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Incandescent rage over a 63-year-old cartoon exposes the fragility of our 60-year-old Parliament-Kuldeep Kumar

The controversy over a cartoon in an NCERT textbook sends a chill down the spine as it shows the extent to which the culture of intolerance has eaten into the vitals of our democratic polity.

The cartoon in question shows B R Ambedkar sitting on a snail (Constitution) and flogging it while Jawaharlal Nehru too is brandishing a whip standing behind Ambedkar. It is clear that he is also aiming his whip at the snail.

The cartoon was drawn by the legendary K Shankar Pillai, one of India's best known and most revered cartoonists, and was published on August 28, 1949, in Shankar's Weekly. It was Shankar's satirical comment on the slow pace of Constitution-making process.

There is no evidence to show that either Nehru or Ambedkar and his followers found anything objectionable in this cartoon at the time of its publication.

It's hard to believe that anyone can interpret this cartoon to mean that Nehru was trying to whip Ambedkar, or that by seating Ambedkar on a snail-like Constitution, Shankar had tried to slight him.

But, then, those were the days of optimism as the newly-independent country was eagerly looking forward to becoming a republic with its own Constitution. The country had faced the horrible trauma of Partition and was fed up with the politics of intolerance. Values of democracy were in the air.

That's why, when the Parliament of independent and sovereign India started functioning, leaders of diverse political persuasions took its business with utmost seriousness and their behaviour in the two Houses was generally exemplary.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, unlike his successors, made every effort to be present in Parliament in all its sittings. Shouting slogans, jumping into the well of the House or obstructing legislative business was unheard of.

The general level of parliamentary debate was very high as the conduct of MPs was dignified. All these are things of the past became evident on Friday when leaders of BSP, SP, RJD, RPI, AIADMK, CPI and VCK forced adjournments in both Houses of Parliament over the issue of the 'offensive' Ambedkar cartoon.

The government did not take a minute to buckle under the combined pressure and Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal promptly offered an unconditional apology as also the promise to withdraw the textbook.

Not to be satisfied, leaders of these parties, led by BSP supremo Mayawati, demanded filing of criminal cases against those responsible for inclusion of the cartoon in the NCERT textbook.

Mayawati, in fact, gave an ultimatum that suitable action should be taken against the culprits or else... By the evening, two NCERT advisers - Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar - resigned. Both happen to be highly respected academics with social justice topping their personal as well as professional agendas.

In the early years of the 1950s, Nehru had said to the famous cartoonist, "Don't spare me, Shankar." At the height of his power and popularity, he knew the value of constructive criticism, satire and wit that make life so much more enjoyable.

Sure of himself, he did not have a brittle ego. However, our present-day leaders are ready to get offended at the drop of a hat. To gain sectional support, they are willing to go to any length.

Those who held the Hindutva brigade chiefly responsible for such mindless behaviour should sit up and notice that even the CPI, a party that once had the likes of Hiren Mukherjee, Bhupesh Gupta and S A Dange in its ranks, is not immune to this temptation as its destiny is being steered by the likes of D Raja these days.

It is sad that all this is happening in a country that boasts of an over 2,500-year-long tradition of shastrartha (intellectual discussion and debate) and is a secular and democratic republic.

Our Constitution gives us the right to free speech. It is true that no freedom is absolute and is subject to certain reasonable limits but, at the same time, it is also true that the freedom of expression cannot be curbed at the flimsiest excuse.

Yet, over the years, an atmosphere of intolerance has been created by political parties and religious organisations, making a rational discussion on contentious issues nearly impossible. Those who make a hue and cry about their 'hurt sentiments' should read Swami Dayanand's Satyarthaprakash wherein the indomitable sanyasin has brutally criticised every philosophy and religion that is incompatible with the Vedas.

Should it be banned? Should religious texts of Islam and Christianity be banned that criticised idol worship and, thus, hurt sentiments of the Hindus and the Buddhists? Should Kabir's and other saint-poets' sayings be banned as they ridicule and lambast the hypocrisy practiced by the followers of well-entrenched religions like Hinduism and Islam?

It was greatly embarrassing to see Kapil Sibal, a former teacher of history at the Delhi University, capitulating before the critics of the cartoon. Just a day earlier, Parliament was to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its first sitting, our parliamentarians showed to the entire world that they do not believe in a civilised, democratic discourse.

We are truly living in strange times when a professor can be arrested for making a cartoon of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and a 63-year-old cartoon can make two distinguished academics resign. And yet, Mayawati is not content with this.

In her bid to show that she is the real inheritor of Ambedkar's mantle, she has to be much more strident than any other Dalit leader. Moreover, what better way can there be to divert people's attention from the taxpayer's 86 crore that she spent on renovating her four residences?