…if people like ‘us’ (as in the elite – definitely not me ) commit a crime – even a heinous one, is it not a crime? Does coming from a certain ‘background’ absolve you of guilt ?
So why this outpouring of grief over Kobad Ghandy and Roman Polanski.
Mr.Ghandy is the member one of the leading lights of an organization that has been unleashing bloody terror in parts of India. While one accepts that conditions in these areas are terrible, and development has not trickled down and feudalism persists, the Naxals are adding to the misery of the local populations. They are virtually holding people in areas controlled by them hostage in their squalor, extorting, murdering and terrorizing local populations.
Mr.Polanski – how does one put this nicely ? – raped and sodomized a 13 year old after drugging her.
What has been strange in both cases has been the outpouring of sympathy. I wonder why we aren’t equally ‘sympathetic’ towards
Chhatradhar Mahato. or even towards Gary Glitter . Afterall, they are in the same space of activity.
I wonder whether leading publications will publish articles on the Mr Francis Induwar I knew ?
IT reminds of something my driver told me just after 26/11 – when all those candlelight marches were happening around the Taj – He aasked “VT mein candle nahin jala raha koi”?.
Sometimes I wonder if we are some other universes’ hell. Or at least their lunatic asylum .
Harini Madam, I think you are currently looking at media from deep inside. Today media is slum of careless coverage of anything whicg brings money and quick attention. Media creates and destroys rules and men.. highly irresponsible persons judging the persons for their own profit and loss. This article reminds of a great line of great satirical novel animal farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”
🙂
its not just about the media – it is also about the ‘elite’ and their virtual blindness towards the misdemeanors of their own.
it bothers me when ‘role models’ behave badly and get away with it – rahul mahajan on a tv show, shreesanth with sponsor endorsements ; varun gandhi still in public life; … 🙁
When I think of India and the state of law and order, I am reminded of these lines from the Dylan song ‘Hurricane’:
Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder “one,” guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool’s hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.
🙁 yes.
Kobad Gandhy is spelled Kobad Gandhi in many places too. Was the spelling changed as having a Gandhi as a naxalite would be too much to bear?
i honestly don’t know – all the papers i read carried it as ghandy !
but, i wouldn’t be surprised !
“..its not just about the media – it is also about the ‘elite’ and their virtual blindness towards the misdemeanors of their own..”
Absolutely True..
Often people realize that they are caught in the web of misdemeanors and tend to be silent or undergo or try to fight it from their end and end up dumped, not wanting to get publicized by the media which only actually has a boomerang effect .. the victim is the one again victimized and the elite always walks out more happier than ever .. and with support of many other elitez…
“its not just about the media – it is also about the ‘elite’ and their virtual blindness towards the misdemeanors of their own.”
Absolutely true and I missed that point in analysis. And the line “VT mein candle nahin jala raha koi”?. is haunting me. I am sure they are living someplace in India but not in Bharat.
Gargi,
Yes, We live in a lunatic asylum. Any person who talks what he sees is a lunatic.
Yes I do agree, it is not just media, it is the attitude of our society that suffocates the have-nots. Kobah Ghandhy and Roman Polanski are not the only examples.
Outpouring for Ghandy is not surprising, he was a teacher and son of a restaurateur. So his successful students who ones tried to walk with him but dizzied at the sight of blood kept an admiration for him. The Elites, have both education and money.
Roman Polanski is a great director. But if he is a rapist, he should be hanged. I hold this same view for Michael Jackson or even Shiney Ahuja or Salman Khan. But Society, they are sane and I am declared insane.
Elitism is not only confided to that, during Board exams or results media would publish the interviews, views and photographs of the students who go to these elite schools. Not a view is solicited from the teachers and students of Government School.
And there are many more glaring examples….
And don’t bother your ink about the policemen, no body writes anything about them. Even if they die they are just another dead thulla.
PS: Thanks for visiting and commenting on my blog.
it is one of those strange things about our own morality. i am so tired of hearing ‘he comes from a good family’ as a plea for leniency !
a cops wife told me, not so long ago, that when cops die in the line of duty ‘unhe shaheed nahi kehlate’
Yes they don’t and that is one of the reasons of rampant corruption amongst the police forces in the country
couldn’t believe it when law finally caught up with polanski. who could be shedding ears for him?
tho how a man of his genius can do such a heinous thing, i simply fail to understand! esp since he has lived thru the agony of violence commited on women
Roman Polanski is guilty of abusing a minor and he really deservers to be in jail.