Dhaka Litfest (where this writer was delegate) headlined by Sir V S Naipaul. At the opening ceremony, culture minister Asaduzzaman Noor acknowledged the country faces a creeping threat from terrorist extremists, but insisted his government would stand strong to guarantee space for secular, liberal thought and expression. The Bangladeshi audience roared approval. That determination to stand for basic, civilized cultural values is conspicuously absent across the border here in India. Not only is Noor's counterpart, Mahesh Sharma incapable of delivering a speech that's similarly coherent, those progressive aspirations are entirely absent from his mindset. Instead, Sharma has warned female tourists they should not wear short skirts, and declared that young women going out at night was "against Indian culture". Earlier, he said only Hindu texts should be taught in school because they represent the "atma" (soul) of India. These are buffoonish statements by a clearly unsuitable and unqualified minister, so it's quite easy to laugh at them (and him). But what's not in the least amusing is the accompanying, inexorable stifling of comparatively open-minded tolerance that has always characterized India's cultural space. Bangladesh Litfest organizers were able to invite delegates from any country - Indians abounded, Pakistan and Bhutan were well represented - but their equivalents in this country cannot. Pakistani writers, artists and performers have been quietly banned, without any particular fuss or attention. Overall freedom of speech and expression is threatened, with screws turned almost imperceptibly behind the scenes. Sometimes, however, the humiliation is right in public view. Karan Johar was forced to grovel on live television for the simple act of casting a Pakistani in his movie. Aamir Khan was roughly menaced for weeks for merely suggesting his family was concerned about the direction this country has taken. In front of a jeering crowd, Goa's own Manohar Parrikarthreatened, "if anyone speaks like this, he has to be taught a lesson of his life." Across the media spectrum, editorial independence is being snuffed in plain view. Soon after Outlook Magazine ran a rigorously sourced cover story on the RSS taking girls from their families for indoctrination on the other side of the country, its editor was replaced. NDTV was browbeaten with a potential ban on highly dubious charges. Step away from the glare of the big cities, and the situation is even worse. India was among the three most dangerous countries in the world for journalists in 2015, behind only war-torn Iraq and Syria. This fact underlines an astounding, but undeniable truth. In all the important ways, India's situation regarding press freedom is now worse than Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. This startling new reality was brought home anew via last week's International Film Festival of India. The 2016 edition was by far the best, broadest and most diverse ever. Again and again, packed houses sat in front of movies that are impossible to make in India today. Taut political films from Egypt and Afghanistan, an unblinking view of alternate sexuality from Venezuela, a daring expose of shameful practices by priests from Ghana. It would be extremely difficult for any filmmaker to try to venture into similar ground in India at the moment. Even before the censors get to it, there's the problem of getting financing, and then surviving cynically deployed mobs ready to threaten violence. It's not as though this soft Emergency was unexpected. Even as Narendra Modiswept to power in 2014, most everyone who should have known better chose to ignore the Jeffersonian maxim, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Cowed and manipulated, the Indian electorate also failed to listen to the BJP's own L K Advani when he warned, "I don't think anything has been done that gives me the assurance that civil liberties will not be suspended or destroyed again. Not at all. At the present point of time, the forces that can crush democracy, notwithstanding the constitutional and legal safeguards, are stronger." Speaking about his own party's new administration, Advani was uncannily prescient. He said, "I do not see any sign in our polity that assures me, any outstanding aspect of leadership. A commitment to democracy - and to all other aspects related to democracy - is lacking. There aren't enough safeguards in India in 2015. Today, I do not say that the political leadership is not mature. Butkamiyon ke karan, vishwas nahin hota (I don't have faith because of its weaknesses). I don't have the confidence that it (Emergency) cannot happen again."