Sometimes the questions being posed in the present can only be answered by revisiting the past. And the past I am referring to here belongs to one of the bloodiest bloodbath in the human history, aka the Indian Partition, that left more than a million dead and left many more millions displaced in one of the biggest mass migrations in human history. On both counts and on both sides of the border, the wounds are still fresh and oozing. And it would be childish to claim otherwise. Which is why the controversy that erupted over the portrait of Jinnah hanging on the student’s union hall is not surprising.
On the one hand, we can argue in favour of freedom of expression and individual liberties, we cannot, however, rule out that given the flimsy fabric which binds a peaceful society together, we should err on the side of caution. For a single spark can create a conflagration that would become impossible to handle. After all, there is not much that we need to do to create that single spark. Even an accidental rubbing of two stones would suffice and become the catalyst to a communal conflagration. Do we really want that?!?
Of course, on the other hand, we can argue in favour of historical facts. For starters, Jinnah had received a lifetime student union membership prior to Indian independence and Indian partition. Secondly, the portrait itself that has sparked the controversy was actually hung in the year 1938 itself as per the reply sent by the AMUSU President, Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani in response to the BJP MP, Satish Gautam’s letter. Thus, if we have not removed his enrolment certificate from the Bombay High Court museum, why then do we want to tamper with history?!?
Forever, I cannot help but wonder about the timing of the controversy. If we had a problem with the portrait of Jinnah, hanging on the student union wall, should we have waited 80 years to make a fuss? And if the portrait did not bother anyone for the last 80 years, why does it bother us now?!? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the million dollar question which would invariably take you to back to the future and the upcoming 2019 general elections. What perfect timing!
Anyway, forget utopia, even if the world was inhabited by a slightly more logical race, we could argue in favour of retaining the portrait and not giving in to sentiments. And while humans may want to kid themselves on their intellectual prowess and capacity; after all, that is what distinguishes us humans from other animals and helps us assert our superiority. The grim reality still remains that our emotional responses get triggered faster as compared to our cognitive responses.
And when you think of the collective impact of 1.2 billion emotional responses, irrespective of whether they are in favour or against the hanging of the portrait, it should be a cause for concern. Thus, there are no rights or wrongs here; there are only a bunch of emotional human beings who may pose a bigger threat than that portrait that hangs on the AMU student union wall.
