What outrage over piece comparing human shield incident to Jallianwala Bagh massacre says

Is the room for dissent shrinking in Narendra Modi's India? Is free speech under threat? The answer to these questions depends on who you are talking to and where they stand on the political and ideological spectrum. But the kind of unabashed government propaganda that one gets to see on Indian news channels today indicates something is clearly amiss. The CBI raid on the premises of the promoters of NDTV too sends worrying signals, without going into the merits of the case.

A case in point is an article published by The Wire written by Partha Chatterjee, social scientist, historian and a professor at United States' Columbia University. It was remarkable how people pounced on it, including those who proclaim to be "liberals", a word that has come to mean different things in the age of post-truth politics.

It isn't clear how many people had exactly read the 2,200-word article, where professor Chatterjee clearly articulates his opinion without resorting to any drama, before feeling compelled to pounce on it.

What has offended many is his daring comparison of the actions of Indian Army Major Leetul Gogoi, who got a Kashmiri shawl weaver, Farooq Ahmad Dar, tied to an Army jeep to manoeuvre through a restive and agitated crowd, with that of British General Reginald Dyer's in the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre that took 2,000 lives.

A couple of pro-establishment English news channels, which public intellectual Arun Shourie likened to "North Korean TV channels" recently, conducted primetime debates with angry commentators blasting the author and The Wire, calling them names.

But if you read the article, it is not only a logically-argued piece, but also a thought-provoking and thoroughly-researched one, written in beautiful prose. It seems nuance is losing currency in the present climate of bombastic debates where everything is defined in black and white. So, why is a section of the media hounding a divergent view?

American linguist and socio-political activist Noam Chomsky has an explanation: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." It seems certain institutions like the Army have suddenly assumed a divine hallow that renders them beyond criticism.

But isn't freethinking and free speech the true bedrock of a democratic country? How can ideas and divergent, non-conformist opinion threaten a powerful nation-state like India?

Soon after the article was published, senior editor Shekhar Gupta went on to describe the piece thus:

But if somebody is so offended with the comparison, why not counter it with an equally powerful rebuttal? Wouldn't that be the intellectual course of action to resort to, unlike a blanket denunciation?

In an exclusive interview to PTI, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat stoutly defended the actions of Major Gogoi and the decision to award him even as a court of inquiry was on. A few comments made by General Rawat were quoted by professor Chatterjee in his article:

"Adversaries must be afraid of you and at the same time your people must be afraid of you. We are a friendly army, but when we are called to restore law and order, people have to be afraid of us. Hence, innovative methods of dealing with violent crowds had to be devised with the future in mind."

To which, professor Chatterjee responds, "When does a nation's army start to believe that to preserve its authority, it must be feared by its own people?" Professor Chatterjee also raises serious questions on the eulogising of Israel in the defence discourse:

"Israel is, properly speaking, a settler colony that regards Palestinians as a hostile and rebellious other that must be subdued and kept apart. Is that what India's political leaders believe their relation must be to the people of Kashmir or Manipur or Nagaland? One can only hope that as a nation, we have not reached the edge of a slippery slope."

Professor Chatterjee raises many uncomfortable questions about Major Gogoi himself being given a chance to defend his actions in public even as the enquiry was on, and the unambiguous backing of the army chief and the political leadership.

He also wonders if this marks a certain shift in the relations between the Army and the government. He goes on to cite recent examples of retired army chiefs entering politics and appearing in public fora to echo the political line.

"This is being done, we are told, in order to give the armed forces their much deserved place of honour in society. What is not being realised is that there is only a small gap between a privileged place of honour and the paternalist claim to the power to punish, especially for a branch of the state that has an overwhelming superiority in the use of armed violence," professor Chatterjee warns.

If these perfectly rational and logical posers are making the powers that be uneasy, it is time to raise questions on the shrinking space for dissent and free speech.

It also raises fundamental questions about our democracy and the free press and the way it functions. Does a five-year cycle of elections make a country truly democratic?

Also read: Indian Army normalised war crime by awarding officer who used a Kashmiri as human shield