Friday, November 18, 2011

Unacceptable Arbitration

Editorial:
The censor board took exception of ‘Free Tibet’ banners in a Hindi movie song and when the movie released, the banners were blurred. The movie is not about Tibet or even about political expression, but the paranoid censoriousness with which the establishment responded to what was essentially a prop, albeit a heart-warmingly tender one which at least recognises the presence of a peoples aspiration which has lived alongside Indians for half a century now, signals an offensive and dangerous over-exuberance of the powers that be to mollify China even at the cost of denying guests their right to expression and ignoring the self-respect of all Indians.
And the establishment does so at the cost of ridiculing itself by contradicting its own policies. If the country has offered refugee status to 1.5 lakh Tibetans in the last 51 years, it is obviously in recognition of Chinese repression in Tibet. Why then should they be denied peaceful expressions of their protest?
The blurred Free Tibet banners in the song Sadda Haq take the distasteful spinelessness of the Government of India in how it addresses the Tibet issue and engages with China to a whole new, and a very distressingly low level. Over the past few years, overt pressure has been applied on the Tibetan Government in exile to tone down its Tibetan Uprising Day observance and other protests. The stalling of protesting Tibetans [wishing to march to Tibet in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics] at Rangpo was one such instance and of late, there has been a noticeable trend to downplay the Dalai Lama’s presence in official [government] functions or groups. Take for example plans to revive the Nalanda University. Nalanda was not only the world’s first residential university, but also a centre of higher Buddhist learning from the fifth or sixth century CE to 1197 CE. A vast amount of what came to comprise Tibetan Buddhism stems from Nalanda teachers and traditions. And yet, the “mentor group” set up by the GoI for the ‘revival’ of the University does not include a single Tibetan even though the Dalai Lama should have been an obvious inclusion and the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in exile, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, a Senior Fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, made a desirable candidate as well. The group does, however, include a professor from Peking University.
Even if one were to excuse some Central Government measures as requirements of diplomacy, there is only so much that the authorities should be allowed to compromise. The latest kowtowing is also poorly timed as it coincides with an escalation in desperate forms of protests in Tibet and among the community in exile with a spate of self-immolations. The censor board’s prudishness at a time like this pulls us, as a nation, down to China’s level of intolerance. The Sadda Haq arbitration in favour of China is unacceptable for every self-respecting Indian irrespective of where they stand on the Tibet issue [there are after all no anti-China slogans but only pro-Tibet expressions in question here] because it signals a censorship which could easily extend to more domains and militates against every tenet of democracy and right to expression that India should stand for. There have been reports of offended Tibetans protesting the censor board move, but there has not been enough protest by lay Indians or debate in the mainstream media about the incident. The movie has already been released and it is unlikely that the Free Tibet banners will be ‘un-blurred’, but if the episode is not protested strongly enough the blurring tool will be activated to obscure free expression from many more mediums and over many more issues. What will distinguish the system here from China then?

1 comment:

  1. One of the Department of Sikkim Govt. entered Agreement with us in 2008 for supply of material @2% CST against Concessional form. Accordingly material was supplied and payment was received with 2% CST. Later understood they can not issue any concessional form from the Sales Tax Dept. Now our Sales Tax Dept. in Mumbai issue us notice to pay differential tax amount @10.5% .+ Interest + Penalty with Total of Rs. 26 Lacs. Dept of Sikkim Govt. refuse to pay amount payable to Sales Tax Dept. who may now seal our Bank Account and may be our SSI Factory shortly... Can cityzen of Sikkim raise voice and give us Justice..????

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