In a sad and shameful incident, renowned artist Shubha Mudgal was harassed by one of the office bearers of the Sunnyvale Temple, CA for her political views. She has right to freedom of expression and opinion and shame on lumpen elements to threaten her outside the country. Here is what happened as explained by Mrs. Mudgal herself. __________________________ From Shubha Mudgal from California on 7.6.2014: Im safe and unharmed although a little shocked and saddened. This kind of incident was not unexpected but I think I was not prepared for it to occur in California. Basically, this bully of a fellow, who is one of the office bearers of the Sunnyvale Temple, (Bombay Jayashri and I were performing at the auditorium on their campus), was introduced to me by the organisers of our concert just before we started our sound check. After exchanging pleasantries the guy said he wanted to discuss something else with me and could I step aside. I went into the wings with him while the other musicians remained on stage. The fellow then said he had recd several emails complaining about me which accused me of writing an anti Modi, anti Hindu, anti national letter to Manmohan Singh. The complainants asked him not to let any anti Hindu activity take place on the premises. I told him that it was no secret that I am anti Modi but couldnt see how that gave him the right to accost me in this fashion. Went on to say that he should not have accepted the fee he took from the organisers for renting the place or should have asked the organisers to cancel the event. But he had no business to speak to me. He said when he rented out the hall he did not know of my anti Modi anti Hindu activities. And then he started wagging his finger in my face and barking that he would not tolerate any anti Modi anti Hindu and anti national activity. At which point I raised my voice for the first time and asked if he was threatening me. Aneesh who was on stage heard me and came to my rescue followed by all the artistes including Jayashri. In the general debate that followed the man certainly made physically threatening advances towards Aneesh once but backed off when all the artistes declared that we would not perform. The concert was sold out so Mr. Bully slunk off while the organisers started cringing and crawling and requesting us to perform. I said I felt unsafe at which point they revealed that they had arranged for heavy security. And indeed I found to my surprise a whole posse of security guards hired for the concert. Anyway, the musicians took a collective decision to not let down the audience and we performed as if nothing had happened. The audience too was very receptive and seemed to have greatly enjoyed the concert. But it was clear that the organisers expected trouble because the security guys followed me around till I left the premises. As I said earlier, this kind of lumpen activity is not surprising from supporters of the BJP. But compared to the killing of the Muslim techie and other such incidents, I feel the experience we went through is hardly worth mentioning. I am back on the 10th of June and then lets talk and decide what to do. Shubha
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 21:27:11 +0000