Here’s a scoop from an article I was reading, Everybody Loves A Good Ban by Vir Sanghvi. It narrates the journalist’ last conversation with Pramod Mahajan (who recently passed away), on the fuzz around the upcoming controversial film “Da Vinci Code“, and on this related viewpoint that “Hindus tended to be less tolerant than Christians”. The article reminded me of this blog post (Jesus of India) I wrote some time back with a reference to an article by Francois Gautier titled “Are Hindus cowards?“, although the latter was surfaced on a different ideology, but still a good read.
Anyways, the article has a subtle yet interesting comparison embedded in it:
The central thesis of The Da Vinci Code is that modern Christianity is a hoax and that Jesus did not die on the cross but married Mary Magdalene and went on to have children.
And as for all my arguments about how Hindus would react to similar claims about our gods, was I aware that blasphemous books suggesting an illicit relationship between Ravana and Sita (and casting doubts on the paternity of Luv and Kush) had been published in Marathi?
The main question is, would we, the social ants, learn that a mere piece of literature poses no (ok, negligible) threat to a religion and stop demanding bans on everything? To which Mr. Mahajan explains that more than a religious threat, “the propensity to protest and the desire to censor had nothing to do with Hinduism, or Islam for that matter. It had to do with Indians. We are a nation of protestors. Give us an issue and we will demand a ban.”
What’s strange is that so many people and organizations have protested against the movie, yet not against the best seller book.
Da Vinci Code releases in Australia on 18th May and in India on 19th May. Watch this flick!