Support M F Hussain or You Are Hindu Talibani

India is one of oldest civilizations in the world. While presence of human beings in India is as old as 70,000 years , the civilization can be said to be older than 5000 years.

Being such an old civilization , we have rich heritage of culture , social systems which are age old. Now logically when we have such a long heritage , its likely that there might be some age old practice which needs change , there might be social evils which needs to be eradicated.

There is nothing wrong in questioning social evils, practices and trying to make positive change in society. Dowry, Status of woman , killing of female fetus are some of prevailing social evils which need to be questioned and tried to be eradicated.

In same way rise of extremism in India , rich v/s poor divides are another important things which we need to address.There is no question and doubt about this.

Now we have people who are called liberals who often question what they think is wrong while there are people who are called tradionals who counter these liberals in name of our heritage.

But there is third kind which has emerged who claim to be liberals but their definition of being liberal is what makes me write this post.

In quest of being called liberals they try to ridicule everything about present system , they in quest of being called broad minded end up being close minded. Close Minded enough to not entertain any point of view which doesn’t adhere to their way of thinking!!!!!!!!!

If you talk about heritage , you are being conservative , if you talk about value system , you are being pachaat.
As I said our system is not perfect and it needs to change but at sametime this system survived for thousands of years because it inherently had some very good things in it which are time tested.

Being liberal is right thing to do because that makes one broad minded to bring the change and keep what is good in the system but this third category is not liberal but another version of talibani. Difference being that while Taliban uses violence to get their way, these people use ridiculing as weapon to get their way.

I came across , one such person who is called intellectual by his followers. He has immense following and some of his works are worth appreciating. He wrote article on recent news about M F Hussain and his qatar’s citizenship. Now MF is great painter and there is no debate as far as his ability is concerned. I have written about M F Hussain previously and wont get into it in this post (Do You Support M F Hussain?).

Now this intellectual wrote article on M.F. and expressed his opinions in that. He compared MF with galileo and even with christ (how christ was opposed by romans). His argument was that hindu fanatics were opposing MF and his freedom of expression. Now I agree with his one point, that threat to life to anyone for any reason is strictly against civilized way. Such people who try to threaten others because their sentiments get hurt must be dealt with stictest form of punishment.Having said that , argument of comparing jesus and galileo with MF was going bit too far but author has right to express his opinion which he did.

In the same site of this intellectual some people had negative feedbacks about this article. Now lets analyze what is liberal ways of thinking :

1) M F Hussain has freedom of expression as per constitution and he painted accordingly

2) Citizens of India have freedom of expression as per constitution and democratic right of feeling hurt .

Now they dont have any right to threaten MF and protest violently. Such people must be booked. But they do have right to approach court to file case against MF , if they felt hurt , which they did.

3) This intellectual has right to express his opnion and freedom of expression which he did.

4) Viewers have right to express how they felt about article and comment on that.

Perfect . Now what is the problem , one might wonder. Wait… When author critizes people who oppose MF even in peaceful manner , that is being progressive but when viewers (some of them) give negative feedback to this author’s article , it is being talibani (hindu talibani ) in this case!!!!!!!!!!!

So what is definition of being liberal as per this intellectual and his  followers?. Not opposing even when you feel hurt?. Not expressing opinion of what you think about it?. Well it seems so…

So suppose if you are of views that M F Hussain did cross his limit and misused his freedom of expression in painting hindu god/goddess , well you are hindu talibani!!!!!!!. You might be equally critical about hindu fanatics who threatened him but you still are hindu talibani because you dont support M F !!!!!!!!!.You cannot express you views.

Yes if you support M F Hussain , you are liberal and intellectual!!!!!!!!!. Because you challenged the traditional way of thinking.

Now according to me being liberal doesnot mean painting prophets or god/goddess nude. I may not be religious person but I respect other’s sentiments. Painting christ or peigambar or laxmi in not right light might not hurt me but it might hurt people who have faith in them.

For me being liberal means introducing sex education in masses , slamming dowry ,caste system , promoting widow marriages , re marriages for divorced , promotion adoption and such social things.

But even if i question everything wrong in society but dont support MF , I am hindu talibani!!!!!!!!

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