BENGALURU: Referring to mob lynchings across the country and issue of abuses and threats on social media, Supreme Court lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan termed the current situation worse than that of the Emergency period.
Speaking at a literary meet on tolerance at Central College here on Saturday, Bhushan slammed the clampdown of dissent in different forms. “What our country faces today is nothing short of an existential threat to civilisation itself. We see mobs lynching old defenceless men and women. People have stopped differentiating between truth and lies,” he said.
He said most of the mainstream media had been brought under the government’s control by either inducements or threats. Attacking the RSS, he said members of such ‘anti-constitutional’ organisations shouldn’t be allowed to hold any public posts.
To counter the scenario, Bhushan said we needed to identify sources that spread fake, false and hateful news via social media and file complaints against the culprits. He suggested formation of a ‘peace committee’ comprising people of different religions in every district to promote greater interaction among different communities and to dispel false notions.
Historian Ramachandra Guha, who also spoke, said political democracy does not mean social and cultural democracy. Quoting Ambedkar, Guha said, “Bhakti in religion is the root to the salvation of the soul and Bhakti in politics is the root of dictatorship.”
Octogenarian playwright, actor and filmmaker Girish Karnad slammed the recent arrests of five activists across the country, and said the citizens needed to keep protesting the act. Filmmaker M S Sathyu too spoke on the arrests and said artists should oppose this ‘fascism’ through their work.