The People

In an interesting discussion I had recently with an Uncle of mine, we spoke of the supposed atrocities of M.F. Hussein. As it turns out, Hindu gods and godesses have never been portrayed or expressed artistically in sexually comprising situations. As a theme, the illustrious act of human perpetuation has been displayed artistically for centuries in India -in art inspired and created by humans of Hindu and Muslim descent, but these have always been of Humans and never the gods. Interesting.

I mulled over this for a while. Perhaps my former post was prematurely ejac... (no wait... - lets not test the limits of intentional puns here.) Let me re-phrase. Perhaps, I jumped the gun with my former post (better?). The moral outrage here is the apparent de-sanctification of a religion. Most importantly, committed by a muslim against the Hindu religion. "How dare he?" cried the good Hindu boy and maybe rightly so. Weren't the Muslims equally upset over the portrayal of Mohammad by a Danish cartoonist - of course they were.

My argument in this discussion rested solely on the concept of "freedom of expression". In a secular, democratic state, it *should* be irrelevant that the artist is a muslim, and the art is about Hindu gods depicted in this fashion. You don't like the art? - don't buy it - I said. No one is forcing you to hang it in your foyer. You don't have to appreciate it. Ignore it. Accept it. Do whatever you want - but don't ban it. Logical thinking would prevail in this argument and I would've won. But this uncle made some very good points and I gracefully conceded and stopped arguing.

Herein lies the dilemma. India is a democratic, secular state. Correct. There is no such thing as a perfect democracy (defined by many as a State in which every lobby group is equally powerful and influential). Correct. A democratic rule is theoretically one inwhich the people are empowered. Correct. THUS, it is their wisdom or folly that rules. As a result, if there is a large enough contingency, then their voices MUST be heard AND heeded. I see. And I'm dumbfounded. There is no plausible solution to this. Many would argue that there is no problem here to find a solution to - and thats the point of a democracy. It all falls back on a lack of cohesiveness and understanding. It falls back on a subject matter I have already addressed in a past post - http://bahel.blogspot.com/2006/06/bod-contd.html

...no luck so far with a solution.