Tolerance And Intolerance Debate

Taslima Nasrin

Tolerance And Intolerance Debate

          Nidhu Bhusan Das

“Amir Khan you earned 300 crores by mocking Hindu gods in PK if you would have done this in Pakistan, Bangladesh or on Muslim religion you would have been Hanged and still you say India is Intolerant.” –Taslima Nasrin

Amir Khan

      

  

          We may often tend to dismiss Bangladeshi maverick author Taslima Nasrin as eccentric, and she is not happy with the way she was to leave India in the face of violent movement by a group of overzealous Muslims in Kolkata, where she lived, demanding her expulsion from India. She doesn’t hesitate to suggest that the secularism in India is sometimes weak-kneed in practice. Yet she would not agree with the noted film personality Amir khan when he joins the chorus against intolerance. Here lies the strength of Taslima, a feminist and crusader against fundamentalism.

        Yes, it is true intolerance exists in the country. It is there between sections of people belonging to different religions, intra-religious, between the powerful and the humble, and so on. The debate on beef-eating is a contentious issue now that is sought to be taken by certain people as the only indicator of intolerance. Yes, we should not interfere with the food habit of anyone; rather we should be concerned about the fact that many people in the country do not have the means to have food at all, or nutritious food. But whenever we see that a handful people organize a feast of eating beef openly in the streets of Kolkata to demonstrate their being progressive and secularists par excellence, it appears to be a melodrama in bad taste and a kind of provocation to rouse communal feeling, be they powerful and darlings of the media. Should we call it perversion of secularism or perversion at individual level? Action in bad taste cannot help meaningful democracy in which is ingrained the value of secularism.Self-porclaimed secularists may have the liberty to think otherwise.

        Again there are people who in their right are concerned about intolerance of a specific kind, and would not like to turn their attention to the general trend of intolerance, having a holistic view. Those who say they tend to think of leaving the country because of a specific type of intolerance are often found to fail in being outspoken when terror strikes spill blood in the country and elsewhere in the world.

       What Taslima Nasrin, probably, means to say is that we should have a holistic view to be a complete man sans bias and prejudice.