[Reader-list] On Gujarat

[pratap pandey]

Dear Reader,

Are you with me?

Gujarat has heightened my sensibilities.

Are you with me?

I am crying buckets (made of plastic).

Are you with me?

I had no role to play in the actual killing. I merely
watched it on TV, and agreed with all the commentators
who said that the media had made too much of it.

Are you with me?

I deplore the loot that occurred. I regret that I was
not part of it. (I need shirts, trousers, TVs, washing
machines, CDs, and anything worth stealing)

I hated the way the media foccused so closely on the
riots that they were able to come to grips with it.
They were able to report on the fascist Hindu loose
affiliations that made the riots possible. I hate
that.

Are you with me?

The television media, for the first time in its
existence, made sure that audiences knew how the riots
had been engineered. That it was not a riot, but a
planned pogrom.

Are you with me?

My sensitivities were shattered, my education
challenged, my upbringing caricatured.

Are you with me?

I am a liberal.

Are you with me?

I stand for a cultural space in which many voices
exist.

Are you with me?

I consistently find myself unable to stop acts of
constitutional violence.

Are you really with me?

Gujarat is Gujarat. Whatever happened happened there.
Over there.

Are you really with me?

Hey, Kashmir is Kashmir. Whatever happens there
happens there.

Are you really with me?

WE global aeducated Indians are so used to violence so
long as it touches only our hearts. The violence
touches our hearts. It invigorates us; we have one
more reason to pronounce our effete judgements.

Do you want to be with me?

In Kashmir, it is not possible to live any more,
except in numbed decadence. So also in Gujarat. So
also in the rest of the country where the
intelligentsia is simply not willing to take real
material questions in hand.

Do you want to be with me?

The studied silence on Gujarat is frightening. 

Do you wish to be with me?

The studied silence on Gujarat is frightening because
it shows the extant to which the so-called informed
community is not willing to put words and expressions
to this experience. Everybody knows what happened.
Nobody who knows wants to talk about it. Such a
comfortable consensus.

Do you really want to be with me?

The studied silence on Gujarat is less deliberate than
the studied silence on Kashmir. We can ignore GUjarat,
but even more so we can ignore Kashmir. In fact
ignoring Kashmir, consistently and in a studied
manner, has trained us to ignore Gujarat (And let us
not forget, Ayodhya). After Kashmir, everything can be
ignored.

I am not sure you want to be with me.

Numbed decadence is the favoured mode of existence in
the rest of the country. At least, among the informed
community. Or, should I say: "expert culture"?

Do you seriously want to be with me?

In order to be with me, you have to to be sensitive,
tortured, educated (not aeducated), international (not
global), confused, inexpressive, fair, tall, muscular,
fat, thin, dark, caste no bar, talented, high-earning,
handsome, beautiful, propertied. Ultimately human.

Do you want to be with me?



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