After writers, a group of scientists from academic institutions across the country and abroad have signed a petition addressed to the President expressing their concern over recent incidents of intolerance, polarisation and spread of communal hatred resulting in the death of innocent people and rationalists.
The petition was generated based on a web-based campaign. In the letter, the scientists say they “strongly condemn” the atrocities and “join the protest of litterateurs in awakening people and the central and state governments to the dangers of not acting.”
They urged the President to take “serious note of these developments” and initiate suitable actions. The letter has stated that peace and harmony of the country is being “threatened by a rash of sectarian and bigoted acts that have recently escalated.”
Comparing a highly polarised community to “a nuclear bomb close to criticality,” the letter states that the situation can “explode any time and drive the nation to utter chaos.”
The scientists urged the government to take the strictest action against those who are victimising and killing “innocent people for eating beef, sensible people for being against superstition, RTI activists or whistle blowers and many more innocent people with human values.”
Describing these acts as “anti-human and anti-civilizational,” the letter states that people who even suggest these actions should be dealt with punishment “beyond that reserved for anti-national activity.”
Signatories include former director of the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA, Pune) Naresh Dadhich, Varun Sahni of IUCAA, former director of the Harish-Chandra Research Institute (Allahabad) H S Mani, Tabish Qureshi of Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi) and scientists and academics from JNU, Institute of Physics (Bhubaneswar), IITs and other leading institutions.
Signatories from Chennai include T R Govindarajan, emeritus professor at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) in Chennai and Professor at Chennai Mathematical Institute, G Rajasekaran, former joint director of IMSc, Chennai, G Baskaran, emeritus professor, IMSc, and IIT Madras professors Suresh Govindarajan and Dawood Kothawala.
After protests by writers, artists, scientists and filmmakers, over 50 historians – including leading names like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, M G S Narayanan, K N Panikkar, B D Chattopadhyaya, D N Jha, Neeladri Bhattacharya, Shireen Moosvi, Indu Banga and Upinder Singh – on 29 October expressed concern about the “highly vitiated atmosphere prevailing in the country”.
“Differences of opinion are being sought to be settled by using physical violence. Arguments are met not with counter arguments but with bullets. When a poor man is suspected to have kept a food item that certain sections do not approve of, his fate is nothing short of death by lynching. At the launch of a book whose author happens to be from a country disapproved of by certain groups, the organiser is disfigured with ink thrown on his face,” said a statement signed by 53 historians.
“And when it is hoped that the head of government will make a statement about improving the prevailing conditions, he chooses to speak only about general poverty; and it takes the head of the state to make the required reassuring statement, not once but twice. When writer after writer is returning their award of recognition in protest, no comment is made about the conditions that caused the protest; instead the ministers call it a paper revolution and advise the writers to stop writing. This is as good as saying that intellectuals will be silenced if they protest,” it said.
“This is particularly worrying for us as historians, as we have already experienced attempts to ban our books and expunge statements of history… What the regime seems to want is a kind of legislated history, a manufactured image of the past, glorifying certain aspects of it and denigrating others,” it said.
“We would therefore urge the state to ensure an atmosphere that is conducive to free and fearless expression, security for all sections of society and the safe-guarding of the values and traditions of plurality that India had always cherished in the past. It is easy to trample them down, but it is important to remember that it will take too long, and will be beyond the capacity of those who are currently at the helm of affairs, to rebuild it once it is destroyed,” it said.
“The number of incidents happening in the country add up to a situation where it is felt that there is no space for dialogue and debate, that the intolerance is growing. What happened at Dadri was very shocking. It all adds up at the end,” said Prof Upinder Singh, head of history department at Delhi University.
Earlier, artists had also expressed their concern about the existing political and social climate. “We can join the dots and see the kind of re-engineering being attempted by replacing the heads of different institutions. There is complete hooliganism, incidents of violence, forcefulness to follow a certain ideology,” said artist Anita Dube.
She was on the panel with artists Vivan Sundaram, Sharmila Samant, Inder Salim and writer Ashish Rajadhyaksha at a conference organised by Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) that was attended by artists Gigi Scaria, Atul Bhalla, Amitava Das and art critic Geeta Kapur among others. Over 400 signatories supporting the statement.
Meanwhile, students at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) on 28 October ended their 140-day-old strike – but the protest was taken forward by 12 filmmakers, who announced that they would return their National Awards over the unresolved FTII issue and the “rising intolerance” in the country. The students, too, said they would return to classes but “continue to protest and resist the current appointments in whatever peaceful and non-violent form we are able to”.
The filmmakers who have decided to return their National Awards are Dibakar Banerjee, Anand Patwardhan, Paresh Kamdar, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Rakesh Sharma, Indraneel Lahiri and Lipika Singh Darai. Earlier, in Pune, two FTII alumni, Pratik Vatsa and Vikrant Pawar, made a similar announcement.
At a press conference in Mumbai, the filmmakers read out a joint statement and said they had decided to join protesting writers and Sahitya Akademi winners who had returned their awards. Some of them also brought their National Award medals with them. “It has become imperative that we see the government’s stonewalling of students’ protest in a context. The Information and Broadcast Ministry has appointed people with a narrow vision in the institutions under them. FTII, Children’s Film Society and CBFC are examples that the film fraternity has objected to,” read the letter, addressed to the Prime Minister and the President.