Commentary/Vir Sanghvi
All that stuff about respect for Indian women and
protection of Indian culture is complete nonsense
Which brings me to the immediate provocation for this column:
The Miss World contest.
I would not normally waste your time by discussing this non-issue
-- after all if the whole country celebrates when Aishwarya Rai
wins in Sun City, how can we complain if the same contest is held
in Bangalore? But the opposition to Miss World seems to me to
be a symbol of something more serious; a sickness, if you can
call it that, in our society.
Clearly, the protesters have no record of objecting as strenuously
to other beauty contests. If the objection is that such competitions
violate the chastity of Indian maidenhood, then the proper contests
to picket is Miss India or Miss Bangalore. That's when Indian
girls are put on parade. Miss World will have only one Indian
contestant; the rest will be foreigners.
So, all that stuff about respect for Indian women and protection
of Indian culture is complete nonsense. A country that hails Sushmita
and Aishwarya as role models can't now get self-righteous about
the global contests that raised them to these heights.
Why then are the protesters doing it?
Two reasons. One: for the publicity. Nobody had heard of most
of these people before they discovered this issue. And those who
had a certain local notoriety (i e, the fellow who keeps trashing
the KFC outlet) now hope to get international exposure.
If they had picketed the Miss Bangalore show, nobody would have
cared. But this is an international extravaganza. And besides,
Amitabh Bachchan is involved. As everybody -- from Shatrughan
Sinha to V P Singh has discovered -- there's no surer way of
staying in the headlines than by taking potshots at Bachchan.
But it is the second reason that concerns me more. The threat
to disrupt the Miss World show is a manifestation of a growing
illiberal and intolerant trend in our society.
The logic is: I don't like it, so I'll deny everybody else the
right to like it.
Whether it is the ban on The Satanic Verses, the campaign against
Mani Ratnam's Bombay or the uproar over Husain's paintings, the
symptoms are the same. We are in danger of turning into a society
where people measure their clout by their ability to deny other
people their freedoms.
The opponents of Miss World have a right to their views -- even
if I think that many of them are cynical self-publicists. And
they have the right to move the courts or to use other legal means
to oppose the contest.
But they have no right to disrupt it; no right to threaten to
cause chaos; and no right to terrorise those attending the pageant.
Unfortunately, we have become a soft state in which nobody stands
up for other people's rights. Not only do the vandals get away
with it but they also become national figures in the process.
Miss World, with its parade of bimbettes all of whom say that
they will use their breasts to promote world peace, may not seem
like a big deal. But the principles involved are crucial.
And if we can't stand up for little freedoms, we might as well
kiss the big ones goodbye.
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