Liberals should stop complaining about dissent being stifled under Modi's India

Who is a liberal? Let's first rule out who isn't.

Anyone who believes in violence is not a liberal. That rules out Naxals who believe in unleashing violence on the state.

Anyone who discriminates based on religion, race, caste, gender or sexual orientation isn't a liberal. That rules out the RSS which frowns on the LGBT community — a group comprising some of the country's most creative, interesting and non violent people.

Anyone who is intolerant of opposing political views is not a liberal. That rules out most politicians, including those from the BJP, Congress and the Left.

Anyone who opposes gender equality is not a liberal. That rules out Muslim clerics and Hindu priests who discriminate against women entering places of worship.

Anyone who curtails free speech is not a liberal. That rules out the leaders of dictatorships such as China and Saudi Arabia where dissent can get you a life term in prison.

Who then is a liberal? You need to pass these six tests of liberalism:

Test one: You must believe in the right to criticise religion. No religion is exempt: neither Islam, nor Hinduism, nor Christianity. Blasphemy is not a taboo.

Test two: You must shun violence. Argue with words, not guns. As one famous leader said, the answer to a book is another book, not a fatwa.

Test three: You must embrace gender equality. Women should be able to head an organisation such as the RSS. The idea of a woman sarsanghchalak should not cause consternation. It should cause celebration.

Test four: You must reject political dynasty. Feudalism and liberalism operate at opposite ends of the spectrum of progressive, liberal democracy.

Test five: You must not divide people on the basis of religion or caste. Whether you are a Hindu or a Muslim, you are Indian first, Hindu or Muslim second. The idea of a Hindu Rashtra is illiberal. The idea of a Bharat Rashtra is liberal. Similarly, Muslims must abandon the illiberal idea of being Muslim first, Indian second.

Test six: A liberal is tolerant. Even those on the hard Right and the hard Left must engage each other in civil debate. Words, not bullets, are the weapons of choice for liberals.

The big liberal myth

Dissent has been stifled in Modi's India. A cursory look at the headlines of newspapers such as The Telegraph, The Hindu and The Indian Express reveal how dissent against the Modi government is in fact alive and kicking — as it should be in a vibrant democracy.

Surf through TV channels, English, Hindi and regional. You'll see enough vitriol against the BJP in general and Modi in particular to prove how free speech thrives in India.

Online news sites are even more robust: From The Wire and Scroll to CatchNews and even our own DailyO, the "resistance" to Modi is strong if at times highly strung.

Those who complain about dissent being stifled under Modi should speak to Raghuram Rajan and Amartya Sen who sell their books with anti-Modi barbs of the kind they never dared employ for Congress president Sonia Gandhi even at the height of the UPA government's serial corruption scams.

Sonia Gandhi wasn't — as we all know — fond of dissent. She even remote-controlled her own Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh into 10 years of silence. If Dr Singh felt humiliated by Rahul Gandhi publicly tearing up his ordinance on allowing convicted lawmakers to contest elections, he didn't show it. Dissent was silenced without a murmur of protest.

The Bengaluru-based writer Shashi Deshpande wrote in The Indian Express last week: "Are we now living in a country where people are killed because of their ideology, their beliefs? Are we living in a country where dissent is silenced by a bullet?"

It is this empty, misplaced rhetoric that does a disservice to the quality of intellectual public discourse. There is more vigorous editorial dissent, more public debate, and more online vitriol against Hindutva today under a "Hindutva" government than there ever was under

Congress governments of the past. And yet those who profess to be sensible, intelligent and liberal claim the opposite. That says much about them.

The Modi government, however, has much to answer for too. Right-wing fringe elements have threatened journalists with the same fate that befell Gauri Lankesh. Kerala Hindu Aikyavedi leader KP Sasikala, in an inflammatory speech at a meeting in Ernakulam on September 10, issued the latest such warning. Her speech must be condemned by the BJP and she is rightly being prosecuted by the police.

Violence against journalists has been rising steadily since the beginning of the decade: In 2011 three journalists were murdered; in 2012 five were killed; in 2013 and 2014 the number spiked to eight journalists killed in each year; in 2015 the number rose to nine before declining in 2016 to five.

But to claim publicly, as historian Ramachandra Guha has done without evidence, that the murderers of Gauri Lankesh "very likely came from the Sangh Parivar", reveals a prejudiced, not liberal, mind.

At the other end of the communal spectrum, a newly married Muslim woman, Nagma Praveen, was assaulted last week by her husband Pervez Khan and five other men. She was thrown out of her marital home because she had painted a portrait of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

Intolerance is the antithesis of liberalism. A true liberal is non-judgmental, tolerant and accepts different viewpoints. That's a test few, posing as liberals, will pass.