Communal and us? Radhe Shyam Radhe Shyam
S P
Singh
In its shriller-than-the-next-channel coverage of
Mumbai blasts, each TV channel intermittently focused on people whose
attire denoted their faith. It seemed de rigueur for anyone with a white
Muslim cap to spout rabid nationalism for the benefit of TV cameras in
terms shriller than anyone else�s.
�Jin logon ne kiya hai, jahannum mein jayenge,�
said an old man with a religion-denoting beard. �Aap ka matlab hai unhe
jahannum mein bhej dena chahiye?� the TV reporter seemed to be
prodding the man, interpreting less and supplying more. You had to see the
look on the man�s face to understand his horror. My God! he had done much
less than expected! Predicting hell as destination was way below par, they
had to be sent to hell. The man with the silver beard was trembling. �Jee
han, jaldi se jaldi,� he almost gushed.
Allah was merciful. He was able to grab the mike and
apply the corrective. The twenty-something petite mike-carrying shrieking
reporter was all smiles now. The man in the studio was happy. India�s
secularism had won another byte.
If you are a Salim or an Ahmed, you already know
this. Tell your parentage. A reference to Bharat Mata or Mera Desh Mahan
is mandatory for a few days if a few bombs have gone off anywhere across
the country. Don�t leave your patriotism reside in your hearts. What�s it
doing there, you nincompoops? Wear it on your sleeve, spew it around,
sport a Deshbhagat�s t-shirt or strut around wearing a Jai Bharat baseball
cap.
I know the feeling pretty well. I landed the job at
The Press Trust of India in Delhi in 1991 and wore a turban. Another Sikh
batch mate took care to snip his hair, shave off the beard and sport a
cigarette between his lips a week before joining. That left just me. �Why
are Sikhs killing the Hindus everyday in Punjab?� The innocence of the
queries could have been amusing, were the gravity of their ignorance not
so serious.
Mumbai 2006 was no different.
�Possibility of SIMI behind blasts,� the game
started very innocently. May be Lashkar, added the next channel. Every
channel had jumped over NDTV, so NDTV jumped higher than anyone. �Govt
sources said Pakistan hand possible,� it reported claiming exclusive
information. Govt sources? You mean there are people out there in the
government of India who know that Pakistan is blowing up trains in Delhi
but are not even willing to tell their own name? And the channel is not
willing to reveal that either?
By now, Lashkar has condemned the blasts, SIMI has
denied any role or link and condemned the blasts thoroughly, and the
Mumbai police chief Pasricha has added that even politicians� role was to
be investigated. Lashkar, SIMI, Pakistan, politicians. Usual suspects all.
Meanwhile, no one had told channels to shut up. So the game was
continuing. �Mumbai is resilient� became �Mumbai is not susceptible to
communal violence.� Everyone, please believe that. Next, you can also
believe that Gujarat is the paragon of communal harmony. Anything else
will be anti-national and an attack on pride of Gujarat.
In Delhi, my newly clean shaved friend had dropped
�Singh� from his name. Now my friends in Mumbai have gone in for
gender-neutral name. �Seema� is safer, a friend told me why he had named
his daughter so. ��Salma� could some day put her in danger,� he explained.
�So why �Seema�? Why not Radhika? Tell a lie, why be ambiguous?� I asked.
He smiled. �Clearly, my dear friend, you do not have children. Ambiguity
is what we looked for. �Radhika� too is dangerous. �Seema� can be Salim�s
daughter or Radhe Shyam�s. Radhika is definitely Radhe Shyam�s,� I was
being educated.
He is right. But he is wrong about my children. I am
a father to Salmas, Seemas and even Radhikas. And my land is susceptible.
And I am doomed to lose my children.
Someone please do something.
�They are looking into the debris at Matunga, at
Jogeshwari, at all the blast sites,� the TV channels assure me. CCTVs are
being installed. India Gate has been handed over to the army. �Did you
notice that no party called for a bandh after the blasts?� an elitist TV
channel noticed a novelty. The BJP promptly called a bandh.
Toll rises: Talks with Pakistan to be delayed. End
of peace process. CBMs fail to impact conflict-resolution. One more blast
in Delhi and we will hear results of SMS polls on TV channels. Should
India attack Pakistan tonight? 88 per cent say Yes. 12 per cent are
anti-nationals.
You kill chances of peace with a neighbour which is
the only country where you don�t have to learn a new language, or new
songs, or new movies or new music; where even the cycle-puncture mending
man hangs the tyre atop the tree top the same way as you do. And then
claim that we will defeat terrorism!
Idiots in the idiot box.
And idiots outside it too.
Every child in India has always wanted to grow up as
a doctor or an engineer. Now they want to become computer engineers or
Sachin Tendulkars. Our mothers still haven�t started giving birth to
babies who want to kill people travelling to offices hanging by the coach
straps.
Unless of course someone is killing the mothers, or
their sons or brothers, or husbands.
Don�t look into the debris. Look where the violence
is coming from. It never comes from across the border, or from a SIMI
office, or a madrasa. It comes from our failure to listen to cries of
mothers losing their sons in distant valleys, from our failure to
understand why young strapping sardars were dropping �Singh� from their
names and shaving off their heads, from why a Salma or a Radhika felt less
secure than a �Seema�.
And from our smug satisfaction when the frail old
man with a white cap says as a matter of duty that perpetrators must be
sent to hell. Next time he will leave the white cap home, and shave off
the beard. Ambiguity helps.
Even in dangerous Mumbai trains.
Just drop �Ali� or �Kumar� from your names.
Sometimes it takes less than a 5,000-year-old civilization to trip.
Sometimes it just takes a clutch of TV channels.
(S.P.Singh can be reached at
spsingh@penmarks.com. More of his work is available on
www.penmarks.com).