mid-day editorial: The hurt that refuses to heal

In India, which is a cauldron of multi-ethnic groups, religion has always been an incendiary issue. And, today, ‘hurting religious sentiments' is bandied about as an excuse for some to sink to ridiculous lows.

So, when the owner of a resto-bar in Goregaon had the words ‘hurting religious sentiments' hurled at him, he did not stop to argue. His three-month-old outpost, Goregaon Social, came under punishing glare when ‘activists' from NGO Watchdog Foundation filed an FIR against it over the use of Catholic iconography and symbols in its décor.

The speed with which the ‘offending' décor was brought down was enough to set the head spinning. The owner, while admitting that the interiors were inspired not by the church but by the neo-Gothic style of architecture used in old courthouses, nevertheless offered an abject apology to everyone concerned. And, the Archdiocese of Bombay, from whose shoulder the guns had been fired, graciously accepted it.

That should have been the end of that.

Yet, the NGO, puffed up on a diet of fear (the bar's), has decided to drag the drama on for all that it's worth, demanding that the civic body cancel the bar's licence. What then, we ask, is this religious sentiment that was hurt? With nothing left at the bar to offend any religious group, what grounds remain for cancelling the licence?

If we have laws to protect a religious sentiment, shouldn't there be laws to protect against misuse of the term? By giving in unquestioningly, are we allowing bullies to take over?

By quietly acquiescing, we are complicit in perpetrating a wrong. Perhaps, that's a ‘sentiment' we need to do something about.