LIGHT, LITERATURE AND LICENSE

LIGHT, LITERATURE AND LICENSE

The problem with religion is that it perpetuates superstition and ignorance under the cover of catchy words and phrases which the commoner misconceives as hallowed and deep where in reality it is simply a linguistic trap which keeps him in irrational bondage for ages. One must be sceptical of all such verbal tools and scrutinise them for their true merit.

Nothing is sacrosanct save the dignity of life which, however, is least honoured on earth. No personality is great enough to be spared criticism, none so divine as to escape critical scrutiny of the message he has spread as the word of man or God. No book is so holy as to be above democratic discourse.

Freedom which is the impelling force of human evolution must be exercised by all means and must not be curtailed to suit specific convenience beyond what may be deemed racially damaging in the light of historical events as the age-old persecution of Jews and the Afro-American slave trade, to cite just two specific instances. Otherwise, artistic freedom and literary license must be safeguarded from religious attacks that try to throttle them.

Freedom of speech and expression safeguards democracy and human rights which is why tyrants and tyrannical systems of governance stifle speech in the first place. What is the blasphemy law after all save the legal tool to suppress human opinion?

If religious opinion that in practice mandates the killing of authors is to be euphemistically referred to as just an opinion and not in any way legally binding, then literary license ought also to be considered an author's opinion on a subject and no more. Why order his killing then? And why carry out a serial stabbing incident on him that could eventually cost him his life or maim him for good, rendering him ineffective anymore in terms of raising resistance to religious tyranny? And what about the literary loss incurred, for how often does a writer of rare excellence surface to catch the bull by the horns and to call a spade a spade in an artistic mode of delightfully dreamy contours? 

Written by Sugata Bose

P.S. Reference being to Salman Rushdie's work and the stabbing episode after three decades.