Delhi Diary

Stones in the Garden

One would need to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the plight of the stone-pelters of Srinagar. These young lads consumed with inchoate rage deserve our sympathy, not contempt. Day after day, the stone-pelters confront the security forces, who themselves appear terrified. It may sound blasphemous coming from a pseudo-secularist, but the police and the CRPF are doing a thankless job—they are damned if they do and they are damned if they don’t.

Yet, mainstream India remains indifferent. Sections of the media and civil society do take up the Kashmir “cause”; unfortunately, the rest of the country is apathetic, if not cynical. They’ve seen it all before. A state officially committed to the rule of law is seen as impotent in the face of ferocious fury—which most believe is instigated by the ‘enemy’ within and without. I make no judgement on whether the violence is justified, but I suspect the country has already made up its mind.

The credibility of the Omar Abdullah government is so low in Kashmir and the security forces are so hated that every killing is seen as a fake “encounter”. It seems pretty certain now that the Shopian rape-cum-murder case is not what it was made out to be. But tell that to the residents of Srinagar.

Our democracy has no shortage of dishonest and self-serving people’s representatives; those who claim to speak for the Valley are probably the worst of the lot. All they do is whine and whinge about the “alienation” of the Kashmiri people from the safety of their homes as they appear nightly on our television screens. They are petrified to go out on to the street, afraid they might be lynched. If anybody is alienated from the people of Kashmir, it is the politicians of the state. I cannot see a way out. The “moderate” faction of the Hurriyat demands the scrapping of the Special Powers Act, demilitarisation and freeing of all political prisoners as preconditions for resuming dialogue. Is it possible to meet these demands?

The question must be seriously debated. If the people of the Valley so desperately and persistently want “azadi”, should we not give it to them?

Fainting from Laughter

We have seen much fire and brimstone being poured over BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s serial gaffes. He called Digvijay Singh Aurangzeb’s progeny, Afzal Guru son-in-law of the Congress and Laloo Yadav a docile dog. If you leave the propriety of the remarks aside, as invective they are pretty tame stuff. They have neither wit nor style nor piquancy. As the British politician Denis Healey observed of a wimpish opposition stalwart who had denounced him, “It was like being savaged by a dead sheep.” I have no problem with robust and rude language being bandied about by our netas, but all they seem to deal in is humourless abuse. The much-derided Narendra Modi at least raises a small titter with his bombastic barbs, and while his rhetoric may be crude, it is generally on the mark. Mr Gadkari needs some coaching lessons from Narendrabhai!

Not since Piloo Modi have we had political banter worth the name. The BJP president raised some important issues in his Aurangzeb, son-in-law, dog bloomers. Alas, his delivery system is so pathetic that his “eloquence” comes back to haunt him and his party. Hasn’t the BJP got enough on its plate without adding to the mess?

Half-a-Day Heretic

One of the greatest contrarians of our time, Christopher Hitchens, is close to dying of throat cancer. The scourge of Mother Teresa, someone who accuses Henry Kissinger of war crimes, a Trotskyite-turned-neo-con, a votary of Bush’s war in Iraq, a merciless critic of radical Islam, he is also a heavy drinker and smoker. For the past 30 years, he has been a 40-cigarettes-and-half-a-bottle-of-whiskey-a-day man. Doctors and friends had warned him that he was burning the candle at both ends. But he refused to listen. In his autobiography, Hitch-22, published recently, he frankly discusses his fondness for the grape and the pipe, and concludes that since he is able to deliver 1,000 “serviceable” words by lunchtime every day, his lifestyle has been doing him no harm.

It is difficult to believe that Hitchens did not anticipate the consequences of his excessive smoking and drinking. Yet he continued: Like so many extraordinarily talented intellectuals, he took unacceptable risks with his health. You could say he had a death-wish!

Mutt Ado

I have decided to give Editor a sabbatical from this column. It is not his rising Page-3 status which worries me. It is something decidedly more troublesome. Recently, a website devoted to dogs requested that my mutt be made “Guest Editor” of their portal for a month. He would be required to commission, vet, select, sub and design the articles. I think that’s going too far. At this rate, he could be asked to edit Outlook. Of course, some of you think he already does!