Increasingly I have begun to get the feeling that we are living in a cosmic joke. That matters are being so designed as to befuddle and perplex the most clear-headed amongst us, and that someone up there is having a good ol’ giggle on our account.
Take the case of the offensive anti-Mohammed film that has unleashed such a wave of violence and disquiet and juxtapose it with the re-issuing of the fatwa on Salman Rushdie’s life in the same week and stir into that vexatious mix the release of one of Rushdie’s finest books (not just any book, mind you, but one recalling his 10 harrowing years under the shadow of the fatwa), Joseph Anton: A Memoir.
Could anyone except a master playwright, one with an evil streak and a dark sense of humour, conjure up a scenario as challenging as that?
There you have Rushdie’s legion of supporters, even more inspired after reading how the regressive beliefs of a backward leader can destroy not only one man’s life but the basic constructs that the civilised world is predicated on, all set to defend the author against the second fatwa.
Dusting up their arguments in defence of free speech, shaking their well-thumbed issues of Voltaire and Rousseau at anyone who questions the right of a man to express his opinion without fear or favour. And furiously writing editorials and blogs.
How will the very same people, these champions of free speech, respond to a despicable film that merits no mention when it comes to the question of free speech? Ban it, ban YouTube, censure the community or country it emerged from — or defend it with the same argument that they employ for championing Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses?
Could there be a conundrum more deliciously demanding for anyone interested in nuance and debate?
Or take the imbroglio over FDI in retail and the opposition to it. On the one hand you have a beleaguered party with its back to the wall, attempting to fix things, and on the other a flanking move of opportunistic and cynical opposition led by a woman with an impeccably clean record who appears to be motivated by ambition.
Support the right thing even when you know it’s being done by the wrong people? Or oppose the right thing on the principle of truth and clean governance?
FDI in retail, which appears to be the first move in the much-needed and long-overdue second phase of Indian economic reforms, could not come at a more inopportune time. The ruling party has been thoroughly discredited by corruption allegations, and exposed for its shallowness. National morale is at its lowest.
And yet, even reform’s critics and baiters know that to oppose this last straw, thrown to a drowning man, would be to turn India’s clock back to the bad old pre-1990s days.
Could any playwright known to man — even the great bard himself — have presented audiences with more difficult choices? Who are the villains and who the heroes? Are there no areas of black and white left, only shades of grey?
So many other issues and questions challenge the average citizen with every passing day and every new installment of the news.
Nuclear energy, with all its hazards and risks, or a further depletion of the earth’s resources and a bigger vulnerability to scams and crony capitalism?
Like I said: no easy answers anywhere!
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer
malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com
