on 'Hindu' politics and art censorship.

Prashant Jha lays it out.  Reinforces my own earlier take on the Politics of the Hindu Raj . 


Kathmandu’s local administration behaved pathetically by giving the hooligans a patient hearing; deciding to seal the gallery without giving the other side a chance to present their side of the story; and then lecturing artists about what should constitute contemporary art.

Instead, the government should have treated it as a law and order issue, and put all those who issued the death threat behind bars. They were inciting violence, and had gone against fundamental tenets of Nepal’s new constitutional order, including freedom of expression, liberty, and secularism. As Amish Mulmi pointed out in a passionate piece on these pages, giving in is not an option. The politics of appeasement will only strengthen the religious extremists.


All of this has forced populist Hindu right-wing leaders in Nepal to carve their own space. They have an interest in exaggerating the threat of secularism to Hinduism, the extent of Christian conversion while under-estimating the failures of the Hindu order, the increase in Muslim population, the instances of cow slaughter, or in this case, the potential of an art work to ‘hurt’ Hindu sentiments. With little space in the political mainstream, and limited organisation, threats and vandalism are their preferred political methods.


http://ekantipur.com/2012/09/19/opinion/offended-hegemony/360437.html