Intolerance as virtue

For a city which derives its name from the Sanskrit root “Punya nagari” (city of virtues), one quality that seems to have left Pune untouched is tolerance.

The latest example of this came on May 12 when four youths, claiming to be members of an outfit called the Republican Panthers, attacked and ransacked the office of Suhas Palshikar, adviser to NCERT and head of the department of political science and public administration, University of Pune.

The background of the attack was the storm over the Ambedkar cartoon which had been part of a class XI NCERT book since 2006 till it was branded unacceptable by some humourless MPs. Palshikar had resigned from his NCERT post in the ensuing uproar but the attackers apparently thought he deserved stricter punishment.

For a city which houses some of the country’s biggest institutions of higher learning and which has produced leaders and reformers like Bal Gangadhar Tilak,  Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Dhondo Keshav Karve and Jyotibha Phule, among others, Pune’s growing culture of prejudice and narrow mindedness can be read as an alarming text on where the country is headed.

Sadanand More, professor at the University of Pune’s department of philosophy and a Sahitya Academy awardee however believes that the city’s intolerance is not of recent origin. “It has been the hallmark of this city since decades. The anti-Brahmin movement of the 1920s saw the Brahmins supporting Bal Gangadhar Tilak and the non-Brahmins openly attacking his views”, he says. 

More adds, “When Prahlad Keshav Atre (13 August, 1898–13 June, 1969), popularly known as Ä€chārya Atre a political leader, a movie producer–director–script writer and a noted orator criticised Veer Savarkar in his weekly  Navyug, he was attacked by Savarkarites.”

However Pune’s modern protestors seem to be propelled by aims which are far less spectacular. They use political retaliation (mostly against non-conforming academics and artists) only for publicity and electoral gains.

Consider these incidents for example. In 2004, over 150 activists of the little-known 'Sambhaji Brigade', affiliated to the Maratha Seva Sangh, ransacked the renowned Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (Bori) for helping James Laine, an Amercian scholar who wrote `Shivaji: A Hindu king in Islamic India.' Laine’s book, which questions the dominant narratives on Shivaji, was decried for being ‘highly objectionable’ and the Sanskrit scholar who had helped Laine was rewarded with a blackened face. That original manuscripts, rare artifacts and out of print books were also destroyed in the attack. In December 2010, the office of the city’s Mayor was attacked and his chair thrown onto the road from a window on the fourth floor after a statue of Dadoji Kondadev, considered the ‘guru’ of Shivaji, was removed from the Lal Mahal and placed in a municipal garden. This too was the fall out of dissenting historical viewpoints on whether or not Dadoji was Shivaji’s teacher. 

Kumar Saptarshi, president of the Maharashtra Gandhi Smarak Nidhi and a  former MLA says that the city was a hot bed of conflict for long. “What is happening in Pune is not new. Historically this city is known for its intolerance. There is intolerance between the Brahmins and the Dalits and between the Hindus and the Muslims. There is intolerance even among the different sects of Brahmins. The Chitapavan Brahmins (Konkanastha Brahmins) who are predominant in Pune do not see eye to eye with the Deshastha Brahmins and look down upon them”, he points out.

Saptarishi should know for in 2003 his home was ransacked by some young men who had taken umbrage to his comments on Veer Sarvarkar.

Interestingly, the dominant Chitapavan Brahmins, vocally critical of other viewpoints, are not the city’s original inhabitants and are historically held to have come from overseas and settled in the Konkan region of Maharashtra. Dhondo Keshav Karve, Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar and other social reformers came from this community.  As the city’s skyline gets higher and malls and multiplexes replace the ‘wadas’ or 16th century style tenements, patience levels fall lower, even in the common man.   Thus ‘patis’ (signboards) outside homes in areas like Sadashivpeth, Mangalwarpeth and Rastapeth read, “If you spit, your teeth will be knocked out” or “Don’t park vehicles here or your tyre will be punctured”. Written in Marathi, many a non-Marathi has found himself at the receiving end for non compliance.

Saptarishi says that intolerance is growing because the state fuels it indirectly. “More shocking than the intolerance of Dalits who indulged in violence over the cartoon issue is the meek submission of the government and its hasty decision to withdraw the cartoon from the textbook”, he says.

Mangesh Tendulkar, noted Marathi cartoonist agrees that the people of Pune are as intolerant to criticism as they are to imagined slights. “Cartooning is a beautiful language of lines. There is nothing defamatory about it. The government’s knee-jerk reaction to remove it from the text book is unwarranted. Why did the Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray and the MNS leader Raj Thackeray, both cartoonists themselves, remain silent over the issue”, he questions. Good question to ask  if you are a cartoonist yourself.