The space to air dissent without fear has been shrinking in the country in recent years despite the proliferation of social media platforms, writer Perumal Murugan has said.
At a discussion organised by the Ernakulam Public Library on Saturday, he pointed out that safeguarding freedom of expression calls for healthy respect for opposing views and the willingness to change opinions in the light of fresh information.
The Tamil writer was hounded for his 2010 novel Madhorubagan (translated as One Part Woman in English) which depicted a custom in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchengode as per which a married woman could try to conceive a child by any man on the day of their festival.
Court ruling
In the midst of the controversy, he had announced that Perumal Murugan the writer was dead. In 2016, the Madras High Court ruled in favour of Mr. Murugan, dismissing petitions to ban the book.
The writer referred to Poonachi, published in 2017, as his first novel after a rebirth. “The Perumal Murugan before and after Poonachi are not the same.”
He drew on instances from the life of Dravidar Kazhagam founder Periyar E.V. Ramasamy to reflect on the need to respect opinions that contradict our own. “Periyar would say that there is no god. But he was willing to reverse his statement if somebody proved to him the existence of god,” said Mr. Murugan.
At present, the space to express opposing views had shrunk and two people with contradictory opinions would not be able to speak on the same dais, he said.