Rabindranath Tagore’s seminal poem, Where the Mind is Without Fear could become a rallying cry for the world we live in, where its keepers of knowledge and progenitors of ideas are under threat. We seem to be entering the dark ages. And there is no time like the present to remember these lines:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high/Where knowledge is free/ Where the world has not been broken up into fragments/ By narrow domestic walls/ Where words come out from the depth of truth/ Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection/ Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way/ Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit/ Where the mind is led forward by thee/ Into ever-widening thought and action/ Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
And this is not a call for us or our neighbours alone, it is a cry out to a world where freedom is becoming an increasingly dirty word.
The opening message on 42-year-old blogger, writer and US-based bio-engineer Avijit Roy’s website www.mukto-mona.com is simple. It reads “We are united in our grief and we remain undefeated.” Mukto Mona means a free mind in Bengali and this radical liberal author and blogger’s website raised questions, gave vent to scepticism and opened up space for atheistic debates. Last week, a heinous crime took place in Dhaka.
Avijit Roy and his partner Rafida Ahmed Banna were attacked by two machete-wielding attackers as they were on their way back from the book fair where Roy was discussing his latest book, The Virus of Faith.
While Avijit was hacked to death, Rafida was grievously injured and continues to battle for her life.
While this incident was condemned across the world, it is the latest in a series of attacks against freedom of speech by religio-political hardliners across the world. From the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France to Perumal Murugan’s book being denounced by fundamentalist Hindu outfits in South India and now, this violent killing of the Bangaldeshi-American atheist blogger whose only crime was to champion liberal secular writing.
Despite having received death threats, little did Roy know that he would be a victim of the extremism inspired by misappropriated and misguided religious beliefs as tom-tommed by extremist groups.
This is part of a deep-rooted malaise that threatens unfettered human existence by violating this most basic right of them all, the freedom of choice. This choice to adhere to or reject a religion, to decide where we stand politically, morally and aesthetically in the world today is our one trait that defines us as a race.
While writers and intellectuals in Bangladesh, India and abroad have staged protests and expressed their solidarity with the deceased writer, the issue is one that should be taken up by all and not only those who wield the power of words.
As Mahfuz Anam, the editor and publisher of the Bangladeshi English language newspaper, Daily Star wrote in his editorial, “Today, we Bangladeshis are all, by our nature, culture and religion, Mukto-Mona”, it is up to every one of us to make sure we can live in and leave behind a world where the mind is indeed without fear.