Raghuram Rajan, Narayana Murthy join debate on intolerance

A day after Moody’s warned Prime Minister Narendra Modi to check growing intolerance in the country, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan also stressed on the need to create an environment in which ideas can flourish. Saying that the right to question and challenge must be protected, he observed, “resort to bans will chill all debate”.

The RBI governor was instantly attacked by senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, who claimed that “Rajan had made a mess out of RBI” and demanded that he be “immediately sacked by the Prime Minister”. However, the criticism of growing intolerance in the country did not stem with the RBI governor, as Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy also expressed concern on Saturday that there was considerable fear in the minds of the minority in India and wanted governments to bring back the sense of confidence in them.

President Pranab Mukherjee, meanwhile, again called for preserving the pluralistic character of the country even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that unity, peace and harmony was the first condition if India is to move forward and attain new heights of development.

In a direct attack, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi claimed that there was a “diabolical design” behind the spread of intolerance. She said that the Congress “will fight divisive forces”.Music conductor Zubin Mehta also joined the chorus, saying: “Our writers, our filmmakers do have a chance of speaking their minds. We should not ostracise them.

Otherwise we will become a dictatorship, a cultural dictatorship and that is inadmissible.” While the Modi government repeatedly came under attack over growing incidents of intolerance, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad tried to give a twist by saying that “so-called secularists are trying to give communal colour to such incidents to defame the Prime Minister and the BJP at a time when elections are being held at Bihar”. The RSS mouthpiece Organiser, in its editorial, went a step ahead by stating that “unfortunately, proponents of tolerance are attacking this very spirit of Hinduness with the ideology of political intolerance.

Perhaps, they have to transcend from secularism to dharma level to realise the importance of acceptance.”The Congress, on the other hand, claimed that such incidents have “vitiated” the country’s atmosphere and targeted the Prime Minister for “keeping a maun vrat” over the growing intolerance in the country. Speaking at the convocation of IIT Delhi, the RBI governor said actions that physically harm anyone or show verbal contempt for a particular group, so that they damage the group’s participation in the marketplace for ideas, should certainly not be allowed.

“Possibly, but a quick resort to bans will chill all debate as everyone will be anguished by ideas they dislike. It is far better to improve the environment for ideas through tolerance and mutual respect,” he said. Mr Rajan also maintained that “tolerance can take the offence out of a debate and instil respect”. He added: “If I go berserk every time a particular button is pressed, rebels are tempted to press the button, while mischief-makers indeed do so.”

He said: “But if I do not react predictably, and instead ask button-pressers to explain their concerns, rebels are forced to do the hard work of marshalling arguments. So, rebels do not press the button frivolously, while the mischief-makers who abound in every group are left without an easy trigger.”

Infosys founder Murthy, while saying that he was “not a politician” and “not interested in politics”, he felt that the “reality today is that there is considerable fear in the minds of the minority in India”.

Speaking to a TV channel, he said that the first priority “of this government, or for that matter any government, both at the Central level and the state level, is to bring back the confidence, the energy, the enthusiasm, the trust in the minds of every Indian that this is our country, I have all the rights here, I am very safe here and therefore I will work towards the betterment of India.” For him a country can only progress, even economically, only when “there is no distrust, no fear, unless the majority community doesn’t oppress the minority community, doesn’t want the minority community to do what it wants.”