Is sandalwood smuggler Veerappan the problem? Or Ajmal Kasab?
Narendra Modi has been compared to Hitler before. Directly by Digvijaya Singh in fact. And indirectly by Rahul Gandhi. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi compared Modi to “popularly elected dictators” like Idi Amin, Hitler, Mussolini and Zia ul Haq.
The principal of a government polytechnic in Kunnamkulam and six others were booked for printing and distributing a college magazine that showed Modi in a collage of 13 “negative faces”. Image courtesy: Twitter
But while BJP leaders cried foul no one was charged under IPC sections 500, 501, 504, 153, 120 and 34 for that.
Times are changing.
The principal of a government polytechnic in Kunnamkulam and six others were booked for printing and distributing a college magazine that showed Modi in a collage of 13 “negative faces”.
His companions in negativity include Osama bin Laden, George W Bush, Ajmal Kasab, Prabhakaran, Hitler and Veerappan.
First of all this being an SFI-controlled magazine, the choices reflect more predictable knee-jerk ideology than robust historical fact.
Poor Lyndon B Johnson might have mired his country in the Vietnam War but he also was the American president who pushed through civil rights laws at great political cost. But there he is in the negative faces gallery alongside Osama bin Laden. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, executed by the Bolsheviks finds pride of place in the top row of the rogues gallery but though his enemies did call him Nicholas the Bloody more Red leaders like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot with far bloodier hands don’t find a spot in the polytechnic’s pantheon. And Prabhakaran is a prime example of the fact that one man’s terrorist can be another man’s freedom fighter.
There are obviously questions to be raised as to what kind of guidelines a college magazine has about publishing collages like that featuring the country’s political leaders leave alone the prime minister. Apparently the magazine was released in February when Modi was not yet the prime minister but it was distributed this month. Student editor Praveen Kumar’s defence that “they had no intention to malign (Modi)” is a rather feeble one.
But the larger question remains. Just because Narendra Modi is now the Prime Minister is it a punishable crime to think of him as a “negative face”? Given the names he has been called in the course of his career, “negative face” is fairly insipid as slurs go. George W Bush, his companion in the gallery got called all kinds of names, including war criminal, while president of the United States by those who opposed him. Also is just putting him in a gallery of “negative faces” tantamount to saying he is comparable to Ajmal Kasab, a comparison that is just ludicrous anyway?
The whole poster is a ridiculous ahistorical mishmash. And the BJP has every right to protest the inclusion of Narendra Modi in that line-up and in time-honoured tradition burn copies of the magazine.
But to book the students, the principal and the printer on charges that include provocation to incite rioting is also over the top. Just because we are a country where vigilantes are happy to riot every time they sense they scent some political dividends does not mean we have to interpret everything through that lens.
As I said before there is nothing new about Modi and the Hitler comparison which has always felt more hysterical than historical.
The real problem here is different.
Then it was Candidate Modi. Now it’s PM Modi. And no one wants to take any chances. Mind you, no one is accusing the PMO of having strong-armed Trichy police into taking action. Apparently a social worker filed the actual complaint.
And perhaps just as importantly in the earlier instances those were words. And these are images. And as we all know a picture is worth a 1000 words. And in this case with 12 notorious luminaries in the collage like some kind of pin-up calendar of infamy – that’s 12,000 words. An image remains imprinted on our consciousness long after the prattle of a Digvijaya Singh has evaporated.
This is a case of a huge hullabaloo over what in the end is rather ridiculous poster assembled by an obviously politically blinkered students union. The high-powered police reaction to it actually gives this student magazine more respect that it deserves. Just because an SFI-controlled magazine in a polytechnic in Kerala puts Nathuram Godse and American general William Westmoreland from the Vietnam War in the same row does not mean that you can really compare Gandhi's assassin with the man behind the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. However full points for testing the Indian public with Westmoreland, hardly a household name or face in India. But while this whole get-up might have value for quizzers, it fails even as hard-hitting political commentary.
But the right to freedom of expression should protect even the stupid. It does not come with a stupidity exception.
For those who are interested and of a quizzing bent here is a quick guide to the entire baker’s dozen.
Top Row – Veerappan, Nathuram Godse, Tsar Nicholas II, General William Westmoreland
2nd Row – Lyndon B,. Johnson, Osama bin Laden, Ajmal Kasab
3rd Row – Adolf Hitler, V, Prabhakaran, Benito Mussolini
4th Row – George W. Bush, Narendra Modi, Louis XVI
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