Rochelle Pinto - Catholics should shrug off Hrithik Roshan's Pope joke and stop participating in the politics of hurt
the Catholic community in particular could refresh public culture with
a display of its sturdy sense of humour by wishing Roshan better luck with his
love life and moving on.
Abraham Mathai, the
president of an organisation called the Indian Christian Voice, has asked for
an apology from Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan for allegedly hurting “the
religious feelings and sentiments” of Christians. Earlier this week, Mathai’s lawyer
sent the actor under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, after Roshan
tweeted this message to emphasize his degrees of separation from the various
women with whom he has been associated in the media.
One could probably
find more Pope jokes shared among Catholics in India than Roshan could ever
think of. But if some in the community are greeting his remarks with
indignation, it is because claiming equal opportunity hurt has become a way to
establish political rights at a time when hyperbolic violent speech has changed
the terms of public debate.
More significantly, in
the current context of political representation in India, public insult and
sexual threats are seen to substantively diminish the political status of the
recipient. Perhaps the Catholic community should seize the opportunity to
refuse this position, given that Roshan’s throwaway tweet is something that
would not receive more than a passing glance at another moment.
Section 295A, put in
place prior to Independence to guard against denigration of religion, has been
used to contest dissenting views by believers as well as offensive
representations of religions. Semitic religions have a long history of
negotiating what is permissible (or not) in images and words. The interaction
with practices in India, where political rituals and gestures endow and divest
people of power and status, makes the question of representation and hurt more
layered than the words suggest.
Thus jokes about
Christ or the Pope are less likely to elicit action in countries where religion
has ceased to be defining, though it may continue to offend. Sexuality and
caste are also volatile symbols of political identity, and for as long as
dignity in India is stripped through gesture and word, any easy equalisation of
all representation into a freedom of speech category obscures these issues.
Protective legislation is still necessary in spheres other than the religious.
This has, however,
provided a large canvas for the manipulation of community sentiment and for
unethical uses of laws that were intended to protect the rights of religious
groups. Post Independence, the politics of religious hurt has been used to mold
political behavior providing political parties with a handy model for
instigating acts of desecration and sparking violence.
Masculinity and
religious sentiment
Section 295A of
the Indian Penal Code has, as a creative development on the uses of the law,
spawned the politics of comparative hurt. If a community does not respond to
defilement of images or jokes, members feel they have been disallowed a share
in the politics of hurt; leading to the idea that public shaming has occurred.
Under different
political regimes, community formation has also been effectively gendered so
that not responding to real or perceived threats is seen as a sign of weakness
and emasculation. This has helped the culture of authoritarianism immensely, as
it uses the political connotations that this provision has acquired to draw all
communities, especially minorities, into accepting the offer of equal
opportunity fundamentalism or control.
As authoritarianism as
a political culture has expanded, it is evident that sharing in its politics
has neither helped disadvantaged minorities, nor has it protected
them from assault. It has instead, worked well as an alibi for strengthening
authoritarian rule. It has also complicated the position of dissenters within
minority groups, who have to assert distinct identities against majoritarian
ones while distancing themselves from aspects of minority politics that they
disagree with.
Rather than being held
hostage to these tensions, perhaps minority groups could refuse the offer of
equal opportunity hurt through which they are deflected from securing political
rights or building an alternate political culture. At the same time, it is
worth clarifying that the term “minority appeasement” merely signifies a
majoritarian perspective and participates in the ideology of Hindutva as it
casts all minority issues in the category of unjustified demands on the state.
An opening for
minority politics
While acts of intended
defilement or insult have an intimidating effect in polarised and marginal
community neighbourhoods or at the time of elections, a detached view should be
taken of utterances by film stars or movies and books that are not
direct attacks.
Further, there is a
vast difference between expressing difference, and taking legal action. Not
demanding an apology would diminish the effect of the tweet especially as the
swirl of media attention is likely to shift to something equally irrelevant in
the next few days. Besides, the community scarcely needs to define itself in
relation to a soap-operatic public spat.
In previous instances,
Abraham Mathai’s responses have been to more substantive issues such as
asserting the right of Dalit Christians toreservation, and protesting attacks on tribal communities. Significantly, in 2012,
he opposed PA Sangma’s exoneration of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh for responsibility in the Godhra riots of 2002 and the
attacks in Orissa on Christians in 2008, when the Christian politician sought
Modi’s support for his candidature as President.
In his critique of
Sangma, Mathai has shown the way to rejecting the duplicitous offer of
political tokenism in exchange for a democratic space for minorities. If this
is extended to avoiding the use of Section 295A especially at this moment when
it is most associated with intimidation of free speech, it would restrict the
use of the law to cases of vulnerability and violation of democratic rights and
expand the sphere in which public persuasion and critique is still possible.
More promisingly, it
would distance minority political practice from the culture of prohibition and
bans through which the current government and fundamentalist groups intimidate
civil society into silence. It may be recalled that an impetus for the ongoing
student agitation was the attack against the screening of the film on the
Muzaffarnagar riots by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula and his peers in Hyderabad
Central University. The attack on both, the potential solidarity expressed
between Dalits and Muslims, and the assertion of free speech, is a political
opportunity for minorities to build wide solidarities based on mutual rights
rather than a reactive politics.
For minorities in
India, there is much to be gained by isolating fundamentalist forces in their
use of bans, book burning and unethical use of the law. As someone who
represents no other Christian, I might add that the Catholic community in
particular could refresh public culture with a display of its sturdy sense of humour
by wishing Roshan better luck with his love life and moving on.
