Bloggers and journalists on the right of the political spectrum are protesting that Muthalik’s and the Ram Sene’s actions should not be conflated with either Hinduism or Hindutva and are objecting to the term “Hindu Taliban.” These writers are also distancing themselves from Yeduryappa’s statements. I make a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva, as I do between the terms Islamic and Islamist, and I think it is a moot point about whether such incidents can be attributed to the rise of Hindutva, but that is not the point of this post.

As someone with “liberal left” leanings, I object to my opinions being lumped with those of NDTV and other big media houses. I object to the term Talibanisation, because in it’s very sensationalism it distracts from the all too frequent horrors of being a woman in India, which should be the main issue here. We get nowhere, comparing ourselves to the lowest common denominator. There are other reasons we should object:

Whenever there is an incident in India that involves women (and that receives attention), it becomes an argument about which religion is the more “fundamentalist,” who said what and when, in protest at which incident, often argued by men from different communities, of the geriatric politician/cleric/self-appointed moral custodian variety, from Shah Bano to Mangalore, rather than about the rights of the woman herself. A lot of us women get co-opted into this process, allowing it to become a question of protecting our religious identities.

It is now being argued that the government kept quiet when Taslima Nasreen was attacked, that the “secular” media was complicit in this. But there were a range of voices from across the “liberal left” who might otherwise disagree with each other, who protested at the way she was being treated, more than once, with damning criticisms of the CPM government in Bengal. I have only linked to a couple here. None of these “liberal lefties” have much love for the actions of the media or the government. To lump everyone with views that are “liberal left” into one category and apply the one size fits all sticker of “pseudo-secular” is as disingenuous as characterising all those with right wing political opinions as Ram Sainiks.

The “left” is a vast category, with lefts, rights, centres, liberals and illiberals of its own. There are huge disagreements amongst people on the “left.” One has to look no further than the issue of Nandigram.

Furthermore, the various “lefts” have a running battle with the media. There are leftist blogs dedicated to dissecting what the media comes up with, and they do not reserve their criticism for papers that support the right like the Pioneer, but take issue with most big media houses from the Hindustan Times, to the Indian Express to NDTV. To therefore think, that all on the “left” or all “liberals” or all those who believe in secularism are in accordance with the ill-thought out reports of our major newspapers and channels, or even consider them secular, is incorrect.

And here I am, wasting time writing about the right, the liberal left and the media, instead of what can be done to make India a safer place for women. For ever shall we be stuck, in our polarised views of the world, instead of changing it.

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