Re: (Songs, Slights....)
Sitaramayya Ari (ari@Oakland.edu)
Tue, 25 Feb 1997 11:53:48 -0500 (EST)
On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Ramana R. Juvvadi wrote:
>
> Having expressed my concerns, I want to come to the second part.
> I don't know whether it was an emotional call or he was serious but I find
> it disturbing, when people call for banning and deleting material.
> I just want to recall Voltaire "I may not agree with a single word of
> what you are saying, but I would defend your right to say it".
> Ideas are always fought by better ideas -- not with censorship.
I am not particularly attached to my suggestion that we should stop
publishing literature in which one section or another was insulted. I am
open to other suggestions that would rectify the situation. The bottom
line, as I see it, is this: We are and will continue to be a democratic
society. We should learn to treat everybody the way we want to be treated.
Insulting one group or another in our literature cannot then be a part of
accepted norms.
When I think of the sensitivity of Americans and our Telugus to this idea
of democratic behaviour, I find the Americans to be more sensitive. For
example, the evidence, however good it was, collected by Furman in the OJ
Simpson case, was not considered seriously because he used the n word.
This sensitivity might have hurt the cause of justice in this one case,
but sent a warning to thousands of police officers in the country.
But I find our fellow Telugus to be less, much less, sensitive. As long as
it was not their community that was insulted, they usually don't care. I
remember one time asking a friend about Tyagaraja's Pancharatna Kirthanas
in which there is a line something like - though I was born in the upper
caste, I am behaving like one of lower caste. He shrugged it off.
Some times I do think that these things should be left to perpetuate at
least so the people appreciating them or singing them can be identified
for what they are, insensitive to put it mildly, bigots to be harsh.
regards,
Sitaramayya Ari.