IN the country of the easily offended, outraged communities are deciding what writers can write, what publishers can publish and what people can read without their “sentiments getting hurt”. Much of the ‘hurt’ is caused by perceived insults to communities, and stems from India’s execrable caste system, where the powerful but so-called backward communities are likely to see even works of fiction as derogatory to their values and practices.

Communal (caste) attacks on writers and a kind of lynch-mob censorship are taking place in Tamil Nadu, where well-known writers are being forced to retract their works and apologise for books that are exceptional in many ways. The most shocking of the cases involves Perumal Murugan, a Tamil scholar and novelist of repute.

In January, this professor of Tamil at the small temple town of Thiruchengode in rural Tamil Nadu announced the death of his literary persona, following a series of attacks — personal and public — that put the town on the boil. The cause of the ire was Murugan’s novel Mathorupagan, published in 2010 and translated into English as One Part Woman last December. The book spins on an old custom of the powerful land-owning farming community of Gounders which allows a childless married woman to sleep with a man of her choice on one night in the nearby temple.

Attacks on writers, film-makers and artists reflect illiberal attitudes in India.

The Gounders went on the rampage, incensed by Murugan’s story, set in the past, of a couple whose marriage is destroyed by the community’s obsession with an heir. Murugan, himself a Gounder, has over a dozen books to his credit. A well-known critic of Tamil literature describes him as “versatile, sensitive to history” and the most accomplished of his generation of Tamil writers.

But such has been the virulence of the Gounder attacks on him, cleverly orchestrated by the RSS, the ideological parent of the BJP, which ceremonially burned his books in Thiruchengode, that Murugan made a stunning declaration. He would not write any more, all his novels, short stories, essays and poetry were withdrawn and would not be on sale again.

Within weeks another writer, Puliyar Murugesan, belonging to the less-influential Nadar community, was hospitalised after a violent attack by the Gounders for his ‘offensive’ story of a transgender who belongs to their community. They have demanded that his book, translated as I am also named Balachandran, should be banned.

In Murugan’s case the bigger offence may have been his support for the Dalits or untouchables, the most abused group in the caste hierarchy. In both cases, the state has been complicit in the harassment of the writers, who were ready to apologise and make any other reparation. Instead of coming to their rescue, the police have booked the writers for breach of peace and “hurting the sentiments” of a particular community.

Not many reading Indians had heard of Murugan, much less of Murugesan, till the former penned his literary obituary on Facebook. Since then, copies of One Part Woman have been flying off bookshelves in metropolitan centres although the writer himself has not received the kind of support that Wendy Doniger and James Laine received when their publishers were forced to pulp their books when right-wing forces went on the rampage. What happens in rural India takes a while to reach the national stage.

The caste attack on writers is a sad reflection on the vibrant anti-caste or Self-Respect Movement that flowered in the southern state in the 1950s. This movement, led by noted rationalist Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, was “dedicated to the goal of giving non-Brahmins a sense of pride based on their Dravidian past”. But that movement appears to have turned on itself in many ways as the increasing number of attacks in the 21st century on writers, film-makers and artists show — a reflection of the growing illiberal attitudes in India.

The caste equations work in bizarre, perverse ways in India. Last year, the Dalits were incensed that Annihilation of Caste, the most searing of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s works, had been reissued by Navayana, a publishing house run by a Brahmin, and with an introduction written by Arundhati Roy, an upper-caste writer. In the fierce debate that is still raging, Dalit organisations and intellectuals contend that Ambedkar’s seminal treatise on caste should be interpreted only by those belonging to their community.

India’s push for modernity and egalitarian values is a Sisyphean struggle, undermined often by a state that panders to power groups. It continues the colonial policy of banning books and films that are likely to “hurt the sentiments” of a range of communities and castes. After all, Shah Rukh Khan had to drop the use of ‘barber’ in the title of his film Billu Barber because the barbers found it ‘derogatory’ to their community. Indians reach boiling point very quickly, even when no offence is intended. They need to cool off.

The writer is a journalist.

ljishnu@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2015

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