I’m going to tell you two seemingly unrelated stories this week. The first takes place in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where a well-known activist and lawyer has been threatened by Islamist forces. They’ve threatened her with many things, including saying they will “break every bone in her body” because Sultana Kamal defended the installation of a statue of Lady Justice in the courtyard of Dhaka’s Supreme Court.

Kamal defended her stance on a television show and immediately invited death threats. This is not something that can be taken lightly in a country where some 30 bloggers, activists and writers have been killed in recent years. Her defence came in the wake of a demand from Islamist groups, including Hefazat-e-Islam, that the statue be torn down because it was un-Islamic, and an example of idol worship. How the question of worship arose for a statue representing justice is unclear. Kamal’s response was that if its removal was being demanded on the grounds that it was a religious object, then mosques too should be removed from the premises. This was what put her life in danger.

The second incident takes place in Delhi, in a neighbourhood yoga class. For me, and many others in the neighbourhood where I live, yoga is like breathing. We’ve been practising it for over a quarter century, and our lives would be incomplete without it. But this year, things were different in the class.

A few days ago, a discussion on ‘International Yoga Day’ and the need to celebrate it began. But there was no such thing as International Yoga Day till two years ago, I argued, and why should we be compelled to celebrate it. However, many classmates argued back that the International Yoga Day has a long history. How quickly a smart PR exercise can create truth and history!

But what does this have to do with the Kamal story, you might well ask. Nothing at one level, but a lot at another. So the class celebrated Yoga Day. I refused to be a part of it, and then was prevailed upon by friends. It will not be anything political, or religious, they promised.

They were as good as their word — almost. Religion made its appearance despite the promises. The day began with a prayer — a Hindu prayer, the implicit assumption being that everyone in that room was Hindu. We were told that yoga was India’s contribution to the health and well-being of the world. And yet, we can’t even claim to have ensured the good health of the majority of our citizens, especially women and children, so how did we begin talking of the world?

And then the usual things happened: a lamp was lit, prayers and hymns chanted and then we got down to the business of doing our regular asanas. At the end of the hour — it was only an hour — I ended up feeling oddly disturbed, and not sure why.

And yet this is really how it begins: the assumption that there is no one but you, the conviction that what you profess and believe is shared by everyone, the belief that there is no other, no dissenting voice. Why, I wondered in my yoga class, is it so difficult to be aware that there may be others who love yoga, but for whom this kind of assumption of likeness may not be acceptable.

Kamal is at the receiving end of something that this kind of assumption, belief, call it what you like, can transform itself into. All she’s talking about is a statue. Everywhere in the world the figure of justice is female, a woman holding the scales. How is this a religious symbol?

I’m not sure what we should call this — intolerance, blind belief, fundamentalism or just a very clever, and indeed dangerous, way of ensuring that yours are the only ones that count.

Whatever it is, the net result is the silencing, or suppressing, of other voices. Some ways of doing it are gentler than others but while the means may be different, the ends are not.

Nevertheless, it is true that Kamal faces a threat to her life, and there’s no such serious issue with the yoga story. For me though, the two have been hanging around in my head as stories that relate to the same fears, the same concerns. Intolerance and an absence of concern for others often begin with these little things and, before we know it, they’ve added up to so much more.

Urvashi Butaliais an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

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