Rationalising Cowardice: Preaching Tolerance While Tiptoeing Around The Intolerant

An old tweet by comedian Vir Das resurfaced on social media recently, and reignited a debate. Vir had tweeted that ”there are 12 major religions in the world. If you are willing to laugh at jokes about 11 of them but get offended when it’s your turn…you’re the problem, not jokes.”

This threat, on the face of it, could be written off as usual social media bluster. After all, many people say strange things under the cover of anonymity.

However, the history of violence against those who commit acts of blasphemy against Islam or its Prophet are well documented. The gruesome murders in France, which followed the satirical Charlie Hebdo cartoons, was a chilling message to the world: Commit blasphemy and you will die.

The author Salman Rushdie lives with one eye and multiple stab wounds because he wrote the Satanic Verses over 30 years ago. He was attacked in New York in 2022, decades after the original fatwa was issued. The message was clear: There is no forgiveness for blasphemy, ever.

Closer to home, three people were killed and others injured, for supporting Nupur Sharma, after her alleged blasphemous comments against the Prophet. One of the victim’s families got a note saying “Gustakh-e-Nabi ki ek saza, sar tan sey judaa.” (There is only one punishment for insulting the Prophet. Off with your head). The key message here was:  We will go after not just the original offender but even those who speak up for them.

We all know about these cases. These and others like them have drilled into all of us the consequences of mocking Islam. Even most comedians, who make a living out of being irreverent and pushing boundaries, dare not push this red line. Mockery is reserved, as Vir Das said, for the eleven major religions, because they don't threaten annihilation for hurt sentiments.

Appeasement of radical Islam is understandable. It is rooted in our basic need for safety, security, and protection. Most people are not willing to lose life and limb over a joke or a book. There are more important battles to fight.

What is more difficult to understand, however, are the pious lectures on tolerance & freedom of expression, to all the others.

Even more baffling is the casual equation of violence and extreme intolerance with milder forms of protests by others. Each time a Hindu, Christian, Sikh, or Jain protests against the mockery of their beliefs, or threatens a boycott of movies or books, they are clubbed with murderous radicals.

Remember the case where a few Hindu groups boycotted Fab India, when the brand appropriated Diwali by calling it Jashn-e-Riwaaz? Or when some Jains lodged a police complaint for the insult to their saint? Every time these situations arose, the so-called Liberals went on a moral sermon spree and labelled the protestors as fanatics. Interestingly,  the same lot often justified violence and murder by radical Islamists by harping on some  “provocation.”

What motivates this kind of irrationality and hypocrisy? After all, any intellectually honest and rational person would know that there is a clear distinction between legal protests (or even stray acts of vandalism) and murder. There is no comparison in terms of proportion.

To understand this phenomenon, we need to step back and look at some more key human needs. In addition to feeling safe, people like to feel good about themselves. This “feel good” factor comes from intangible things like respect, self-esteem, and confidence.

When a person appeases out of fear, they feel uncomfortable and powerless. Then they try to overcompensate in other ways, to get some semblance of control. In personal life, a classic example is the employee who gets kicked around at work and then comes home to bully his family, as it gives him an illusion of strength.

If we extend this principle to our society, people don’t like to admit that they are scared of radical Islam. This causes emotional discomfort and dents confidence and self-esteem. So people deny. They deflect. They resort to the “hall monitor” behaviour, where they try to correct the “safer communities” and lecture them on what to do. They pretend that they stand for higher values in order to feel worthy and superior.

Sadly, this is a charade. These are just silly stories people tell themselves, to make them feel better about their anxieties, their cognitive dissonance — the gap between values and actions, and their shame. It helps them to avoid confronting the fact that they are essentially cowards.