http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/78284-algebra-infinite-fundamentalism.html
^Quoting from the above article.
And the final characteristic of the fundamentalist is that he/she will have two standards—one for the self and one for everyone else.
While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the plate. He has taken to naming, demonizing, and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces.
My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to the camera: “Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan,” he said. “I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting.”
For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today amounts to incitement, as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.
[link]
So let’s get this straight Ms. Roy. According to you, calling you “disgusting” is sufficient reason for a journalist to lose his job. What’s Goswami’s crime here? Finding you disgusting? Expressing his opinion?
Well Ms. Roy, you regularly call the Indian government several uncomplimentary things, to put it politely. You say that Kashmir should be given independence. So if we go by your line of reasoning about Mr. Goswami, what if some Indians start saying that your advocacy of the cessation of an integral part of India should be considered a “threat”, an incitement for the more violent “freedom-fighters”, reason enough to cost you your freedom ?
If people actually did that, then you would be on TV shouting how India is characterized by a tendency to “criminalize liberal space”. Which in any case you do, even though noone in India would deny you your right to speak for Kashmiri independence. After all we are not the country of the “oppressed”—Pakistan or China for example.
But even a champion of free speech and dissent like you draws a line when free speech becomes too much. When it is directed at you.
As to openly heckling people who disagree with your point of view, let me quote from one of Ms. Roy’s own interviews if only to show things are done the “Arundhati” way.
He (Ramachandra Guha)’s become like a stalker who shows up at my doorstep every other Sunday. Some days he comes alone. Some days he brings his friends and family, they all chant and stamp… It’s an angry little cottage industry that seems to have sprung up around me. Like a bunch of keening god-squadders, they link hands to keep their courage up and egg each other on. [link]
Again, Ms. Roy is free to be vitriolic about Ramachandra Guha and his “smug friends”.
But they, and anyone who is not impressed with Ms. Roy, should also be free to express their opinions and Ms. Roy should be man enough to take it without crying “Look look they are threatening me” as if calling someone “disgusting” is a threat.
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Sorry Mrs Ray, freedom of speech is a two way street and you, of all, should not complain being at the receiving end of it.
