| |
EDITORIALS
Agra And The Idea Of Peace
Indo-Pak incompatibilities call not for idealism but
realism
 Phonetically,
Agra doesn't rhyme with peace. Historically too. Though peace in the subcontinental
context has become more of an abstraction wrapped in emotion than a geopolitical
expediency. That is not because of the K-word, which is only a consequence
of the overwhelming P-word. The idea of Partition, more correctly the
memory of it, has made Kashmir-or perhaps the entire body
of India-Pakistan relationship-an argument where cold reason is
at a premium. That too at a time when what is required is a clinical approach
that is not weighed down by historical sentimentalism. Remember, there
is no brotherhood of nations. And there has never been. There is alliance,
there is partnership-and lots of pragmatism. Regional togetherness-as
in EU or ASEAN or OIC or the hopeless SAARC-doesn't translate itself into
O-Brother bonhomie. National exceptionalism doesn't dissolve in supranational
idealism. The alternative to peace is not war but pragmatism. Something
that is absent in Indo-Pak engagement.
India and Pakistan cannot be equal partners,
for they are incompatible as nation states. Whatever may be its imperfections,
India is an evolved democracy with the institutions of civil society strongly
in place. Pakistan is not. It is an underdeveloped civil society gasping
for air under the jackboot of military dictatorship. A country born of
religious fundamentalism, it continues to put reason below religion, which
in India to a great extent defines its national identity but doesn't drive
its national mission. This incompatibility cannot be repudiated by bombs
or the verbal bombast of the peace industry steeped in Partition. The
subcontinent has to come out this self-limiting historical ghetto the
way Europe is coming out of the memories of World War II. Get real and
let each other live. And of course, peace can be a harmless mindset.
Thus Spake The Lady
Pity, Jayalalitha has a message but doesn't have a medium
other than herself
 The
chief minister of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalithaa (that's the official spelling)
has "the highest regard for the media", though the media itself
appears to be "a little confused about what press freedom really
means". But Jayalalitha (that's the unofficial spelling) is not a
confused person. She's a woman of mental clarity and administrative purposefulness.
Qualities that were visible even on a rival television channel. How fair!
So when it comes to soul-baring, she has to look for a medium other than
the confused media. The medium is J. Jayalalithaa. In a self-interview-she
asks questions and answers them herself-she has given the true picture
of the pre-dawn crackdown on K. Karunanidhi and other DMK leaders. The
truth: M.K. Stalin is corrupt and Karunanidhi is the facilitator of his
son's corruption; Karunanidhi was arrested with dignity but Union Minister
Murasoli Maran manhandled policemen; and Karunanidhi is a liar. Truth
shall prevail, as long as Jayalalitha alone is its arbiter.
This is I'm-the-message-and-I'm-the-medium megalomania.
The leader as the keeper of mass conscience. For Jayalalitha, the masses
are there. The same masses that brought mgr from the screen to the emotional
centre of Tamil Nadu, institutionalising kitsch as the aesthetics of the
salvation politics of Dravidianism. Today, Jayalalitha has taken the idea
of the supreme leader to the summit of paranoia. And the lurking enemy
is a prerequisite for any supreme leadership. For Jayalalitha, the enemy
appears in many cunning forms-an old man in dark glasses, a TV camera.
So Jayalalitha can trust nobody, she doesn't have to explain anything
to anybody but herself. But supreme leaders don't punish themselves. That
privilege belongs to the masses.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
