It’s interesting how peoples’ devotion to free speech changes when it’s their sacred cow getting gored. Celebrated advocate for free speech Salman Rushdie once threatened another writer saying, “If you ever write mean things about my wife again, I’ll come after you with a baseball bat.”
An Indian Catholic has offered a Rs. 11 Lakh bounty for Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, “Dead or Alive”Similarly, while Catholics have not had a violent reputation for at least a century, the movie version of the Da Vinci Code is getting many of the pious hot under the collar. Cardinals at the Vatican first advocated a boycott against the movie, then unspecified legal action against the movie and the book, arguing:
“This is one of the fundamental human rights - that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected,” [Link]
In India, the Catholic faithful are going further still. In Bombay, demonstrations call for the banning of the movie, and one former city official has even gone so far as to put a bounty on Dan Brown’s head:
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The movie on the right has the tagline “story of a naughty nun” |
Days before the film based on Dan Brown’s bestseller hits cinemas in the country, the Catholic Social Forum has called people of all faiths in Mumbai to fast unto death from May 12 if the government fails to ban the “anti-Christian” film. If that were not enough, a former corporator Nicholas Almeida, has done a Haji Qureishi, announcing a reward of Rs 11 lakh for anyone who “brings the author dead or alive before him”. [Link - thanks WGIIA]
[Interestingly, the HT has removed this story from their news archive, but it’s still available through the link above]
The head of the Catholic Secular Forum has also issued a veiled threat / warning about the consequences of releasing the Da Vinci Code movie:
“You can’t make fiction on a religious figure. Tempers are already running quite high and there’s no way of saying what could happen if the movie is released,” he said. [Link]
We all know about the UP minister who put a bounty on the head of the Danish cartoonist:
The Minister for Minority Welfare and Haj in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, Haji Yaqoob Qureishi, has announced a cash reward of Rs 51 crore for anyone who beheads the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Prophet Mohammad [Link].
But fatwas aren’t just for Muslims any more. Just to show that they were willing to spend equal amounts of money, Hindu activists put a bounty on the head (and a lesser one on the hands) of India’s most commercially successful painter, M.F. Husain:
The Hindu Personal Law Board on Wednesday announced a Rs 51 crore reward for eliminating artist M F Husain and others while a Congress minority cell leader offered Rs 11 lakh to any “patriot” chopping off the painter’s hands for hurting Hindu sentiments. [Link]
A similar bounty was put upon others who had also offended Hindu religious sentiments. In a surprising show of ecumenicalism, however, these same Hindu activists announced they were willing to also pay for the death of the Danish cartoonist as well!
“Anyone who kills Husain for making obscene paintings of goddess Sarswati and Bharat Mata, the Danish cartoonist, those in the German company printing pictures of Ram and Krishna on tissue paper and the French filmmaker desecrating Lord Shiva will be given Rs 51 crore in cash by the board,” its president Ashok Pandey said in Lucknow. [Link]
Just in case there was any confusion about it, whatsoever, we here at Sepia Mutiny are against the gratuitous offense of religious sentiment. However, we feel the best way to deal with it is through dialogue, commercial pressure, and web mockery. That’s all. Please do not fatwa us. Who would feed the monkeys if we were gone?
