History is repeating itself, but not as a farce. The debate around Salman Rushdie, his novel, freedom of expression and identity politics had played out in 1989. Since then, characters as wide ranging as MF Husain, Taslima Nasreen and AK Ramanujan have made us confront the same debate and now we are back in 1989. The period of liberalisation, thus, was misnomer. Intolerance levels have kept pace with the GDP growth.

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What is the logic behind a ban? If a few thousand people in India were to read that controversial book, The Satanic Verses, in the privacy of their homes, why should it offend hundreds of thousand others? After all, the novel is available on the internet and a few thousand avid readers have actually read it in India, and nobody seems to have been offended by this. Just as a few jhola types going to art galleries and looking at paintings is not a phenomenon that most of us are even aware of. So, no matter how much they argue to the contrary, people are not offended by somebody reading a book or looking at a painting that supposedly mocks at their religion. (For that matter, nobody seems to be offended by reports of farmers’ suicides and infant malnutrition, but that’s another story.)

The reason, then, is to assert one’s identity, consolidate the community’s political clout. When we demand a ban on a book or a film, when we want a film song changed or an art exhibition cancelled, it gets banned, it gets cancelled. I or my community can feel happy about it.

That is the demand side scenario. On the supply side, needless to say, identity politics, a guaranteed vote bank, comes handy for the political parties that are otherwise busy pilfering public money from healthcare schemes and so on. A perfect solution that makes both sides happy.

That conclusion is just a hypothesis, till proven. So, let us prove it. Rushdie has been a regular visitor to India, regular enough to have a minor affair or two with Bollywood starlets. Why did Darul Uloom object to his visit this time? Because elections are due in Uttar Pradesh, where Muslim voters matter a lot – so much that not only the Congress goes out of its way to make them feel happy, even BJP gives a less publicised statement against Rushdie’s visit plan. We haven’t heard anything from the Left yet.

Now that the point about ‘vote bank politics’ is proven, shouldn’t concerned citizens raise their voice and say healthcare and education matter more than one of our many identities (the caste/communal identity – we have others too, based on profession, gender and so on)? It’s somewhat heartening to see that the treatment meted out to Rushdie by the Congress government has not gone unopposed. At the Jaipur literary festival, four authors stuck their necks out and invited trouble by supporting Sir Salman. A PIL seeking a review of the ban is under way. Sahmat has invited Rushdie for a lecture (along with a Husain exhibition). If some thought that liberal intellectuals are liberal intellectuals only when Husain’s or Ramanujan’s work is in trouble, they have been proven wrong.

Apart from the concerned citizens, the communities – Muslims in this case – need to question their self-styled leaders and introspect if the business of identity politics has benefited them in real terms. For all we know, Sri Ram Sene might be doing a great social service, but nobody has been able to make that argument so far.

One way to cut the Gordian knot of identity and politics is to shift the authority to ban a book or a work of art from the executive to the judiciary.

But as for the larger question of the ‘banning policy’ itself, there was some justification in the legal provision when it was made, what is the point being made when a government bans a book which you can download from Amazon on your Kindle or from illegal file-sharing websites? This technology, part of the digital-global age, is telling us to shed our old identities and prejudices. We can ignore the message at our own peril. 

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