The way some sections of the society have treated one of our most eminent of social scientist Prof. Ashish Nandy over  his alleged slur on the Dalit and OBC community during the course of an interactive session at the Jaipur literature festival is beyond shocking. The mind simply goes numb to think what this country is coming to as far as freedom of speech and expression is concerned. Every passing day we are witness to the bizarre spectacle of one fringe group or the other taking offence to one thing or another whether a film or a book, a song, a play, the list could be endless as if these cretins decide to pick one item from the menu everyday to feel offended about just in order to validate their existence.

But coming back to Prof. Nandy, his comments in the course of a discussion on corruption about the hypocrisy of the elite and how the hierarchy of corruption made the corrupt practices indulged in by the lower classes and Dalits seem more gross and abominable was made in a specific context. But the poor man fell victim to the tyranny of the age of sound bytes where one sentence or remark is not only taken but wrenched out of context by the news channels and is used to create a spurious controversy. Even if what came out might have been grating on the nerves of a few members of the community, the answer is not the threat of arrest or intimidation but equally forceful denouncing  and challenge of the said view on an intellectual plane. If a book or any other piece of art is not congenial to your sensibility or sensitivity, the best way to respond is to write another book or produce an alternate piece of art to contest the assumption or just ignore it and let it pass. Instead what we are seeing today in this country is the increasing prominence the bigoted and reactionary elements are gaining in the public discourse.     

Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that I will continue to be as outspoken against all the forces of extremism, unreason and bigotry as I possibly can.  I have a problem and I will have a problem whenever I see that personal freedom and individual liberty are being curtailed, whether by any social group or by the government itself.  And let me also say that I fully support all the writers and filmmakers who have returned their awards to the government as a mark of protest against the rising tide of intolerance and vicious bigotry by a section of the population which believes that the present union government is not only spiritually aligned, but also sympathetic to their regressively illiberal agenda.  Therefore, I stand by all our intellectual people in the country for showing the courage to face down the bully. 

  And please, don’t try to trip me with guilt by forcing me to draw moral equivalence between one societal derangement and another, like if I condemn this then you turn around and say why don’t you condemn that, why you say this now why didn’t that then?  I am too old for games like that.  Everything in life has a context and we as human beings can’t wade into every battle.  We can only pick and choose our battles that we think are worth fighting for.  I am no fan of the previous regime either, who ruled through the murky system of patronage and cooption of a corrupt feudal elite, and it was necessary to get rid of them, but we can’t replace the corrupt with the reactionaries either.  I would like the Prime Minister Modi to be unequivocal in his denunciation of the fanatics and forces of reaction on both sides Hindus as well as Muslims, and not be mealy mouthed on this vital issue.  He must subject himself to tough questions by the media and not cynically use social media for banalities and one-sided conversation.  

One of my first cousins dropped by the other day.  I had a bit of a falling out with him and was seeing him after quite some time.  Now he’s one of those people who nurse political ambition, and all for the wrong reason.  Like so many delusional young men in this country, who after making a mess of their life, think that politics is the easiest way to make a quick buck and acquire power?  I accept that political ambition has nothing to do with creating a meritocratic society, but even so, cupidity and nepotism are the order of the day; it’s a closed shop really.  I thought he understood all that but with a vague sort of clarity which was neither here nor there.

  So, here he was, like a man possessed by a misguided zeal hoping to secure a nomination from one of the parties for the upcoming state assembly elections.  His last attempt to do so had ended up in a miserable failure, and as it turned out, same thing happened this time also.  He was very unfocused and incoherent in articulating his political views.  He mumbled something about giving opportunity to the youth, and when my brother probed him about having any kind of blueprint in mind about the young people in the country, he brushed aside the question as something utterly insignificant.  He carried a sheaf of papers—a kind of resume—on which written in bad English were the sum and substance of his achievements as a political activist.  He talked to some big shot on the phone seeking an audience with him, but clearly the big shot was not interested.  The wheedling tone, the exaggeratingly obsequious manner in which he was speaking on the phone was quite embarrassing.  Maybe, the big shot would have granted him an audience, I don’t know.  Living purely by instinct, shunning completely the life of the mind, wearing your reverse snobbery as a badge of honor, you lose the language of both your conviction and also of your rage.  Looking at him, it was possible to see that a kind of unwieldy ambition was pressing down upon him and making him somehow diminished as a person.  I tried to imagine some common ground with him, but I couldn’t.  The chasm between us was also an abyss and I just wouldn’t reach out to him.  And then he left.  And that was that.  I kept thinking that even though he was sitting couple of feet away from me, I could have hardly felt more distant from him.

Usually, I follow politics at very superficial level, British politics even more so.  The other day I was watching the BBC when they were anointing Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the opposition labor party after a tumultuous few months.  Now there was something about his pleasing personality that did ring a bell.  And then the realization dawned on me, and I was convinced in my mind that when my affable brother in law Mike Deleo gets to the age of 65 and beyond, he will resemble very much Jeremy Corbyn!  And the more I saw, the more I thought that Mike will not just look like him in the old age, I don't know whether it was my imagination, but I also discovered some commonality of traits.  The same tall and lanky frame, the relaxed and graceful movement not to mention the amiable demeanor that could be engaged and detached at the same time.  It was quite uncanny really.  If you happen to be reading this Mikey, please don't mind man because I am saying this entirely as a compliment.  As far as I am concerned, it could never be otherwise.

Tuning into BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera every evening, you are brought face to face with a gut-wrenching and a harrowing human tragedy.  Hundreds and thousands of vulnerable and dispossessed people are fleeing their strife torn and civil war ravaged countries in the Middle East and North Africa to seek sanctuary and asylum in more prosperous western and northern Europe on a daily basis.  Devoid of either hope or any kind of legitimate documentation, these people, possessed by frightening audacity, are literally putting their lives at risk in order to get to the Promised Land.  Those migrants who are leaving the shores of North Africa are crossing the Mediterranean and landing in Italy, even though scores of them are dying every month either by drowning in leaky overcrowded boats, or being claimed by sea sickness.

  What has really astounded me no end is the kind of treacherous journey undertaken by those from Syria and Iraq.  Moving entirely on foot, these thousands of men, women and children are first crossing into neighboring Turkey, from there sailing in boats like tightly packed Sardines further west to the Greek islands.  From there on, the journey begins once more on foot, this great mass of humanity marching northward into Macedonia and then into Hungary; their aim being to cross the border to Austria towards west, and then to their final destination of either Germany, France or The United Kingdom.  In that long and arduous journey, they endure all kinds of hardship, from being robbed by the criminal gangs to beating by the police and security forces. It is nothing short of a surreal sight to see all kinds of men, women and small children’s marching down the road with a desperate determination.  Some are escaping persecution by the state and some are running for their lives, from possible genocide. Small children sitting on the shoulders of the elders, frail women some of them pregnant trying to heave their bodies willing them to keep moving until they reach were they want to be. I guess this was the exodus they talk about in The Old Testament.  Even if these people get there, there is no guarantee that they will be able to build a better life for themselves. But their hope lies in the fact that may be, just may be if the fear of death and persecution goes away, they might have a shot. To be fair to the countries in the European Union, they are trying to accommodate as many migrants as possible, but that generosity is fuelling another kind of resentment among the people in the host country.  Some leaders like Erdogan of Turkey and Putin in Russia are taunting the European government that it was there policies along with the U.S that resulted in the crisis in the Middle East & in North Africa in the first place, so it is their moral obligation to help these refugees. On the other hand the European leaders are saying that if the rulers in those countries had put their house in order, this humanitarian disaster would not have erupted.  I don’t know who is right or who is wrong, neither do I have any solution to offer. But every night I am depressingly mesmerized to see this human catastrophe beamed in my living room.

May I know how many perpetrators of the Gujarat carnage of 2002 have been given death sentence and lest I be accused of selective memory, how many people who actively participated in the butchering of thousands of innocents Sikhs on the streets of New Delhi in 1984 been sent to the gallows?  The answer is, none.  And what about those animals who not only violently gangraped and killed a young girl in a moving bus, but also horribly mutilated her body beyond imagination.  Why are they enjoying the state's hospitality in a maximum security prison in the country?
But instead you chose to execute a man who naively believed in your criminal justice system.  By no means am I suggesting that Yakub Memon was not guilty of the conspiracy to commit those horrific serial bomb blasts of 1993 in Bombay that accounted for the lives of more than 300 people, or that he didn't get a fair trial in India.  My limited point is that his involvement in the actual planning and execution in that act of terror was peripheral and not central.  Let me draw an analogy; say I am seriously annoyed with a group of people so much so that I wouldn't mind them being killed, and I find out that my brother is also thinking along similar lines and in fact he is going to do something about it.  As his brother, even though I am aware all along of the conspiracy and the planning to kill those people, I decide to not only keep quite about it but also provide moral support to the whole thing.  So, you can say that I am guilty by association but since i did not directory conceived or executed the operation, I would not be bracketed in the same league as my brother.  That's how I would think anyway, and that is how more or less things transpired.
Call it a prick of conscience or whatever, but the fact remains that Yakub Memon gave up himself voluntarily to the Indian law enforcement authorities in the hope of making a bargain for lesser punishment in exchange of fully cooperating with the investigation and prosecution of that serial bomb blast.  His best hope was a life in prison with no possibility of  parole.  This  is not an unreasonable expectation in any civilized  democracy like ours.  I think because they have not been able to capture the chief executioner of the operation Tiger Memon and underworld lord of the crime syndicate Dawood Ibrahim who was the main financer for this inhuman act, they have taken out all their frustration on the one man who did not get away like those two.  How far this insatiable bloodlust can be allowed to go on just to satisfy the so called "conscience" of society?  As a democratic country keeping in line with the best practices around the world, we must move away from death penalty.  But that is a debate for another day.  If the previous government for the sake of  a vote bank hanged Afzal Guru, then this is a government led by a macho nationalist and how can it let go of a golden opportunity to display its machismo to the faithful and hence Yakub Memon had to be sent to the gallows.

Your whole life is the sum and subtotal of the kind of choices you make.  They say that destiny is the ultimate decider but I think in the larger sense, it’s how you choose determines your destiny.  I am always given to self-analysis especially when I am in a dark mood.  I’ve never opted for regrets for the kind of choices I’ve made; however I deeply regret that I was not given the opportunity to become another kind of man.  A man without baggage, light on his feet, a rolling stone that gathers all the moss but never takes root anywhere.  But here I am, presented with a fait-accomplish and asked to choose. 

  So, I chose knowledge over ignorance, being a discerning individual over being a philistine, expanding of mind over narrowness of thinking, rationality over superstition, struggle over self-pity and Devil over God.  How far have I succeeded in my endeavor is not for me to decide.  Sometimes the net result has been a lot of personal anguish, but those were my choices and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I hear a voice that says you are lucky, it could be worse.  What is luck after all, but fate’s cheating, giving you an illusion of power.  Whereas the best you can do is to get up every morning and try your best to keep disaster at bay.

I have a vision where anxiety and ambition are consuming each other; they are coalescing and diffusing, inflating and deflating.  I can see time accumulating like grains of sand and it will bury me in the end.