#TheDailyToast: Right to protest

I have given back my Sahitya Akademi Award to protest the declining culture of my country, I informed my family this morning.

Declining how, asked my father, not even bothering to fold his newspaper, you are protesting aren't you? Also, you don't have a Sahitya Akademi Award, just delusions of grandeur, he pointed out.

That is besides the point, I said. If I had one, it would be returned. This is symbolic. I have downloaded the nomination form and mailed it empty to the Akademi, I said.

I'm sure they will take it in the right spirit, my father said, putting Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari's mobile number on "block" mode in case he called to complain about his daughter. I noticed.

Anyway she is Nehru's niece. Am glad she held on to the 1986 Award during the expulsion of the Kashmiri Pandits, my father grunted.

She protested the Emergency, I pointed out, but it's not just her, I said, clearly seeing this was going nowhere. Even Wahid, acquitted from the 2006 blasts case has said we are turning into a police state. This is what the saffron government is doing to us.

Wasn't he incarcerated under the Congress rule and acquitted under the BJP rule? My annoying father asked. So we are worse off now than we were then because the courts acquitted him? That's a sure sign of a police state, my father said. I suspect he turns a tinge of saffron when he gets smug.

This is no time for petty politics, I said. A man has been killed and the country is going to the dogs. There is outrage everywhere.

But I thought you said outrage was disallowed? Also, Sahgal is not protesting the shoddy investigation of Kalburgi's murder then? This is about Dadri? By the way you do know that both UP and Karnataka are non-BJP-ruled states?

That is besides the point, Pa. The point is we are subjugated, our voices suppressed, and we are not allowed to thump the tables anymore.

Clearly your TV remote isn't surfing to the right TV news channels and you're not on Twitter, he said. All people are doing is screaming. In fact, the immediate neighbourhood is getting quieter because everyone is done shouting online, he said.

It is not just Muslim groups, wake up and smell your coffee, I said, pouring the hot filter kapi from davara to tumbler in dramatic fashion - it is all minorities. Even the play Agnes of God is being banned.

Isn't that being banned by the Christian groups? He asked.

Yes this regressive religious right wing-ism has got to stop, I said.

So now the Christian groups are one with the BJP? He asked, nitpicky man.

No, no, I said, see how cunning they are. They gave police protection for the play to be conducted peacefully.

Now my father folded his newspaper. Cunning how? He wanted to know.

They know that allowing it will make Christian groups seem right wing illiberal and them seem liberal. This is all strategy Pa, I explained. So, basically now they have not banned something they are regressively oppressive? He asked. I suspect there was a tinge of mirth in his voice but I cannot be sure. I have never heard him laugh before.

Yes. I said. What else could I say?

There are also calls to lift the ban on Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, he pointed out. Should they keep that ban or lift it to be liberal? He wanted to know.

Lift it, I said.

Muslim groups in India want the ban, he said.

Keep it, I said.

But isn't that regressive, he asked.

Wendy Doniger is coming to town, I said, throwing it in there like a diversionary tactic. Smoke bombed him there. Ha.

What are we protesting again? He wanted to know.

At this point I was pretty sure I was protesting the anticipated protest against Wendy Doniger's entry into India, which is hitherto unbanned and any potential unbanning of Rushdie's banned book. I was not so sure about Nayantara Sahgal anymore, so to be on the safe side I decided to pick a side.

Sanatan Sanstha is responsible for everything, I said.

I thought the BJP Goa government arrested the Ram Sene, he said.

Yes, all of them. I said. That's just a sham. We want a faster probe.

So you want them to probe and make arrests or you want them to probe and arrest the people you've pre-decided are guilty without acquiring evidence or concluding the trial yet?

We know, I said. It's clear as day. I said.

Like they said Wahid was guilty? He asked, picking up his paper again.

These right wingers just indulge in whataboutery and conflate issues to obfuscate legal processes and get rude when you confront them, I tweeted. I protest the decline of cultural diversity in this country.

May only the liberal left speak. Only then will we be truly diverse.