Intolerance leads artists to lodge protest: Rabbi Shergill

He calls a spade a spade and does not shy away from making off-the-cuff remarks. In SAS Nagar, for a concert at a programme for drug de-addiction organised by the Kalgidhar Society, Baru Sahib, Rabbi Shergill expresses his views on writers and poets returning Sahitya Akademi awards or resigning from office.

Recently, Ashok Vajpeyi, Uday Prakash and Nayantara Sahgal returned their literary awards over the communalism being perpetrated in the country, especially killing of intellectuals and haunting of Muslims over eating beef.

Rabbi says, “When there is a systemic rupture of any kind, people feel the need to lodge their protest and these writers are only expressing their disappointment. Hinduism is not a country and India is a civilisation, not a nation. The kind of homogenisation we are witnessing in the form of unnecessary communalism is unfortunate. If Muslims or any other community has traditions at variance with Hinduism, that doesn’t mean we attack them. Forcing the Hindu beliefs on others is a loss to Hinduism itself.”

The Shiv Sena recently forced the cancellation of Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai. To this, Rabbi says, “By resorting to such antics, we lower our own stature. The Pakistani state may be indulging in mischief but why attack their artists or the common people, who are as helpless as our own.”

Rabbi no longer has hope from the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi. He had supported the party in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections. “The national capital has problems of parking, pollution, traffic, health care and education. None of these are being improved.”