If Dan Brown had joined the Jaipur literary festival he would have been greeted with huge fanfare and the red carpet would have been laid out for him by both the state and central governments. Chetan Bhagat would be heaping praises on him and his works, and protests if any would be too weak to mention. Every author reading his works would become best-selling authors and no one would even think of arresting them.
But why should it be otherwise, you might ask? He didn’t do anything wrong, did he? I mean, you would say, what Salman Rushdie wrote in Satanic Verses hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims and so it was justifiably banned. None of Dan Brown’s books were banned. And therein lies the root of the issue. Why wasn’t “The Da Vinci Code” banned (I have a borrowed copy of the work lying at my home at present) and the movement of the author restricted? Didn’t the Da Vinci Code hurt the religious sentiments of Catholics around the world? Then why didn’t the state and central governments of India respond in the same way? Why doesn’t Chetan Bhagat criticize Dan Brown in the same was as he criticizes Salman Rushdie?
What I am pointing out is the unequal treatment given to different minorities in India as even our rules and laws have been governed by vote bank politics. What I am also pointing out is that what Dan Brown wrote in “The Da Vinci Code” is even worse in intent than Salman’s writings in “Satanic Verses”. Dan Brown questions the divinity of Jesus, claims that he was married (against the teachings of all Christian churches), had children (an even more preposterous claim to believers) and attacks the Catholic Church (I admit that some of their past actions were horrific). This Jesus-cum-church-bashing made not only this controversial book a world-wide best-seller but also gave a tremendous boost to the sales of Brown’s previous three books (which had hitherto not done well). Yes, everybody likes to read stuff detrimental to someone else’s religious sentiments, but then it paradoxically proves our religious beliefs are suspect as almost every religion generally advocates for respecting and tolerating the faith of others.
I don’t know much about Dan Brown’s other books but from what I’ve read online (from experts), the Da Vinci Code had a poorly constructed plot, was full of flaws and inaccuracies, was plagiarized from works of fiction and non-fiction, and advocated preposterous theories like the presence of a thousand-year-old secret society. Any sane person knows that human beings are such blabbermouths that it is impossible for any organization to be a secret society for that long. But we tend to lose our sanity (like the four authors at the Jaipur literary festival) when we are faced with the prospect of some other religion being denigrated. One of the central theories of “The Da Vinci Code” was that a figure sitting next to Jesus in the Last Supper resembled a woman and so Leonardo Da Vinci had presumably actually painted Mary Magdalene. This is baseless as one often notices men with feminine characteristics or if Da Vinci was gay he might tend to imbibe those sort of characteristics to another man in his work due to his bias (read bent of mind). In fact, many have asserted that the Mona Lisa itself is either a self-portrait of Da Vinci or a painting of a man, possibly even a lover, due to her (or his) masculine characteristics.
Anyways, Rushdie seems to be a much better author than Brown although he too indulged in some provocative religion-bashing. He must be appreciated for his other works of literature and not for his provocative writings. Since he was allowed into India without much mayhem previously, I fail to understand the fuss this time round especially by authors like Chetan Bhagat!!!
