Salman Rushdie Attack: Ancient Hindu Authors Would Be Considered Blasphemous Today

Last month, an event with the Inte­rnational Booker winner Geetanjali Shree was cancelled in Agra after a Hathras resident reg­is­­tered a police complaint against her for hurting his 바카라�religious sentime­nts바카라�. Sandeep Kumar Pathak found her award-winning novel Ret Samadhi 바카라�ext­remely obscene바카라�.

The complainant was unaware that ancient Sanskrit texts describe the union of Shiva and Parvati in far more vivid details. Kalidasa바카라�s Kumar­a­­sam­bhavam has a sensual description of Parvati, Shiva and their erotic love. In fact, while translating his masterpiece Abhijnanashakuntalam into English, Sir William Jones deleted the passages that he thought could be unacceptable for European rea­d­ers. If someone argues that Kalid­asa was a mere court poet and his works don바카라�t rank among the scriptures, consider a sequence from the holy Shiva Purana. Lord Brahma, the creator of the universe, is the officiating priest for the wedding of Shiva and Parvati. The sacred text describes in extraordinary detail how Brahma gets attr­acted by her beauty.

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It바카라�s one of the numerous instances in Sanskrit texts that can easily be termed blasphemous today. The aut­hor of Shiva Purana might have to leave the country today to save persecution. Few Indian writers of the modern era can match the boldness of anc­ient authors.

The idea of blasphemy didn바카라�t exist in scriptures as Hindu gods were treated with extreme irreverence. There was no one god; no singular description of Shiva or Rama or Shakti. One could form a variety of relationships with the divinity. Even devotion arrived with an insistence on Navdha Bhakti, one could worship gods in nine forms. Gods could be your friend or lover, as poets wrote vivid erotic poems for them and Hin­du gods were seen performing tricks and treacheries. Marked by imperfections and inconsistencies, they were never infallible.

바카라�The ancient, polytheistic Hindus had no concept of blasphemy,바카라� Wendy Don­i­ger wrote in an article titled, Prelude to Censorship: The Toleration of Blasp­h­e­my in Ancient India. 바카라�With so many gods, one could not help preferring one over another, inevitably slighting some god or other. It did not matter if you insulted gods who made no claim to omnipotence or omniscience, and certainly not to benevolence,바카라� she wrote.

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The idea of a text being obscene or hurtful to people바카라�s religious sentiments gets firmly established in the modern era. To be sure, if one has a right to be irreverent, the other also has a right to feel offended and express their hurt. A free society must give space to express offence and criticise writers. It bec­omes complex when laws are codified to prosecute and punish an author whose writings one finds hurtful or obscene.

The British government inserted Sec­t­ion 295A in the IPC in 1927 that punished 바카라�deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings바카라� in a case that led to the first blasphemy murder in modern India. The provision was inserted after a controversy over the publication of a booklet named Rangila Rasul about Prophet Muhammad in 1924. While its author was anonymous, the publisher Maha­she Rajpal was arrested and convicted by a lower court for promoting enmity among religions, before he was acquitted by the Lah­ore high court.

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He was murdered on April 6, 1929, by a 19-year-old Muslim named Ilam-­ud Din, who was later sentenced to death and executed. Consider the applause Din바카라�s offence had received from his community바카라�the lawyer who fought Din바카라�s case was none other than Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Today, a special mausoleum to Din stands in Lahore.

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While Section 295A was inserted following increasing religious fanaticism, Section 292, also on obscenity, always existed in the IPC. If the former provision hurts someone바카라�s religious sentiments, finding a book obscene is a secular hurt, and hence can be more lethal. Section 292 says that any 바카라�book, pamphlet, paper, writing, drawing, painting, repres­en­t­ation, figure or any other object, shall be dee­med to be obscene if it is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest바카라�.

The Hindi novelist Mridula Garg was arrested under this provision in 1980 for her nov­el Chittacobra, whi­ch depicts the life of a woman in an unfulfilled marriage. Now in her 80s, Garg still recalls the abuses she had faced. 바카라�It seemed that the entire Hindi literary establishment had turned indiff­e­rent towards a vulgar campaign against me by the literary journal Sar­ika, which gave space to a range of abusive lett­ers against me,바카라� she tells Outlook.

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One of the earliest controversies about obscenity in Hindi literature pertains to Pandey Bechan Sharma Ugra바카라�s short story collection titled Chocolate (1927), which depicts homoerotic love.

Banarasidas Chaturvedi, editor of the influential Hindi journal Vishal Bharat, immediately termed it ghasleti sahitya (third-grade literature). Chaturvedi even expressed his displeasure to M.K. Gandhi and sent him an article, which was published in the latter바카라�s wee­kly, Young India. Gandhi was never fond of fiction, but he read it and soon he seemed to regret his decision of publishing Chatur­vedi바카라�s article. In an October 10, 1928 letter to Chaturvedi, Gandhi wrote: 바카라�I thought it was not right to make comments in this way; a book ought to be read. I finished it today. The impression I formed is not the same as yours. The purpose of the book, I think, is pure.바카라�

It embodied an era when Indian politicians upheld a writer바카라�s freedom. An era that we seem to have lost. Decades later, the inheritors of Gandhi바카라�s legacy, the Congress party under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, banned The Satanic Verses.

Continuing with the fall, another Congress government surrendered before a nondescript party member over a ridiculous accusation of obscenity. In February 2009, the Delhi Hindi Acad­emy unanimously selected veteran writer Krishna Baldev Vaid for its topmost honour, Shalaka Samman. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who was also the Academy president, had approved the award.

But she later withdrew it after a party member Puru­s­h­ottam Goyal wrote to her, accusing Vaid of 바카라�writing porn and sub-­standard literature바카라�. A large number of Indian writers came to Vaid바카라�s support, with Krishna Sobti terming it 바카라�cultural terrorism바카라�. 바카라�If his writings are obscene, so are mine,바카라� said U.R. Ananthamurthy.

A great book is expe­c­ted to assault your sen­ses, forcing you to upe­nd your existing notions. One has a right to feel offended and censure the writer, but a mature civilisation must ensure that writers are not prosecuted or hounded for their words. Sadly, the modern era바카라�ironically the era of freedom and enlightenment바카라�is replete with instances of writers being targeted for what someone believed was hurtful to one바카라�s sentiments.

(This appeared in the print edition as "The Age of Sacrilege")