Hi Ravi – I was waiting for your article on this subject and it was well worth the wait. Yesterday I was watching the debate on the subject on a Tamil news channel and it was heartening to note that there were representatives from hindu organisations as well as BJP sympathisers as part of the debate. It’ll be good to see more and more hindu participation in such debates so as to “open the eyes” of the common man. But as expected the hindu sympathisers were extremely meek and apologetic. They did not ask some really hard hitting questions at the other “pro APSC” speakers. For example they should have asked “is talking about destruction of a religion” acceptable as free speech in our country? What stops the “free speakers” who want to talk about destroying a religion from speaking outside the compound wall of IIT-M?”. What does the past several decades of history in TN since Independence tell about dalit persecution and dalits getting suppressed? Who is carrying out such activities? Are the Brahmins responsible for such actions? How does Periyar who advocated physically attacking , verbally abusing and humiliating Brahmins qualify as a great leader ? Do his speeches qualify as healthy free speech and the resultant actions by his followers qualify as healthy actions in a democracy ?
Most interesting was the moderator who let it slip rather quietly that free speech means the freedom to talk ill of and abuse someone whom you don’t agree with and not one panelist even raised an eyebrow about that!. There were even some non hindu panelists and I am quite sure they understood the real meaning of the word “someone” in that statement i.e., someone = hindus ! If the same discussion had happened in the 60s when Periyar was calling the shots that statement would have surely had an additional phrase “to attack,kill, desecrate or rape” and there would have been applause all round. Thank God we are a few decades past those days and there seems to be some faint light visible at the end of the tunnel.
Many thanks to people like you Ravi.