South Asia Citizens Web

If publicly expressed sentiments are going to govern the censorship of each line, picture or cartoon, no text will ever get written. What the present controversy has done is strengthened the stranglehold of the Ministry on textbooks, invaded academic freedom and displayed political cowardice.

Appeasement is the hallmark of a weak state and dithering leadership. Once again, Pakistan is showing its helplessness in the face of those who carry guns and bombs. For a country alleged to have the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal, this is surely ironical.

We have been watching with deep dismay the events as they have unfolded on the floor of the Indian Parliament and outside. Uproar against an individual cartoon has now snowballed into a wide-ranging attack against the new NCERT textbooks. The office of one of the Advisors of the Political Science textbooks has been ransacked, the Political Science textbooks have been withdrawn from circulation, and the Government has resolved to conduct an inquiry into the role of those who sanctioned the inclusion of the offending material in the textbooks. Clearly what is at stake here is not just the life of cartoons on the pages of school textbooks.

Pervez Hoodbhoy speaking at the Conference India Pakistan Civil Society Review of Strategic Relations held in New Delhi, 29-31 March 2012

It is the apathy of the state and the lack of a standalone law, even after decades of honour killings, that deserves greater focus today. While we remind ourselves of instances where representatives of the state have condoned crimes against women and men in the name of honour, sided with traditional councils for petty political benefit and got away with it, we must also raise our voice in support of better institutional frameworks that enable protection of victims and conviction of the guilty. We owe it to the countless victims, to ourselves and to our Constitution to create an overarching law, but more importantly, a social support structure that would protect India’s young women and men, and give them a chance for self-realisation. We need to urge Parliament to pass the Prevention of Crimes in the Name of Honour and Tradition Bill, 2010, and implement its premise of according “all persons, including young persons and women, with the right to control their own lives, a right to liberty and freedom of expression, and a right of association, movement and bodily integrity”.