Salil Tripathi writes in the WSJ of the continuing attacks on freedom of expression by both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists in the “most populous democracy in the world”:
In a little-noticed case on Feb. 26, police in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh arrested Macha Laxmaiah, an author who writes using the pseudonym Krantikar (“revolutionary”), and his distributors, including Innaiah Narisetti, president of the Hyderabad-based nonprofit Center for Inquiry, for “hurting the sentiments of Muslims.” Their alleged crime? The distribution of “Crescent Over the World,” a book including contributions from Salman Rushdie, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, and a cartoon from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Mr. Narisetti is out on bail now; Mr. Laxmaiah remains in custody.
Then there are the continuing attacks on Ms. Nasreen and her supporters. Last week, masked men broke into the offices of Kannada Prabha, a local-language newspaper in the southern state of Karnataka. Its weekly magazine had published a piece allegedly written by Ms. Nasreen that criticized the burqa, the veil that many Muslim women wear. Muslim groups had protested the article—which was three years old and republished by the Kannada newspaper without her permission—and violence in two towns ensued, leading to two deaths and dozens arrested. Ms. Nasreen, who fled Bangladesh in 1994 after Muslim fundamentalists threatened her life, currently divides her time between Sweden and the United States, but says she wants to live in India. The government stands in the way, not permitting her to stay in Kolkata, where she prefers to live, and keeping her at an undisclosed location in New Delhi under security surveillance during her last extended stay in the country ostensibly for her own safety.
The sensitivity doesn’t just concern Islam. Last week, India’s foremost painter, Maqbool Fida Husain, who is 94, decided to give up Indian nationality and became a Qatari citizen. Mr. Husain is a Muslim, and among the many themes he has painted are a few paintings of Hindu deities in the nude. These works were completed and first displayed decades ago, but since the mid-1990s Hindu nationalists have campaigned against him, saying his work insulted their faith. They attacked galleries exhibiting his works, threatened him with violence, and filed lawsuits against him. The state attached some of his property and police officers issued arrest warrants against him, even as the Delhi High Court (and later the Supreme Court) ruled in his favor and officials publicly praised him. Unwilling to trust the state to protect him, Mr. Husain, who has lived abroad much of the past decade, gave up his nationality.
Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London, he is the author of Offense: The Hindu Case.