Litterateurs must draw Laxman rekha, says BJP leader Subramanian Swamy

Bhubaneswar: Rajya Sabha member and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy here on Saturday said literary freedom is not absolute and there must be a Laxman rekha which the littérateurs must draw in their literary pursuit.
Speaking at a literary event, Swamy said there is reasonable restriction on freedom of expression granted by the Constitution. Stating that literary personalities also have to exercise reasonable restrictions, Swamy said, "The littérateurs have to devise ways to execute such restraints." These have to come from people who are part of the community of literature, Swamy said, adding democracy means acceptance of restrictions.It is also time one must talk about what doesn't constitute literature.
The two-day event, Kalinga Literary Festival, starting Saturday, is being organized by Orissadiary.com.
Swamy said, "People, who belong to the Left-wing spectrum of the society, caused great harm to the country. Anyone, who spoke in nationalistic term or talked about glorious ancient traditions for the past several decades were shouted down," he said.
Taking a dig at the so-called intolerance debates, the RS member said for past so many years people had a free run to run down the system, which has changed (with BJP assuming power). Swamy said there are glaring errors in history such as division of Indians as two distinct groups of Aryans and Dravidians, which is not true. But the Left-leaning ideologists did not allow revision of history, he said.
Referring to the spate in returning of awards by literary personalities in the country in recent past, Swamy said there was no occasion for doing so. The institutions of democracy were still functioning. Elections were still taking place. The BJP leader said the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and recently the Assam elections were articulation of cultural unity of India.