Reasoning with intolerance

The president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah, released a booklet titled Know the Truth: Why the so-called intellectuals are silent then and violent now on 5 November 2015. It is a collection of columns published in various Indian dailies defending the BJP against accusation of rising intolerance under its watch. The document was presented as a response to the criticism it faced from various artists and writers, who returned awards given to them by the state. Accompanying these columns were statements made by senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, and two write-ups by Venkaiah Naidu and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. The writings assert that the claim about India being more intolerant today than it was in the past are devoid of substance.

While the booklet itself received scant attention, and now that the dust has settled on the rage against intolerance, it is important to interrogate the arguments it presents.Is there any truth, for instance, in the defence that attacks against the BJP are'manufactured' and biased? Were these public intellectuals simplifying political complexities? And why does the rationale presented by the BJP-RSS apologists hold the propensity to become 'common sense' for the majority of Indians in times to come?