Why India is a little like Afghanistan

Wednesday’s newspapers presented a mix of absurd ironies that abound in our country. There was Salman Rushdie. He was finagled from making an appearance at a literary event in Rajasthan and finagled further from making a video address to the Jaipur Litfest after it was put across that certain sections of the people couldn’t bear to see his face even and therefore there should be no video link to the author of The Satanic Verses. Yet, I got to see him on prime time television, holding forth for more than half an hour. He was in full flow, brought up the Imrana rape case in 2005 when a father-in-law raped his daughter-in-law and the Deobandis passed a strange fatwa: by the father-in-law’s act, Imrana was now, in effect, her husband’s mother and therefore could no longer live with him as a wife. Rushdie pointed out that the Deobandi thought was inspiration for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I guess those who couldn’t bear to see his face would have passed up on the repeat airings. The channel that broadcast it stands unscathed. That was the first irony; instead of a walk-on part in an annual literary festival, he was the only headline coming out of Jaipur. No one quite knows what happened in that city the rest of the time. All we know is that we didn’t get to see the rosy side of the Pink City. We’ll have to watch other lit fests to make a proper comparison, of course.

The other interesting newsbreak was the furore over Jay Leno’s throwaway remarks on presidential-hopeful Mitt Romney’s wealth. Now Romney’s wealth—he’s personally worth a staggering quarter of a BILLION dollars—is a campaign issue. Jay Leno flashed a picture of the Golden Temple and said that was his summer house on Lake Winnipesauke, with the quip—“I’ve been there but I don’t remember that house. It must be new!” It’s not much of a line, but visual gags are par for the course, if you’ve watched Jay Leno. I don’t know if this qualifies as being racist; I bet not many in the invited audience would have identified it, but it triggered protests, with two ministers—Vayalar Ravi and S M Krishna—issuing statements and the Indian mission in Washington tasked to chastise the US government, NBC, and Jay Leno. Nirupama Rao, our ambassador in Washington, will have that unenviable task, considering the US has already stoutly defended the free speech principle, which is a central pillar in mature democracies, if not superpower wannabes.

And here was Nirupama Rao the same day, calling for caution against “victory of dark forces” as the US goes into dialogue with the Taliban. She was making (cute, but true) comparisons: “It (Afghanistan) is a diverse and pluralistic society like India. How do you cohere all different ethnic groups and interests together? That’s the challenge.” She was cautioning, I thought lyrically, as only one with an English Literature background can: “Let us not wait for the dusk and the Owl of Minerva to spread its wings, with awareness coming too late.” Ironically again, she was addressing a seminar: “India as a Global Power: Contending Views from India.” I await Minerva’s Owl’s dusky wing action not so much in Afghanistan but in India. But I’m afraid when the wise owl uses nightvision to see the rising tide of Talibanism and the knee-jerk pandering to it, the first thought will be to flee.

sudarshan@newindianexpress.com