In Churumuri, Gauri Lankesh holds a mirror to contemporary Karnataka: How Karnataka is becoming Gujarat. While majority of the comments have been what I can only term as moronic, I wanted to highlight the three real dangers that Gauri points out.
First, suspecting all Muslims as terrorists and presuming/declaring their guilt even before it is established. Let us face it. The notion of ‘benefit of doubt’ has disappeared entirely.
Second, how the media in Karnataka has become incapable of asking even the most elementary of questions, abandoned fairness as a principle, and do a decent investigative report. In fact, TV9 and our tabloids seem to be in the business of sensationalizing news. Further, our intelligentsia too has become saffronized; but the threat isn’t merely ideological polarization but the accompanying intolerance towards others who hold a different view.
So then the third, and perhaps the most important danger to our collective wellbeing, is the attitude of intolerance and the form in which this intolerance is displayed by Sangh Parivar: the threat of physical violence. To be fair, I must point out that apart from the Sangh Parivar, even Kannada activists and occasionally progressives too are guilty on this count.
The threat of physical intimidation that hangs over public life is perhaps the most serious of all threats that we need to wake up to. Gauri doesn’t stress on this aspect as much as I would have liked her to, since she has concentrated on the first two points.
Absent civility and a genuine commitment to non-violence, there will not be much worth defending, in Karnataka or anywhere else. For violence and intolerance taints even progressive causes and can only beget more violence. Hence, Gandhi is more relevant than ever, in teaching us how we should engage our adversaries.
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