In an interview, blogger Avay Shukla speaks about the type of country India has become in the last decade. While discussing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he asks, “What moral value does he [Modi] stand for other than winning elections and staying in power?”
“We have become a country of beasts, not so much of the lion and wolf variety as of the porcine one… our collective social values have all but collapsed into a stinking pool of prejudices, ignorance, triumphalism and religious intolerance,” he said.
Speaking about the way India has changed over the last decade, he said, “Hatred, majoritarianism, intolerance, lack of accountability, religious fanaticism… [all] have been steadily spreading its poisonous tentacles as the BJP has consolidated itself and its rule.” For this he explicitly blames the BJP and, more importantly, the Modi government.
“If there is one quality Indians cannot be accused of, it’s the ability to be sensitive, and the higher up the pecking order or social ladder one is, the more insensitive one is,” he added.
Explaining his point, he says that we take offence when a man in UP wraps non-vegetarian food in a newspaper containing pictures of Hindu Gods, or when a person in Assam dresses up as Shiva in a street play protesting against inflation, or when bail is rejected for tweeting a photograph from a 1983 film by a renowned director, or when an MP is harassed for saying her Goddess eats meat and drinks alcohol.
He also spoke about Shah Rukh Khan while talking about his new book Disappearing Democracy: Dismantling of a Nation.
“Shah Rukh Khan lacks a public conscience… he’s scared to speak,” he said.
Elaborating on his point, he said, “Shah Rukh Khan has chosen to remain silent these past few years in the face of this government’s every increasing excesses, hesitant to take a stand, refusing to be counted, hoping that his amoral camouflage of an abject neutrality will make him invisible and allow him to continue to mint his millions undisturbed.”
He compares Khan to Javed Akhtar, Naseeruddin Shah, Deepika Padukone, Swara Bhaskar and Aamir Khan. He says while they have spoken out when their religion was attacked, when their films were banned and on issues like the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens, Khan has not.
“They continue to speak up. Not, however, Shah Rukh Khan – not one word of sympathy, not one gesture of support for the victims, not one whisper of condemnation of the lumpen elements or an autocratic government on a majoritarian high,” he added.
“Far too many people these days, in the false security of their cocoons, choose to ignore what is happening around them or simply keep quiet,” he said in the introduction of his book.
Asked if his book is a wake-up call, Shukla replied bluntly, “it is”.
