Karan Thapar spoke. The conversation broke. And Narendra Modi went up in smoke. It was a Houdini act. The leftist folks joked about how Thapar had tingled Modi's chords. And the right wing scoffed at Thapar's puppy dog "please don't screw my interview" expression. I belong to the junta on the left. I am not for marveling present development and forgetting past crimes. And I am not for promoting one sect that is a minority just to boast about our secularism. Lives were lost. Lives that belonged to both Musalman and Hindu faiths. Statistically many more Muslims were killed. But can one look at loss of life statistically? Ask the relatives and friends of those who died (both Hindu and Muslim) does it matter if 1000 or 50 were butchered or burnt? For them that one dead body made all the difference.
It is sad that in times of man made and natural calamity we look towards statistics. Thing is, not everything is cricket. Not everything is entertainment on the television set. And surely not everything is forgettable and material for the census books.
I am not sure what it takes to live with blood on your hands. Shakespeareans would quote Macbeth here, but I'll disagree. Macbeth was weak. Modi and his band are not. Even if they regret they do not show it. Hopefully they will truly feel sorry someday for all the lives that were lost. And hopefully someday we will understand that it does not matter if 50 or 1000 died, but that even one person was killed in the name of God.
Throwing in a bit of sentimentality...What would Bapu, the father of our nation, have to say? Would he too shrug, and scratch his bald head as we do?
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2 comments:
>> What would Bapu, the father of our nation, have to say?
I may be too optimistic. But I think Narendra Modi perhaps is doing what Bapu might have done...complete the work (Gujarat's development). the day (I hope!) Modi admits his mistakes and apologizes, we'll know.
We get a substantial amount to invest in resolving a local problem but all we do it let the amount be misused by one or more of our party-men, and we don’t feel accountable. That little amount could have meant a tube-well in a village, or some simple public utilities that would have made life for these deprived folks much more livable. The rot starts from there to organizing mass events without appropriate and responsible planning. As a consequence, many lives are lost or hard-earned properties of many are lost at the whim and fancy of our leaders.
The malaise that you have hinted at does not need a left orientation to condemn, as to my mind, all parties are equally responsible for the little little carnages that have erupted in their own states, and it often seems to an ordinary citizen that there are no differences as to who runs the show, and who watches it – both seem to be equally responsible for the degradation where the common folks become only pawns to be advanced on the board or dolls to be pulled from behind on the stage. I feel sad at this helplessness of the common folks but also fear that this might one day lead to an anarchic situation that will drive us all to a point of no return. The claim to be running the biggest democracy may go up in smoke in a few days, if the unscrupulous are not checked.
As for the episode on the screen, it looked amateurish on the part of both the interviewer and the interviewee. Either agree to speak and then defend your stand appropriately – take rest and do retake if necessary though! Or, don’t give a damn to the hard-talkers. Also, for Karan Thapar, it was a cheap thing to be putting up that incomplete stuff on the screen, quite unethical, too. Particularly, when the interviewee is not willing to go on. This is against the IPR rules. But who cares? Everyone wants his own piece of glory. The news-worthiness seems to be only ‘worthiness’ of us all.
In any case, these do not absolve one from not being able to stop mass killings and destructions of places of faith and worship. More than the number of the dead from one or the other community, what is painful is the callousness with which you remain contented or the attempt to mask your inaction by showcasing what you can achieve on economic fronts.
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