TODAY, consequences of a nuclear war are too unimaginable for me to be waylaid by its fear. So I have decided to focus this week on some of the `normal` issues that India would be engaged anyway with or without the Mumbai horrors forming the backdrop. I`ll let the stories speak for themselves.
After all there`s no point adding to the chaos being disseminated by so many TV channels that pass unsourced stories as fact, always a dangerous ploy in situations like Mumbai, particularly its fallout on India and Pakistan ties. My instinct is there will not be a war but I cannot claim to have all the facts aligned with what is essentially a hunch. The Russians have issued an unsettling statement to make optimism lose a bit of its energetic smile. Instead of a standard comment to warn about a build-up along the India-Pakistan borders by both sides they have issued a formal statement. But I`ll take a chance nevertheless and focus on a few `normal time` issues that Indian newspapers have discussed over the past week and which have relegated the tragic events in Mumbai and their fallout to the backseat.
The Times of India carried an editorial on Saturday. It says “If the government has its way, cheating wives could be criminally tried and punished for adultery. As the law stands now, criminal charges can only be brought against a man for sleeping with another man`s wife, and that only if the cuckolded husband moves against him. But about five years ago, the Malimath committee on reforms of the criminal justice system recommended that women also be tried for adultery. The government, it seems, agrees with the committee that there should be equal punishment for men and women committing adultery. However, it would be regressive to bring more people under the ambit of a law that deserves to be done away with altogether.
“In the last few decades, the institution of marriage has had to face many challenges. Divorce rates around the world have risen. But though adultery is often the reason and ground for a divorce, most civilised societies regard it as what it is a private matter between three or more adults, not a crime, the Times edit said. “In the UK and most of the European Union, adultery is not a crime. In the United States, the law varies from state to state but it is rarely enforced even where adultery is a crime. It continues to be used as a ground for divorce, however, and that can influence alimony decisions and custody battles in many countries. There is no reason that India should be different.”
The editorial goes on to observe that a colonial-era law dating back to 1860 currently rules adultery in India. Did the Times succeed in keeping its comment far removed from the issues of war and revenge stalking us? It almost succeeded but in spite of a valiant effort to focus on something different, the Times had to bring in the dominant national flavour into play nevertheless. Urging the government to give its pursuit on the archaic law, it says “Relationships between Indian men and women are no longer stuck in the 19th century. Given the terror threat the country faces, we need to give our policemen something better to do than chasing cheating spouses and their paramours.”
Actually, there are several more similarly `different` stories doing the rounds, not the least because India is too complex a country to remain focussed on India-Pakistan tensions alone no matter how serious the situation might be. But these `other` stories obviously don`t qualify for the main pages. The rediff.com current affairs website offered a list of 10 of its most emailed articles. Of these, three items related to the ongoing row with Pakistan but none made it to the top two slots.
In fact, the first in the list was an item about golden rules of tax planning. The next article was about top 10 technology breakthroughs of 2008. Mumbai did figure but only at the third spot.
“The prime minister may have been slow and cautious in reacting to the Mumbai attacks. But one month on, his approach has suited both the government and the country,” said the caption to an analysis of Dr Manmohan Singh`s handling of the crisis. A fourth most popular item was a report about how an engineer from IIT, India`s premier technology institute, had become a farmer.
The controversy about Mr Abdul Rehman Antulay`s comments on the terror attacks came fifth but the report next in order was headlined “Will my job be safe in 2009?” It said insurance, telecom, infrastructure and energy are unlikely to downsize; “Elsewhere, only top performers are safe.”The next story is related to Mumbai. It quotes a former naval officer who looks back at the commando operation in the city and “provides a candid assessment of the lessons India and Indians need to learn urgently”.
Come January, employees of a certain IT services company could be in for an off-schedule New Year surprise a 20-40 per cent salary cut across the board. Thus goes the second last story. The last one takes the cake as the list of most emailed stories on rediff.com as of Sunday concludes with “the hottest item numbers -- A look at the top ten sexiest actresses of this year.”
Another unlikely story that jostled for equal space with terror attacks in Mumbai but got crowded out of the front pages was the hilarious yarn about the deputy chief minister of Haryana, a certain Mr Chander Mohan who became a Muslim to take a second wife. In a story that had the trappings of the abdication of King Edward VIII for the love of his life, American divorcee Wallis Simpson, Mr Mohan preferred to lose his job as Haryana`s deputy chief minister than to abandon his sweetheart. He adopted the name of Chand Mohammed and his bride Anuradha Bali was renamed Fizaa after she too changed her religion.
“In love, people are known to take questionable decisions,” said one account of the tragicomedy. “Chander Mohan, who held the post of deputy chief minister in Haryana till Sunday (last month), fell in love and got himself a new wife, a new name and a new religion too. In the process, he lost his job.” The reason extended by Haryana`s official spokesman for dropping Mohan was that he remained `absent` from office and `neglected` his work.
On Friday, as a TV anchor announced a bouquet of stories to mark a full month since the Nov 26 attacks, I noticed that he did not forget to tell the viewers about the Hindi movie Ghajini released on Dec 26 and which was doing extremely well at the box office. It`s a good question to ask of my Pakistani readers how many DVDs of Indian movies have been released openly or surreptitiously in Lahore and elsewhere since the crisis with India began? Whatever the truth of the matter it would be safe to conclude that while some people worry about the chances of a war, others go and watch a movie.