Pioneer
June 17, 2002
http://www.dailypioneer.com/secon3.asp?cat=\story4&d=FRONT_PAGE
This 'Time' it's really sick
By Chandan Mitra
(Mr. Mitra is the Editor of Pioneer newspaper.)
"Aap ko to maloom hoga, kya PM sach-much meetings mein so jaate hain,"
queried the Chairman of a leading public sector bank last Friday. Unable to
figure out the context of his question, I asked him what prompted it.
"Arrey, aap ne Time magazine ka article nehi padha kya," he elucidated.
[SAJA translation: "Do you know if the prime ministed really falls asleep
in meetings?" "What, didn't you read the Time magazine article?"]
I had no knowledge of it then. But within the next few hours I was shown
faxes and e-mail printouts of the relevant portions of the impugned report.
My conviction that nobody in India reads Time was dented. Even if they
don't, in this age of information, relevant portions of such publications
will definitely get accessed. Next day, a newspaper extracted the "juicy"
parts and published a brief story. Over two dozen people have asked me since
Friday what I thought of the Time report on the Prime Minister. Exasperated,
I finally read it Saturday night.
Picking up cudgels against a fellow journalist or publication is "not done"
in our profession. It is permissible to pass snide remarks in private about
a report's inaccuracy or bias, perhaps put out a counter to "put things in
perspective," but it's certainly unusual to write a rejoinder especially
when it does not involve this writer or his publication. However, as an
Indian I was outraged. I was outraged by the supercilious, patronising,
white-supremacist, flippant and crassly ill-mannered tone of the piece. I
was outraged that a magazine of such awesome reputation could actually
publish a catalogue of bazaar gossip, almost totally incorrect and
unsubstantiated. I was outraged that not a single person was quoted to
confirm even one damaging observation. I was outraged that an American
journalist and his redoubtable publication had mocked at the democratically
elected leader of a country of one billion people.
Americans resorted to similar mockery against their adversaries during the
Cold War. Leonid Brezhnev or Mao Tse-tung were often at the receiving end of
the poisoned pens of American scribes, pilloried for their alleged fetishes,
weaknesses of the flesh and physical disabilities. Since the erstwhile USSR
and China were closed societies, it was impossible to ascertain the veracity
of such crudely irreverent comments. But to write such gibberish against a
man who leads one of the most open societies in the world is not just in
pathetic taste but also indicative of a mindset that is contemptuous of
non-Western societies. Also, the turgid pieces against Communist leaders of
yesteryear were part of the American psychological war to debilitate the
enemy. Are we to conclude the Time magazine's tirade against our Prime
Minister is a post-script of that strategy?
I am not an acolyte of the Prime Minister and meet him but rarely. Still I
know him well enough over 25 years and interact sufficiently now to
categorically say that Alex Perry's article is a compilation of outright
untruths, insinuations, distortions and obnoxious assertions. It is apparent
he has never met Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee or spoken to anybody who could give
him an authoritative account of the Prime Minister's health or habits.
Condescendingly titled, "Asleep at the Wheel?" and sub-titled "As India and
Pakistan put up their nukes, is an ailing and frail Vajpayee the right man
to have his finger on the button?" the article mostly comprises figments of
a journalist's imagination. The stuff that have been put in cold print would
not have been said by congenitally irreverent scribes even after consuming
three stiff whiskies at the Press Club. The Prime Minister is accused of
forgetting names, dozing off at meetings and even looking "half dead!"
Indian TV crew are allegedly instructed to shoot him only waist up to avoid
showing his ungainly, post-knee surgery gait! Alex Perry then has not lived
in India long enough or watched Indian TV channels. While it is true that Mr
Vajpayee is an unlikely entrant in an athletic contest, it is a blatant lie
that TV cameras are ordered not to show his shuffling walk.
As if Indian TV channels would obey even if instructed! If I know their
mindset they would focus even more on the lower half of his anatomy if
directives to the contrary were given. What does Alex Perry take the Prime
Minister's advisers and Indian journalists for? Such things might be
happening in the US, but they don't happen here.
As for the sharpness of the Prime Minister's memory, anybody who has ever
interacted with him shall vouch for his incredible ability for recollection.
Just recently as we were travelling to Almaty, he came out of his cabin on
the plane to greet journalists and promptly asked me, "Ye 'Leh kar hum
Sindhu ka dil' ka matlab kya hua?" For a fraction of a second, I was stumped
but only to realise quickly that he was referring to the headline in this
newspaper on my report on the Sindhu Darshan ceremony in Leh. I explained
the headline was based on a popular film number from the 70s. He frowned to
say he had not heard the song and that's why didn't get the pun.
Arguably, Mr Vajpayee is given to long silences while framing answers in his
mind, but anybody who thinks that's because he's gone off to sleep is living
in a fool's paradise. I have observed him close his eyes at meetings, giving
the impression he's catching forty winks. Then comes his turn at the
microphone and he rebuts or endorses point after point made by previous
speakers, quoting their words with remarkable exactitude.
Alex Perry knows nothing of the Prime Minister's habits, mannerisms or
intellectual depth. He has written about Mr Vajpayee's eating habits as if
he were present inside the pantry in Race Course Road whereas he has at best
glanced upon the complex from a distance of 500 metres. While attempting an
article on the Indian Prime Minister's ailments and dietary adventurism,
should Mr Perry not have quoted people actually in the know? I have often
heard Mr Vajpayee is fond of sweets. However, I have never seen him gobble
down rasgullas or laddoos.
It is preposterous to suggest that on the return flight from Almaty he
chastised his staff for not serving him the regular ("spicy" according to
Perry) menu. First the Air-India meal was sumptuous, but not spicy by any
standards. Second, Mr Vajpayee's diet is strictly monitored by his family,
doctors and dieticians. He is often served a special menu even in state
banquets. Where Mr Perry got the "information" about the PM's diet is a
subject of abiding mystery.
All this leads to just one conclusion: There was a motive in running the
article. And that motive can only be to humiliate India and get us to
kow-tow to American diktats in the confrontation with Pakistan. As it is,
the West is laughably paranoid about the (non-existent) prospect of a
nuclear war in the sub-continent. It, therefore, bolsters their argument if
it is proved that a sick man's fingers may trigger a nuclear conflict. The
aim is to lower India's confidence level and deflect the Government into
trying to salvage the Prime Minister's image rather than address the more
important military and diplomatic tasks at hand.
Fortunately for India, Mr Vajpayee is far from sick. If anybody is sick it
is the tribe of scribes that trots out such disgusting pieces of writing in
the name of "investigative journalism."
I have often said at various seminars that the Indian media is much more
evolved than the West's. Alex Perry has reconfirmed my belief. No Indian
journalist would think of penning a piece as condescending and blasphemous
about anybody, leave alone the Prime Minister of a global giant. When he was
in office, did anybody write about Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's Disease, for
instance? First, our tehzeeb (manners, culture) prevents us from doing so.
Second, we are not given to concocting stories with the kind of merry
disdain for truth that scribes like Mr Perry and his dollar-hungry Indian
"informants" have displayed.
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