The Telegraph debate: When Anupam Kher devoured the cockroach of secularism

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• published: 06 Mar 2016
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Calcutta: The motion of this year’s TT debate is ‘Tolerance is the new Intolerance’ and it’s like one of those words or phrases that read the same way, no matter which way you read them, left to right or vice versa. Speaking for the motion: Suhel Seth, the actor Kajol and the actor Anupam Kher; speaking against: Justice Asok Ganguly, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and Barkha Dutt, journalist and TV anchor; moderating the debate is Mukul Kesavan, writer and historian. On the scuttlebutt I hear that Suhel Seth’s opening line is going to be something like ‘Chairman Sir, it’s unfair! There are only three speakers on our side of the motion while the other side has four, including you!’ As it happens, Seth doesn’t actually come out with this except tangentially, kicking a tepidly waved corporate boot at Kesavan’s invisible jhola, but only in passing. Kesavan himself is the model of propriety and neutrality, liberal jhola kept well out of sight, as in his introductory remarks he describes Anupam Kher as ‘durable’ and Suhel Seth, memorably, as ‘an ornament of corporate India’. Seth doesn’t mind – or more likely doesn’t notice – as he begins the arguments for the motion. It’s a warm evening at Calcutta Club, the banks of lights are full on the speakers, but it’s still mystifying how the sweat starts flying off Seth’s face even before he’s finished a sentence. I’m waiting for him to say the line that’s been his favourite since he was a La Martiniere student in the 1970s: ‘HANG THEM!’ or, ‘LET THEM HANG!’ but this evening the Calcutta boy disappoints, he doesn’t want to hang anyone, or not yet anyway. In fact, as has never been suspected of him, Seth swings both ways, with the occasional yorker and slower ball in between. Bengal, we are told, is a Temple of Tolerance, Mamata Banerjee is a ‘timid lady’ (it was sarcasm, one could tell), intolerance comes from ‘media circuses’, and then he uses his second favourite word, ‘idiots’, several times. He tells us how ‘we were all’ intolerant of Marwaris and how a certain derogatory word is used for people from the Northeast. He says the PM should speak up and how he looks forward to a gender-neutral corporate India. He proclaims how branding an entire nation as intolerant is (not idiotic but) ‘stupid’. ‘India is a land of ideas!’, ‘Calcutta is a city of ideas!’, ‘Intolerance should not become a late-motif’. At the end of his speech you can’t tell what Suhel Seth is selling but you can tell he is a salesman. Justice Ganguly is the opening speaker for the panel opposing the motion. We hear about some kids who were arrested in Kerala in the 1960s for not singing the national anthem; he tells us that our philosophy is one of tolerance and that our Constitution practises tolerance. He states, quite sensibly, that he found the death sentence against Afzal Guru not good in law and its hasty execution unseemly. As Suhel Seth leans to Kajol to advise her, the judge shaheb talks about ‘some university’ and ‘some students’ and about something called ‘freedom’. As Kajol stands up to speak, I can tell that for a lot of the males in the audience she is, if you like, the real leitmotif of the evening. Kajol says nothing sensible at all but who the leitmotif cares? I love the way she trills words like ‘H’llo’ and ‘L’il’ and ‘Pr’lific’ (as in ‘I’m not as pr’lific as these other speakers’). I am transported, as are all the sweaty men (and I’m sure some women) in the audience. ‘I hope I can impress you!’ she says and I fancy I can hear a hiss of ‘yes!’, ‘yes!’, ‘yes!’ behind me. She describes the plots of a few of her well-known films and then one of her mother’s well-known films. Suhel nods appreciatively. Justice Ganguly focuses on his notes. When Randeep Surjewala stands up to speak no one is looking at him, people are continuing to look at Kajol who has now sat down. Unlike Suhel S, we can tell what Surjewala’s selling from the word go – he’s selling a product called ‘Rahulgandhi’, even though he doesn’t mention the brand once. RS speaks of Ramakrishna Paramahans and how tolerant the holy man was to a scorpion whose dharma it was to bite. As Anupam Kher locks him in a (somewhat faulty) death stare, RS goes through the usual suspects of the BJP’s anti-Muslim, anti-secular and anti-woman statements. He keeps using a mysterious, leftist, post-modern word that’s probably come from JNU – daicent. Then he mentions something called the ‘gumment’ as in ‘no gumment can take away our dee-ennay!’, after which I see a society lady lean across to a saheli and say ‘o daicent maney dissent boltey chaai‘, by daicent he means to say dissent.