Casting aspersions

Prof Kancha Ilaiah, a scholar and writer with a Telangana origin, essayed role of British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie with his small booklet on Vysyas – Samajika Smugglarlu Komatollu (Vysyas are social smugglers).

Barring the revolutionary balladeer Gaddar and former Chief Secretary of the undivided state, Kaki Madhava Rao, none from the particular social and literary groups appeared to has come to his rescue. A Dalit poet, writer and journalist described Ilaiah as a ‘Bahujan Thogadia’ (crusader of Hindu nationalism at the helm in the Viswa Hindu Parishad) with an appetite for wedging a divide between the communities

The Professor has been subjected to hounding by certain sections as Rushdie faced Fatwa from Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious leader of Iran. The Vysyas, a business community, in the two Telugu states, rose above the regional barriers to protest, burn the copies of the book and his effigies in almost every nook and corner. The demand for banning the book and punishing him becomes shriller day by day as how it happened in the case of Rushdie for his controversial book “Satanic Verses.”

Leaders from the AP branch of Arya Vysya Sangham a few days back met Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and stressed the need to put an end to the ‘hate campaign’ unleashed by Ilaiah against the community by taking immediate steps to withdraw the copies of the book from circulation.

There is no let-up in protests in the last one week or so. The social media platforms have been flooded with the posts, rebuking the writer.

The very title of the booklet looked offensive to the community. In the book, the writer attempted to highlight the alleged moral turpitude of the community in their business activities by committing malpractices like adulteration and under weighment. In another booklet, Ilaiah incurred the wrath of Bramhins by giving his write-up the title “Bramhalu ‘Samajika Dongalu’ (Social Thieves). Never in the past did this sort of outrage from any section of people seemingly rattle the social fabric like this on a book in the undivided state.

In fact, these booklets are part of his research work titled “India beyond Hindutva.” Although the Professor, presently working as Director of the Centre of Inclusive and Exclusive Studies Programme (CIESP) at Moulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad, claimed to have brought out his research work as a social scientist by exercising his right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Indian Constitution,

he is, however, accused of misusing the right by inciting hatred in the society and triggering caste divide at the expense of social harmony. The police in Telangana and Andhra areas received a flood of complaints from the protesters with a demand to register a case against Ilaiah on the charge of promoting enmity among different groups under the section 153 (A) of the IPC. The writer too lodged a complaint in a police station in Hyderabad, alleging he received threat calls from some people and sought protection for his life.

The demand coming from people for banning a book and punishing an author is somewhat a rare feature in the two states. On the contrary, there were instances where concerned citizens joined hands with the writers and poets to denounce the state’s indulgence in banning books.

The government banned “Mareechika,” authored by Sahitya Academy award recipient Vasireddy Sita Devi, in 1982 on the charge of glorifying Naxal movement. In the late 70s, a short story titled “Chiranjeevi” written by Cherabanda Raju of Viplava Rachayithala Sangham (Virasam) too met the same fate on the same charge. Gnan Pith award recipient Ravuri Bharadwaj was fined by a court in Tenali for his book “Alavatupadda pranam.” When he was penniless, an editor and publisher paid the fine on his behalf and bailed him out.

The activists from the Arya Vysya Sangham assert that the Professor’s insinuations against their community are baseless and out of ground realities.

Even as the author in the book said that there is no active participation of Vysyas in producing goods and services and they have a little role in different spheres of society, the community leaders reminded him of the role played by Mahatma Gandhi, hailing from Baniya community in the freedom movement, while claiming to be his descendants. Similarly, they recalled how Potti Sriramulu, their caste man, laid down his life for formation of the linguistic state of Andhra in 1953.

Although Ilaiah seeks to identify himself as a Dalit writer in spite of his different caste lineage (Kuruma or Yadava), he seems to be waging a lone battle as a maverick to defend himself from the mounting offensive.

Barring the revolutionary balladeer Gaddar and former Chief Secretary of the undivided state, Kaki Madhava Rao, none from the particular social and literary groups appeared to has come to his rescue. A Dalit poet, writer and journalist described Ilaiah as a ‘Bahujan Thogadia’

(crusader of Hindu nationalism at the helm in the Viswa Hindu Parishad) with an appetite for wedging a divide between the communities. A professor from the Ilaiah’s own university with a Dalit background too did not want to defend him, saying “such an action will not augur good to the
society.”