Jarnail Singh, an otherwise quiet,
controlled, mature and respectable journalist gave India
To put it simply, the shoe hurled today
seemed more an act of frustration and suppressed anxiety than an actual revolt.
The shoe needs a closer look as it represents a turban and beard – the signs a
community was almost forced to relinquish for want of safety. And the shoe was
asking the Home Minister, Mr. Chidambram, respected for his spotless record and
balanced political views, how can you sit here and defend the indefensible!
No, I am not defending the indefensible
either. What Jarnail did was wrong, utterly wrong, not acceptable at all, but
understandable. The incident in question `is not about what is seen today, the
outburst, but about corpses in the closet that are not quite dead, but buried.
And, since in the mortuary of democracy, all political parties irrespective of
colour, creed or ideology (??) have reserved closets it is one level playing
field for all- no one quite claim an advantage or disadvantage here.
What happened today as I see is just a way
of showing disagreement with something that happened long ago, and continues to
live… something that the party in whose premises the incident happened, wants
us to forget and forgive. No, its not about Congress alone. If Congress would
want us to forget 1984 and its breeding of LTTE thereafter, BJP would want us to
forget Babri demolition and Godhra… the Left would want us to forget their
bloodied battles as Naxals in 1970s… the Shiv Sena their wrath against non
Maharahtrians… AGP its terror in Assam
We were getting distracted, so coming back
to the point in discussion, the incident today is expression of anguish against
the efforts to bury a past that has a strong imprint on today and probably will
have impact on future as well. Things that political parties want us to forget
are not so easily forgotten, neither should they be. No, I am not agreeing with
Jarnail’s act of depression or desperation, nor am I showing solidarity. He
absolutely had no business doing what he did, not as a journalist at least.
Objectivity and uncoloured reporting is the foundation of journalism (in
theory, at least) and I am a staunch believer in it. Jarnail, as a journalist
did bring shame to the fraternity by venting his anguish the way he did. But
then are there ways really for a journalist to be able to raise questions that
go beyond TRPs and circulation figures?? A debatable issue that we may take up
at a different date and time!
Coming back to 1984 and Chidambaram’s very
technical defence of the indefensible, the pictures that start playing in front
of me are those of fire and eyes stinging with tears… of stench of burnt
clothes and charred bodies… of the magnificent white of the façade of the
biggest Gurudwara in the city turned black and the ever busy lanes and by-lanes
of the congested central market of Kolkata, bare of their usual chaos, drenched
in an unceremonious quite where the boots of young Gorkha and dark South Indian
men in olive green uniform with real guns in hand… for a 9 year old it was a
spectacle more mesmerizing than the Indrajal comics and adventures of Superman
or Spiderman! Here it was, a whole new thriller unfolding in front of my eyes,
only this time the characters were cartoons of a different degree!
I do not have the complete recollection of
events as they happened, but there are some images, some fragments of
conversations that continue to haunt me till date. One is the tears rolling our
cheeks without the occasional slap from mom for not finishing homework… and the
reason being attributed to “tear gas”, something the police used to make people
cry if they do not behave! Another image that flashes through is the flames
that were almost touching the skies… burning the front façade of “our”
gurudwara, the place that all of us (yes all of us who were Hindus) went to
daily, we kids for the Prasad of halwa, the elders for asking favours of a God,
who they now claimed was not theirs… I also recall the image of two Sardarjis
telwale (as they supplied kerosene in the locality) being kept hidden in one of
the bigger rooms in our building (resembling more to a Mumbai chawl) as the
madness raged outside. But one of the most tragic images that I remember is
that of those two Sardarjis crying, their knees bent, hands folded… someone had
jokingly suggested shaving off their beard and hair. An insensitive joke,
representative of the mood of the people at that time, insensitive being the
operative word.
Later once the “live” telecast of Mrs.
Gandhi’s funeral was over, I remember some pictures that flashed on our black
and white TV- death and destruction – numbers – death toll reported as cricket
match score! I remember my father, an otherwise quiet and somewhat lily-livered
man claiming with pride they killed so many Hindus and in response “we” killed
so many Sikhs! “We”… who was this we, I wonder.
As I grew up and saw more riots this “we”
became more understandable. This we became the closest allegiance at the time
of conflict between two castes, creed or religion. This “we” was not India , but India
I have similar recollection of 1992,
demolition of Babri masjid. It was our one of the first encounters with cable
TV… the images of mob breaking down dome of a historic structure battling with faiths
of two conflicting religious fanatics. I also remember openly circulated video
cassettes of “true incident” floating around capturing speeches of some top
leaders of Saffron hue and the red fluid freely flowing everywhere that had
debates raging whether it began to those defending Babar or Ram.
In the wake of these images, when the slow
motion picture of that white shoe flowing past Honourable Home Minster only
makes me question – can one rationalize the irrational and defend the
indefensible?
