TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ At periodic intervals over the past three years, a section of India has been agitated by what has come to be known as the ‘intolerance’ debate. The process began shortly before the outcome of the 2014 general election when it seemed that Narendra Modi was likely to emerge as the winner.
With small breaks – as during the furore over demonetization and the Uttar Pradesh assembly election – the controversy has been ongoing and there seems to be no conclusion in sight. There are many facets to this debate.
There are many facets to this debate. During the 2014 election campaign, there were a number of ‘intellectuals’, both in India and overseas, who expressed concern that the ‘idea of India’ as bequeathed by the freedom movement and the Constitution would be irrevocably subverted if Modi was elected. In the last leg of the campaign, the Congress made this defence of the ‘idea of India’ an election issue.
Subsequently, and particularly during the Delhi assembly election, a protest against the alleged truncation of freedom and rising intolerance saw a number of eminent people return their literary awards. It is more than a coincidence that those returning their awards were mostly those linked in some way or another to the broad Congress and Left ecosystem.
