FB 30 - I am taking the liberty of copy pasting a communication from my Blog, which I have found most interesting : Let me have your comments : No death ought to be wished for. Or almost none. Wouldnt it be reasonable to wish for Hitlers death before he sent millions to theirs in the most awful camps? Wouldnt it be understandable to wish for Stalins before he starved millions (more were killed in his Russia than the number of those who perished in WWII on all sides!)? It is understandable that casting anyones death into an economy makes one queasy but sometimes the calculus seems reasonably clear. Even if a death is not desired does it follow that it ought to be necessarily mourned? Indeed there are those one is personally indebted to and if I were the one owing such a debt I too would have more ambivalent feelings if not those of total gratitude. But it seems to me that judging these things from a greater distance one has to examine the politics much more than the personal gestures. Im sure Hitler had friends for whom he did stuff. So it goes for very many of historys monstrous leaders. Who meant a lot to their people and communities. I am not given to prayer but my thoughts go out (yes... still!) to the victims of 1993. Let this date suffice without further detail. Much as my thoughts still go out to the victims of 1984. And those of 2002. And those in Jammu forced to migrate. And so on. There are no privileged victims. Each loss is irreparable. Each bit of damage done singular. I have been in debates with people where some of my views are not very welcome. It is always easy to identify monsters elsewhere and hard to face up to the same when they are ones own leaders. And so in these debates people sometimes ask me what hard evidence I can cite that someone was responsible for some of these crimes and atrocities. I admit I have none. But I also point out that there is no hard evidence for Hitler being responsible for Kristallnacht. No document bears his signature. There is in fact no official literature signed by him that then leads to a death camp. Isnt this a rather pathetic legalism though? Do we resort to such an excuse when we think of one of the greatest tragedies, one of the greatest horrors of human history? But by the same token can we simply excuse lesser events because they dont rise to the same level? Specially when the logic is precisely the same? The difference being only one of scale? A public figure cannot contribute to such a dialogue. I certainly understand this. But allow me to offer once again the very courageous example from a very courageous film -- Dev. The friend who decided to sacrifice his friendship rather than sacrifice the many who were victims of the friend and who would have also been victims of the friendship if one of the friends had not said anything. Things have been leading upto this but in that moment with that burning building a whole apotheosis takes place. For the friend who cannot keep counter-signing the politics of his friend, cannot even counter-sign the friendship. The private and public cannot always be kept apart. I do know.. and I should say this.. where with a very delicate silence.. you have in different situations not counter-signed.. and you have my greatest respect for this.. but sometimes less tact and greater risk are required.. precisely when one has a name and a voice that can reverberate greatly.. I would never dare judge someone in such a position.. who among us could conscientiously claim to have more courage? For all kinds of very valid reasons. Most of us would assuredly fail much more. Perhaps we wouldnt even be able to summon up that valuable tact and discretion. Possibly we would counter-sign more.. to our discredit. But it is important to always hold up this bar.. Not to judge.. but to remind and remind again.. SrBachchan I AM GREATLY INDEBTED TO YOU SATYAM FOR THESE THOUGHTS !! Not many express themselves in such manner ... many do not have the courage to either .. Yes celebrities shall always have to bear the brunt of saying or at times not saying .. and what and where discretion needs to be exercised is also an unknown entity. But somewhere in the lives of ours one needs to contemplate and weigh whether the consequences of counter signatures need to be exercised or not. I left politics for this very reason. Politics divides, pushes one to take sides, give opinion that may not be appreciated universally. But that is contrary to our profession now - we desire universal acceptance, and a counter signature is not quite the desired recommendation - at least for me ! I will and do have my personal opinions, but they are private and personal, my constitutional democratic rights. These expressed on public platforms robs it of it privacy. I may not be too comfortable in doing so ...
Posted on: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:47:28 +0000
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