Ghulam Ali performing at Calcutta

The Science City auditorium on the eastern fringes of Calcutta was live with the sound of music on Saturday, but of a very different kind and for a different cause than just for the mere excuse to entertain. Ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali of Pakistan sung live for the huge audience but the event will remain a major landmark for this nation’s history for its role in defying the diktats of a political party, the Shiv Sena, which had let loose its goons on the singer during one of his recitals in Mumbai earlier this year. Fascists usually do not need a reason or rationale for their actions, but here cartoonist-turned-political supremo Bal Thackeray had cooked up one of his own; apparently, India can well do without the services of citizens with Pakistani antecedents. Ghulam Ali, for sheer reasons of geography and parentage, happens to hail from Pakistan and so he is taboo for Indians! The Sena diktat is as cruel as it is dangerous. Only last week, they went on a rampage at the residence of film thespian Dilip Kumar; his folly being that he had stood up for the rights of the filmmaker of ``Fire.’’The zealots have also said that they will not allow even a Pakistani test team to play cricket in India. The Sena is the latest thought policeman of India.