If you read this newspaper last Thursday you would have seen your humble columnist’s name splashed across this page in six columns. Used as I am to seeing it only in the minuscule type of bylines it made me feel like quite a star. What had I done to deserve such celebrity, I thought, bleary-eyed after yet another long night of festivity in this season of weddings? Had I won some award? No such luck. All I had done was get so badly under the skin of the editors of Communalism Combat that I had provoked a diatribe. So incensed were Javed Anand and Teesta Setalvad by the paragraph on them in this column two weeks ago that their rejoinder turned into a rant. ‘‘If a high-flying columnist such as Tavleen Singh were to limit herself to peddling prejudice, paranoia and sheer naivete as informed opinion, who are we to stand between her and her precious constituency? But when basic journalistic ethics are given the go-by even while a facade of objectivity is maintained, when insinuation is paraded as argument, when facts are selectively hand picked to dress up fiction, Ms Singh’s bluff needs to be called’’. Phew! What prose. Why bother writing with such passion against a pathetic, prejudiced, paranoid and naive creature like me?For my part I believe in dispassionate debate. So I am going to answer the charges they make. They charge me with making ‘‘insinuations’’ about their funding, with singling them out as anti-national, with ‘‘cowardly’’ journalism, with accusing them of being concerned only with Muslim victims of communalism and with ‘‘echoing’’ Narendra Modi’s demand for an inquiry into NGO funding.Let us start with ‘‘insinuations’’. There were no insinuations. I was clear that I found Teesta’s ‘‘high-flying’’ ways questionable. When Zaheera Sheikh charged that Teesta had exploited her for monetary gain I remembered that people often wondered about Communalism Combat’s funding and saw it as an NGO with an agenda. Inquiries with the Charity Commissioner of Maharashtra revealed that they were not listed as an NGO, so I rang Javed Anand and asked why not. He said it was because they were a private limited company. I asked him outright if he would like to answer the charge that Communalism Combat was funded with Saudi money. No insinuation there. The reason I asked was because an editor I know was once asked to edit a magazine on communalism and refused when it was revealed that money for the enterprise was coming from the Gulf. As for my having called Communalism Combat ‘‘anti-national’’, I never have. I detest the expression. I believe, though, that it made too much out of Hindu fundamentalism and that is what I wrote. I believe also that people like Teesta and Javed get into dangerous territory when they equate Hindu fundamentalism with radical Islam. One of their own headlines speaks for itself ‘Denying a shared past’ (RSS and Tableeghi Jamaat two sides of the same coin). I believe they are as different as Hinduism and Islam.Islam has a book written by God, it has a messenger of God to whom that book was revealed and who enjoins followers to go out and preach Allah’s word and convert the ‘‘unbelievers’’ gently if possible but violently if necessary. Hinduism, whose real name is Sanatan Dharam, does not believe it is the final word on anything or that it was blessed with the last Prophet. It believes everyone has the right to believe what they like and worship as they will. Another problem I have with crusaders against ‘‘communalism’’ is that by banging on about secularism and communalism they distract attention from the real issue, which is the justice system. The only way to stop hate crimes is severe punishment for those who commit them. It is about justice never being done and not about that uniquely Indian, and much used, word, communalism.Politicians have long used secularism and communalism to distract attention from their inability to solve our real problems. But it is much easier to stir up religious and ethnic passions than to provide a billion people with drinking water, electricity, jobs and housing. Isn’t that what Modi did in Gujarat? Which brings me to the last two charges Teesta and Javed levelled against me: that I was ‘‘echoing’’ Modi and that I was ‘‘insinuating’’ that they were only concerned with Muslim victims of ethnic violence.The first I am not going to dignify with a response and as for the second I stand by my insinuation. Along with their tirade they published a sample of Communalism Combat stories to prove their fairness. On that basis I can bet that less than 10 per cent of their stories deal with violence against Hindus and Sikhs but I am ready to accept their offer of an ‘‘honest debate’’. What I don’t understand is why they would want to talk to someone who is prejudiced, paranoid and naive.write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com
