A resident of Kolhapur has been arrested for allegedly using Tipu Sultan's image with the caption 'Bharat ka Raja' as his social media status. The police claimed that the photo had caused 'enmity between two communities'. As happened with a previous arrest in the case of someone putting Aurangzeb's photo as a profile picture, this time too police action was taken with extreme alacrity on the complaint of a right wing radical outfit who went so far as to call for a city bandh over this issue. Being irrationally offended over trivial matters seems to have become our national pastime, what relevance do the Mughals or Tipu have to today's India I fail to understand. If a mere photograph of a monarch can supposedly promote inter religious enmity then we are a very thin skinned people. An aggrieved victim of a genuine crime finds filing an FIR in any police station an uphill task but the law enforcement authorities take prompt action when 'religious sentiments' of the majority community are purportedly hurt. A polarised and intolerant society only takes the country backwards, not forward.
