The several sounds of silence

Silence Death a resonant slogan from the 1990s used by many political movements over time encapsulates the essential nature of much political activism and protest no matter what the political complexion To be silent about injustice is to perpetrate injustice To not allow everyone a voice is to oppress them To not speak up for your rights is to choose your oppression To be political you must constantly use your right to express yourselfThe attacks on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo have led to much thinking of these issues of the limits and freedoms of expressionThe most strident voices felt nuance was a timewasting surrender to fundamentalism ironically oblivious of how fundamentalist this sounds To speak in stentorian absolutes imbues you with the uncompromising stance of the warrior the lsquoreal manrsquo vibe To pause in doubt is the same as being a sellout and waffler To the angry flower trembling with beautiful eloquent indignation all questions are apologist relativist weeds messing up a selfrighteous landscape They could all consider a new slogan Je Suis ArnabIllustrationAmit BandreSo suggestions of the disaffected context in which Charlie Hebdo functions were sometimes met with a sneerOutspokenness is associated with a kind of fearlessness mdash a characteristic often presented as being intrinsic not contextual In fact it can be either All utterances have a context If you refuse to acknowledge a context of speaker and spoken to then it sometimes feels like you would like to pretend that you too are out of the context of your privilege mdash of your gender or caste or class or connections And being silent about privilege perpetrates privilege just as silence about oppression can perpetrate oppression Many of us speak because we can partly be protected by a resilient web of privilege Interesting no how when you speak on behalf of someone who is silenced it is often you whose freedom to speak expands not the silenced onesThis was a truth all too sharply present in the case of the Tamil writer Perumal Murugan and his 2010 book Madhorubhagan recently published in English translation as One Part Woman The story of a childless couple who participate in a temple ritual where consensual sex between unconnected men and women is permitted in the hope of conceiving a child The publication of the English translation caused the RSS to burn copies of the book Reportedly now about 40 caste groups have asked the administration to ban the book besides threatening the writerThe administration has provided him no protection his students have been guarding him he ainrsquot gonna be saying Je Suis Rushdie anytime soon There is barely a murmur in the media regular or social Calling the writer for lsquopeace talksrsquo last week the police essentially tried to make him agree to the protestorrsquos demand of unconditional apology for a work of fictionA writer of fiction not working in English becomes painfully aware at such a point of the intricacies of privilege when most remain silent about his silencing He begins to understand his fearless speech will be in a cacaphonous wilderness So he writes a Facebook post ldquoPerumal Murugan the writer is dead As he is no God he is not going to resurrect himselfAs an ordinary teacher he will live as P Murugan Leave him alonerdquo Making of silence a palpable declaration something like deep protest he retreats A few people tweet about it One or two news shows happen Some of us order his book online and read it silently Maybe thatrsquos all thatrsquos possible in noisy times Paromita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at wwwparodevicomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper