Sunday Sentiments

by Karan Thapar

  As a result, people the world over are prepared to tell journalists things they wouldn’t divulge to anyone else. But who will talk to a journalist with a record of deceiving? You would be scared he might twist what you say and use it against you. Instead of trusting him, you would be on your guard. If that becomes the prevailing attitude, journalism as a whole will suffer.

  There is another issue. Journalists can and do pretend to be someone else when they’re stalking criminals. But they have to be acting for a greater good and that good has to be proved not merely asserted. Equally importantly, the crime has to be manifestly criminal. Once again everyone must recognise that.

  The problem here is that I’m not at all sure capturing and killing a snake is not the best thing to do. When it comes to cobras and pythons (the snakes in the story) few, if any, have great love for them. That is why snake charmers are hardly criminals even when they catch endangered species. In fact, if the snake is endangered so much the better !

  In my book, the criminals journalists who can justifiably deceive are conmen, those who themselves lie to make a fraudulent living. In their case, it’s nemesis catching up with them whilst the harm they have done has actually affected ordinary people in whose interest the journalist can claim to be acting. But who, pray, has the snake charmer deceived and who other than the captured snake has he hurt?

  Snake charmers are poor, probably illiterate and definitely gullible. They’re not to know that potential foreign buyers don’t preview snakes through TV footage. When journalists turn on them to gain their scoops, they’re only exploiting the class barriers of our society. That’s why a snake charmer is easy prey. Catch a Harshad Mehta if you can or a Sukhram. At least, they can defend themselves against a journalist’s guile and they’ve done real harm to boot.

  3

  The New Rhetoric

  I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I think I can detect the beginning of an unfortunate tendency that is creeping steadily into our politics. Actually, it’s moving faster than that. It’s closer to a cantor. But what disturbs me is not simply the fact of the matter, I’m also perturbed by the sort of people responsible for it. They are not ordinary Indians nor are they irresponsible politicians. They come from the very top of the totem pole. In fact, one of them is Mr. Vajpayee himself.

  I refer to the manner in which certain politicians have started talking of the Muslim community. Sometimes they seem to taunt them, on other occasions the tone is accusatory and occasionally, it suggests they despise them. The common strand and it’s as unmistakeable as it’s unavoidable is that Muslims are being picked upon.

  The crude version, in the style of an akhara bully boy rolling up his sleeves and spoiling for a fight, is best represented by Narendra Modi. He sought and succeeded in demonising Muslims in many Gujarati Hindu eyes. He depicted them as fifth columnists who threaten our peace and security, as irresponsible people whose mindless breeding is responsible for the population explosion, as followers of Mian Musharraf and as potential terrorists. But even when he was not directly attacking them, they remained in his sight. His rhetorical flourishes could not resist snide swipes at their expense. On the 19th of September, whilst criticising Congress, he managed to bring Islam and Muslims into his ambit : “I want to ask the Congress, why do you object if people on the banks of the Sabarmati derive spiritual peace through the Narmada waters brought in the month of Shravan? When you come to power you are free to bring water during Ramzan.” The reference to Ramzan betrays an attitude, may be even a personality trait, which delights in picking on Muslims. Bullies in school speak like this. It hardly becomes of a Chief Minister.

  One step better than Modi’s basic approach is what I call the clever version or, at any rate, cleverer. Oddly, enough its proponent is Vinay Katiyar. In the guise of propagating the views of Ambedkar and with the intention of distancing some of her voters from Mayawati, he has found a more sophisticated way of pushing the Modi line on the Muslim community. Ambedkar, he claims, was in favour of a complete transfer of population at partition. In other words, all Muslims should have been sent to Pakistan. And if that wasn’t sufficient to convey his unsubtle message, Katiyar adds that in at least one of his books, Ambedkar used the word “terrorist” to describe Muslims.

  To be honest, I don’t know if this is a correct representation of Ambedkar’s views. It may well not be. But that hardly matters. Who, after all, is checking? What counts is the image Katiyar is conveying of the Muslim community. It’s simple and telling. To me, it reads like this: it’s not just Indians today who have serious doubts about their Muslim compatriots, so too did the great men of the indepenence struggle including Ambedkar himself.

  But the example of Muslim taunting I find most depressing — no, disillusioning is that of Mr. Vajpayee. Three weeks ago, I wrote about his inexplicable claim that Muslims had not in sufficient number criticised Godhra. Actually, he went further. He even appeared to suggest that the community has still not apologised for or accepted its mistake.

  Had it been an isolated example it could have been forgivable or, at least, possible to forget. But it’s not. Sadly, picking on Muslims appears to have become his style. Whilst felicitating Dr. Joshi on his 75th birthday, an occasion when the Muslim community and the alleged troubles it has caused us should have been as far from his thoughts as conceivable, this is what he suddenly and unprovoked had to say : “Joshi bhagvakaran nahin karenge to kya harakaran karenge? Bhagva hamari party ka rang hei, yagya aur aahuti ka rang hei.” (Actually, green is also a BJP colour but perhaps Mr. Vajpayee prefers to forget that).

  Now, doesn’t that sound worryingly like Mr. Modi’s rhetoric about Shravan and Ramzan? One might have expected it of him but surely not of Mr.Vajpayee? Yet if you think about it, it’s not the first time the PM has picked on Muslims. He did so in Goa in April and about the same time in Lucknow, he seemed to say that the BJP could do without their votes.

  One can make a silly mistake once, a man can get carried away by his similes and metaphors occasionally, but repeatedly and regularly? That’s why I call it a trend and why it disturbs me.

  4

  Why Won’t He Speak English?

  I suppose you could say she likes Atal Behari Vajpayee. At first, it wasn’t obvious but realisation slowly dawned when political discussions with Mummy never got very far. She would agree with the points I made but the conclusion was always refuted. Even my sisters could not persuade her. “I don’t care what anyone says,” Mummy would insist, “he’s a good man.”

  Maybe but sometimes goodness isn’t good enough. Last week at the UN was a classic example. The Prime Minister had some important points to make and the UN General Assembly was arguably the best venue to make them. In theory, the world was there to listen. Except it didn’t. Not because they didn’t want to nor because they disagreed and switched off. No, they didn’t listen because they couldn’t understand. Mr. Vajpayee spoke in Hindi, a language that is only spoken within the borders of India. In fact, even in large parts of our own country, it’s an alien language. The South and the North East would have found it as incomprehensible as Europe, America and Africa.

  Yet the paradox is Mr.Vajpayee’s speech was not an annual, laudatory and ceremonial number. To be honest, speeches at the UN often are. But on this occasion, he wanted the world to hear him carefully. For a start, he intended to rebut General Musharraf’s attack of the previous day. Then he wished to draw the international community’s attention to India’s position on terrorism. Finally, he wanted to suggest a more muscular UN regime to pursue last year’s commitment to fight terrorism. These were important matters. In their own way, each defines India’s national interest. So if ever there was an occasion to speak in a language the world would easily and comfortably follow, this was it.

  Why, then, did Mr. Vajpayee speak in Hindi? There could be three possible reasons. Firstly, because he isn’t comfortable in English. Secondly, because he believes India’s pride requires its prime minister to a
ddress the world in the national language. Thirdly, to show up General Musharraf, who not only spoke in English the day before but cannot speak Urdu fluently.

  I’m afraid none of these explanations makes sense. In reverse order, showing up General Musharraf may be pleasing but at what cost? If the international community cannot follow what you are saying, the price is undoubtedly too high. Nor is India such a fragile nation that we must force Hindi upon an uncomprehending world simply to boost our own ego. Those days are long gone. In fact, as our IT success shows, today English is our strength. And Mr. Vajpayee speaks English well enough. After all, this wasn’t an extempore and improvised peroration. A speech in the grand hall of the General Assembly is not the same as a public performance on the lawns of the Boat Club in Delhi.With a little careful practice, he could have learnt to deliver it properly.

  That, I suppose, is the real problem.The Prime Minister is disinclined to learn. May be he’s lazy, may be he thinks he’s too old, but whatever the reason he hasn’t made the effort to teach himself how to read his English speeches more effectively. And before you think I’m making a surprisingly silly or slender point, let me remind you of the number of world leaders who’ve had to learn this simple but telling technique. Mrs. Thatcher was one. In fact, she even had to modulate her voice. It used to be shrill and jarring. George Bush is another. Actually he’s still not as good as he could be but he certainly holds your attention.

  Now pause to reflect on what Mr. Vajpayee’s Hindi cost India. On the previous day, the BBC broadcast Hamid Karzai and Pervez Musharraf in full. They would have almost certainly done same with the Indian Prime Minister. After all, the BBC’s Indian audience is considerably greater. But in the end they chose not to.The only reason is because he spoke in Hindi.

  The argument that a Putin, a Kim, or a Koizumi speak Russian, Korean and Japanese at the UN doesn’t change things one little bit. There are good reasons why they don’t bother with English and none of them apply to Vajpayee. For one, they don’t know the language. More importantly, they don’t have to struggle to attract the world’s attention. Mr.Vajpayee’s position is altogether different.

  If you ask me, one can’t avoid the depressing conclusion that our Prime Minister forgot his central purpose in going to the UN. He was there to communicate India’s message. To be understood, he should have spoken in a language the world understands. By refusing to do so he rendered himself ineffective. Last week, this good man let his country down.

  5

  Sex, Hypocrisy and Morality

  Dear, oh dear, oh dear. I don’t think Sushma Swaraj is going to like me. I suspect I’m not her favourite TV person anyway but now I wager I shall fall yet lower in her scales. Perhaps I should cut my losses, end this piece here and now and write about the weather instead. That would certainly be the safer thing to do. But it would also be chickening out.

  I think Mrs. Swaraj made a terrible mistake when she asked MTNL to bar calls to telephone sex numbers. It’s not for the Communication Minister to decide who we can or cannot ring. As long as we pay our bills, that’s a freedom that cannot – no, that must not – be tampered with.

  In fact, if you turn to her reasons you’ll realise just how dubious they are. First are what you might consider the grand philosophical ones. She claims that such calls “offend the moral fibre of the country and amount to cultural invasion.” Baloney.

  For starters, sex and the enjoyment thereof is not alien to our country. If it was, we wouldn’t have a population problem. There’s no denying the fact that we do it, like it and seek it. So let’s not be hypocritical about it.

  The moral argument is worse because it’s presumptuous. Who or what is to define the acceptable standards of our morality? And who gave this government the prerogative to do so? That apart, what a man (or a woman) does in the privacy of their home, on their own, at their personal cost, without involving any third party (other than the voice at the other end) is not a subject for moral judgement. Its a purely personal decision between him (or her) and their God. Wise ministers understand this and will not seek to interfere leave aside step in.

  Since this is the nub of my point, let me explain. I’ll return to Mrs. Swaraj’s other reasons later.

  It’s our individual sense of right and wrong that differentiates human beings from other animals. Each time we make a choice we exercise this difference. It therefore follows that if we are denied the opportunity to do so or, worse, if someone else does it for us then our humanity is diminished.

  Mrs. Swaraj, no doubt with the best intentions, wants to stop us making what she thinks is the wrong decision. But in so doing, she is diminishing each of us as human beings. Children, perhaps, but again not always need others to decide for them. Not adults.

  Ministers must accept that freedom necessarily includes the freedom to be wrong. Not just the freedom to make the right decision but the right to make the wrong one. And when it affects no one but onself, no one has a right to interfere. Mrs. Swaraj may make a wonderful nanny but we don’t need one.

  Now to turn briefly to her other reasons. I can accept that children or clerks in government offices require protection or need to be prevented from irresponsible misuse of free phones. But denying a right to everyone is the wrong way to do this. That’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut.

  Mature societies rely on parental guidance to ensure their kids are brought up properly and the vast majority of Indian parents do a very good job. Similarly, sensible administrations devise practical ways of deterring misuse of office facilities. After all few, if any, private sector companies face such problems. Why can’t the government be more like them?

  Finally, let’s turn to the lonely men and women who phone Hong Kong, Adelaide or wherever for dubious comfort at prohibitive costs? Except as an occasional lark, this is not something most people do. We, the majority, may not approve of what this minority does but remember it may be the only happiness in their lives. Do we have a right and does Mrs. Swaraj have the right to deny it?

  6

  The Problem of Pakistan

  Is Pakistan a failed state? A little news item last Sunday brought the question forcefully and irresistibly to my mind. But, to be honest, I don’t have the answer. The best I can offer is the opinion: it could be. I can’t say for certain but, equally certainly, I cannot rule it out ether.

  However, what I am more sure of is that there is something rotten about the Pakistani system. Not the people, no, very definitely not them but the polity. To use a colloquialism, which exaggerates but nonetheless makes the point effectively, it stinks.

  Last Sunday, I learnt that Pakistan’s Chief Election Commissioner has decided to hear a semi-legal case to see whether Najam Sethi should be disenfranchised. Under section 63 (1G) of the country’s constitution a person can be disqualified from voting for “propagating any opinion or acting in any manner prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan”. Mark those words carefully. Not for treason, for that would be disloyalty to the state of Pakistan, but for disagreeing with the ideology of that state and having the courage to say so.

  I find that bizarre. No, that’s a silly euphemism. I find that intolerable. For in my opinion, States don’t have immutable, God-given ideologies. Men confer them according to their tastes and such tastes (or fashions) are ephemeral. More importantly, they can change. If Mr. Sethi has disagreements with the ideology of Pakistan, so be it. But so what? In a democracy, that would be not just his right, it would be normal.

  Let me digress a little to make my point. The ideology of Pakistan as elucidated by Mr. Jinnah, its founder, was quite different to what today his puny heirs have ordained it to be. Mr. Jinnah’s famous speech of 13th August 1947, when he spelt out his vision for the country he was creating, would not just contradict the so-called present day ideology of Pakistan, it would defy it and make a mockery of it.

  For the truth of the matter is that Mr. Jinnah may have founded Pakistan as a separate state for Indian Muslims, b
ut he was not creating — no, he didn’t even want to create an Islamic state.

  That’s why the treatment of Mr. Sethi is so reprehensible. So deplorable. And proof of my point is that to be consistent the Pakistani system would have to treat the ghost of Mr. Jinnah the same way.

  Sadly, Mr. Jinnah died more than fifty years ago and no founder has left his nation more bereft. Had he lived, Pakistan might have acquired an identity it could have confidence in. His death ensured that it stumbled from militarism to civilian autocracy, from anti-Indianism to pan-islamicism without once finding anchor in any of the shifting positions it tried to adopt.

  Today, the unrequited demons of the Pakistani system are sharpening their fangs on journalists. Najam Sethi is but the best known in our country. The complete list is, however, longer and each month, fresh names are added to it. The Kargil War hid much of this from us. But now that the glare has turned the full can of worms is on hideous display. What does it all mean? Ultimately, that the Pakistani system cannot respect dissent, cannot tolerate disagreement, cannot withstand critical questioning. It’s evidence that the system itself is bad.

  These conclusions sadden me.They will also hurt and pain.After all, some of those I see most of and hold dearest are Pakistanis. I would not want to offend them.Yet if what I claim is true then, surely, in their hearts — even if not on their lips — they would agree? They might not criticise their country in front of you and I — and we must understand and respect that — but in the privacy of their homes, without an Indian audience to embarrass them, would they not concede the point?

  Let me answer that rhetorical question. I believe the answer is yes. A very definite if embarrassed yes. That’s why my criticism is limited strictly and entirely to the system of Pakistan. Of the people, whom I like, I have only praise.