Pride before a fall, they say. The only thing they don't say is how long before the fall. Let's take a case in point. India prides itself on a lot of things. Among those are secularism and a rich & envied cultural history. We're well known for our food, dance forms, and indigenous sciences, among a long list. But what about the pride this fame brings?
Unfortunately, all those who hope that the saying is true are right. It's what happened with Nupur Sharma, Munawwar Farruiqui, Mohammed Zubair and every person booked under IPC section 295A. All of these cases were filed by a random single individual and blossomed into nationwide movements. If the previous sentence doesn't call out the glaring faultline that this pride rests on, and makes it obvious, the next one will. All it took for statements, addressing the expression of pride, by a free individual to be eligible to be counted as crime is for another such free individual, over-stuffed with pride, to wake up one morning in their tiny, disconnected Universe and scream "danger". On basis of merit, better reason should outscore a disconnected Universe. On basis of majority, the disconnected Universe of the majority wins over any reason at all.
It is this very act of law -Section 295A of the IPC (a British legal relic) that has encouraged our offendability by normalising a disconnected identity. Today, anyone can wake up, feel "offended" and lay the groundwork for the next national issue all at one go. They don't need credibility, nor does their actual grouse. All they need is to claim that someone somewhere who doesn't know they exist, with their own particular set of values, has managed to offend them from that distance. That's all that is ever important till their disconnected Universe has been restored to its off-balance once again.
The law specifically speaks against "deliberate and malicious intent to outrage religious feelings". In a country where beliefs (and their many versions) grow on the next tree, it is practically suicide. The only thing "deliberate" and "malicious" about offense taken, leading to action under it, is that we can be so high nosed about diverse views.
Going by the origin of the law around 1929, the Indian Muslim community (ironically), then, demanded a law against insult to religious feelings because a book was published which hurt their sentiments. The publisher was not convicted because no law existed that could convict him. Enter Section 295(A). The lawmakers who passed it added that a writer might insult a religion to facilitate social reform by grabbing attention, therefore necessating the words, deliberate and malicious intention.
It would seen that the only intent that would seem "deliberate and malicious", according to said individuals who live in tiny universes tucked into an otherwise interconnected world, is a challenge to a status quo that keeps their puny corner of the world untouchable, even at the expense of any other corner in the cosmos.
The only way that totally random, isolated individuals can stay away from overtaking national discourse with their baby cries is by ignoring the babies and their immaturity. Everyone knows what happens when an immature child throws tantrums and is obliged because we want to keep the peace, when the mature adults around them who don't throw tantrums know the value of compromise and evolve forward as one towards actual unity. But then we are in the habit of entrusting the whole future of our land to certain single individuals because we love worst case scenarios that do better over better case scenarios that possibly may not be, that are our only way out. Talk about desperation.
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