Ratna Kapur - The Dark Shadows of Tolerance
The concept operates as a gatekeeper, drawing a line between
those we like and those we do not. It does not offer any vision of
transformation and, in the face of systemic or structural inequalities, becomes
a substitute for justice.
The use of the term ‘tolerance’ is being bandied around in
the public space in ways that invariably assume it has a progressive meaning.
In response to protests by writers and others against acts of violence and
intimidation and the government’s failure unequivocally to condemn them, ruling
party ministers and spokespersons have insisted that they are “tolerant” and
that India is a country where “tolerance” is a way of life.
In reality, tolerance means different things to different
people and the use of this word as a shield underlines
the problematic nature of the concept. In the context of the colonial encounter, tolerance was the
glue that enabled civilizing missions and colonial adventures in the name of
taming the ‘barbarous other’ who was viewed as intolerant and uncivil.
Tolerance served as the device to deny full legal equality to the native while
also managing their claims for greater recognition and empowerment and thus
served in part to legitimise colonial rule.
In encounters with indigenous peoples in white settler
colonies, tolerance has taken the form of apologies and entertaining claims for
reparations by indigenous aborigines such as in Australia without addressing
the underlying racist premise of the liberal state. And as recent encounters in
Europe have evidenced, the flow of refugees is testing the limits of tolerance,
where `racially integrated’ countries are determined to keep their countries
both white and Christian, while also stemming the flow through strengthened
border security, fences and if necessary, drone attacks in an effort to
eliminate the threat that difference poses.
Tolerance and its limits
In the period immediately after independence, tolerance in
India initially functioned to protect the rights of religious minorities in the
aftermath of the bloody partition and to consolidate the identity of the modern
Indian nation-state. Tolerance was and continues to be invariably linked to
religious tolerance. And in the contemporary context of the emergence of the
RSS Hindutva project, tolerance has come to be equated with appeasement, and
assimilation has replaced it as the dominant demand. Difference is perceived as
threatening, demonstrating a lack of patriotism, and a threat to the unity of
the nation.
The remarks of Bollywood stars or writers and film makers
returning their national awards are not read as part of the right to dissent
and protest, but as a lack of national pride and in some instances have even
been described as treason. The response to these protests must be zero
tolerance! And the punishment for those who refuse to march in goose step with
the unity and uniformity of the nation is invariably the same – go to Pakistan.
This is the message of tolerance when placed inside the mouths of those who
would weed out every element of plurality, diversity and disagreement from the
national polity. While religious minorities, especially Muslims, are the
central target of this brand of zero tolerance, other ‘others’ are addressed
with equal disdain and disapproval for contaminating the cultural space –
whether these be migrants, homosexuals, sex workers or ‘skimpily clad’ women.
This is not to say that tolerance is a bad thing. In fact,
it has a vital place in a liberal democracy for it is the primary defence to
compulsory assimilation. But to have any progressive meaning, tolerance needs
to be delinked from its majoritarian religious proclivities. One option is to
adopt a pluralising strategy that highlights the historical roots of tolerance
in the multiplicity of India’s religious traditions, that demonstrate there is
no one Hindu faith, Christian faith or Muslim faith. Such an approach has two
limitations. First, it runs the risks of nostalgic idealism and cultural
essentialism – of searching for the elusive authenticity of religious and
cultural traditions, of assuming that those traditions can be discovered rather
than constructed and negotiated, and of reconstructing those traditions as
static, immutable, and monolithic. Second, a religious conception of tolerance
still does not extend beyond tolerance of religious difference.
It is unlikely that religious tolerance could speak to the
importance of tolerating those who think, act and live differently, if those
differences were based on something other than religion. Such a strategy may
not tolerate sex workers or homosexuals, and may continue to encourage the
incarceration of homosexuals and reinforcement of gender stereotypes. In these
instances tolerance operates as a gatekeeper, policing the boundaries and
drawing a line between those we like and those we do not like. It does not
offer any vision of transformation and becomes a substitute for justice. A
principle of tolerance must be one that is up to the challenge not only of
promoting respect for difference along religious lines, but also along a range
of other fault lines.
A shift towards delinking tolerance from its so-called
religious moorings and towards a more political conception of tolerance – and
living with difference and diversity rather than in opposition to it – appears
to be a more promising model. But this idea is also fraught with limitations,
and may again end up foregrounding religious identity, and relinquishing too
much autonomy to highly conservative, even orthodox communities to manage their
own affairs without sufficient concern for tolerance within their own ranks.
Struggle for equality
A more robust political conception of tolerance may
certainly move away from the thin version of tolerance based on mere visibility
and the premise of accepting people and their practices despite disagreements
and disapproval. But the rub lies in the fact that tolerance does not resolve
the underlying hatred and animosities felt about difference – as recently
demonstrated in the responses to statements by Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan –
that lie just below the surface. A more robust political understanding of
tolerance draws a line, but it is not the solution. While this call for
tolerance can play an important role in reducing, if not altogether preventing
harassment, incarceration, violence and abuse, it has also become an
alternative to arguing in favour of full legal equality.
And this is the crux of the matter. Discussions on tolerance
divert attention from addressing the discriminations that have been experienced
by sub-groups – sexual, religious, caste, as well as on the basis of gender.
Substantive equality in law does not demand sameness in treatment and
conformity; it demands that historical, structural and systemic disadvantages
be addressed – which requires at times difference in treatment, in order
to ensure equality in result. Tolerance becomes the mechanism for denying full
legal equality to those on its receiving end – a method for ensuring
majoritarian rule as well as sustaining an antagonistic posture towards
difference and the continuing perception of that difference or `otherness’ as
threatening or toxic.
see also
The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010)/ Interview: My life fighting intolerance/ Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha was a Sudanese religious thinker and leader executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry. (See his Court statement)
