Sunil Sethi: Is notoriety the flip side of fame?

AL FRESCO

Even earned, fame can sometimes become a burden. Inherited, only more so. A good example of the aphorism is former cricket captain Mansur Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi, now pleading not guilty for having killed a black buck and a couple of wild hares on an outing in Haryana earlier this month.

Had it been a poacher""and goodness knows there are plenty at work given the number of disappearing tigers and other fauna in national parks""the incident would have been relegated to the inside pages.

The reason that it's on the front pages is because "Tiger" Pataudi is a famous man and, until now, was regarded as an honourable and respected citizen.

Despite his film connections, he's certainly not in the class of Bollywood boys like Salman Khan, who has been accused of shooting two black buck outside Jodhpur in September 1998, and has since seen his career decline in a miasma of wild and reckless behaviour.

But, strangely, not many people have heard of an infamous poacher called Sansar Chand, accused of many wildlife deaths including several tigers, a notorious figure in wildlife protection circles, who still roams free.

The trouble with Pataudi is that for all his education and reputation he belongs to an old ruling class that even today perhaps doesn't see what's wrong in a bit of hunting, rather like the army of English "huntin' and shootin' types" that marched on London not long ago in protest against a ban on fox hunting and put Tony Blair's government in a serious political bind.

But in Britain the lobby of country folk is both large and politically powerful. It has indulged in blood sports like fox-hunting for generations and is prepared to oppose environmentalists' arguments with the theory that killing a few foxes and rabbits is, in fact, a form of culling proliferating forms of wildlife.

Pataudi and his friends are in no such position. The black buck, together with around a hundred other species of animals and birds, clearly features on Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Act of 1972, which clearly states that "control, custody and possession" of any of the listed fauna, dead or alive, is a non-bailable offence.

Any violation of the Act can invoke a mandatory sentence of three to five years in jail and a minimum fine of Rs 50,000. You can be booked by a judge, in a district or high court, and put straight into the cooler, no questions asked.       

That is, in fact, what happened to Salman Khan and friends but they managed bail and nearly seven years later the case hasn't got much further.

It's the usual story of witnesses disappearing or turning hostile and the story all but forgotten were it not for its resurrection in the context of the Pataudi incident.

Much the same is likely to happen in the Pataudi case. By the time evidence is examined and witnesses sought it will become history. Some questions are obvious: Why did the local police at Jhajjar not inform the forest department on finding the carcasses in the car? Why was a proper FIR not filed? Why were the animals partially cremated and buried by the time the story broke?

One way to speed up the legal procedure on the basis of available evidence and satisfy all parties""and the Punjab and Haryana High Court could take a lead in such a case""would be to sock a massive penalty on Pataudi and friends, extract an apology and assurance that it will never happen again and be done with the matter.

Money for the forest department, a reprimand for the Jhajjar police, and sparing the accused from the slur of notoriety by paying a fine they can well afford.

Instead, the public and the media will be treated to a long-drawn-out, leisurely spectacle that may or may not include a brief jail visit by the accused.

The real debate on revamping forest departments and punishing the guilty will be sidelined. Pataudi will still be famous and acquire a little notoriety.

Even the recent Michael Jackson-child molestation case""given the star status of the accused and gravity of the charges, with more than 150 witnesses and a judge going hell for leather for the pop star""was wrapped up in about two years.

Now that he has been acquitted, an overworked media is busy speculating about his musical future. Notoriety could even help Michael Jackson.

Is it, therefore, the logically rewarding extension to being famous?