The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Protect Taslima, punish Modi: Ananthamurthy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 22, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Protect Taslima, punish Modi: Ananthamurthy

Deepa Ganesh

— Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

EXCHANGE OF VIEWS: Filmmaker T.N. Seetaram (left), Govinda Rao, writer G.S. Shivarudrappa and the former Minister B.K. Chandrashekar at an interaction programme to mark the 76th birthday of Jnan Pith Award-winner U.R. Ananthamurthy in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: The Mahatma said: “Civilisation is the encouragement of differences. Civilisation thus becomes a synonym of democracy. Force, violence, pressure, or compulsion with a view to conformity, is both uncivilised and undemocratic.”

This was more or less writer U.R. Ananthamurthy’s refrain at the Samvaada programme on the occasion of his 76th birthday on Friday. “The birthday message that I would like to give in one single line is, ‘Protect Taslima and punish Modi’,” he said.

In the recent past, Mr. Ananthamurthy has made several ideational interventions in the political scenario of the State.

In fact, the drift of most of his recent writings has been political. Most part of the conversation in the programme continued in the same vein, marginalising literature. “Let us not discuss the merit of Taslima’s novel, but she is a writer who loves her language and her State. If she cannot live in Bengal, it is a shame on both the Centre and the State Government,” he said.

Modi, for him, became a metaphor; a mask, a pretence. Hence, his invitation to Taslima to live in Gujarat was to be looked upon with great suspicion. “Let’s not politicise this. We have to be truthful,” he said.

It was not as if Mr. Ananthamurthy was unaware of his ambivalent political positions and the confusion it had triggered among the public. In a manner of clearing these doubts, he said: “While I am backed strongly by ideology, I am also an emotional man. My reactions are exactly like the common man’s. Ask an autorickshaw driver and he at one point did feel sympathetic towards Yeddyurappa before he realised the BJP was blatantly power-hungry.”

When thrown open to the house, several questions came up from an auditorium that was overflowing with people. While the Legislative Council Chairman B.K. Chandrashekar wondered if Mr. Ananthamurthy had an answer to the complete downturn in public discourse, historian Shettar asked if there was a period in history that marked such a level of decadence.

The writer thought aloud, consulted friends, proposed ideas and left it open ended, with a compelling urge to set in motion a social revolution.

To put it again in the words of the Mahatma, whom Mr. Ananthamurthy thinks has an answer to these turbulent times, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world”.

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