[Reader-list] "Salman tells Pak channel, we overreacted to 26/11 because THE ELITE WERE HIT"

[Pheeta Ram]

It made for an interesting headline on the front-page of the Delhi Times,
but spot-on! I happened to be in front of the Taj hotel in Mumbai on the
29th of November, marveling at the majma that had assembled in front of the
hotel that had been under attack two days before. Though the insides of the
hotel had been put off limits for the general public, during the day, i came
to know of the next day, a filmmaker and Deshmukh and co. had visited it on
a broad daylight jaunt. Terminally allergic to khandani elites and
elites-in-the-making, i decided to find out what the street hawkers had to
say about the Taj and all the tamasha around it: "Pehli baar amir log mare
hain. Tabhi itna halla ho raha hai. CST wallon ko koi nahin pooch raha hai.
Sab photo waale yahin par aaye hain.... Jo bhai Commando sab Taj walon ko
bacha kar gaye hain, wo kabhi yahan ki chaye [tea] bhi nahi kharid sakenge."
I was surprised to hear from a fellow brother what i was feeling then but
unable to articulate. Very surprisingly, despite being an elite himself,
Salman Khan voiced similar sentiments yesterday which have made headlines
today in many newspapers.

My making the Delhi Times headline the subject of this mail has one another
purpose: to highlight an observation regarding the 'politics' of the Times
of India. Everybody knows that TOI is the front organ of the ruling
establishment, so my observation shouldn't strike as a surprise to anybody.
Just read Salman's statement given in the Delhi Times itself: " Just because
this time the Taj, the Oberoi were under attack, everybody stood up. We've
had bomb blasts in trains, in small towns, but no one reacted, no one stood
up.... Why now? The people who suddenly woke up were speaking up because
they were scared for their own lives." Now compare this with the text of the
headline; i would like to underscore the word "overreacted" particularly,
which to my mind, makes all the difference. I don't think i need to labour
more to make my point.

After the Mumbai attacks, suddenly a hotel was made up as the 'national
icon'. I won't be surprised if the coming generations would identify the Taj
hotel as one of the wonders of the world instead of the Taj at Agra. Some
time back a young aspiring researcher, with the alacrity and politeness so
characteristic of her tribe, had reacted to my untimely suggestion (that the
issue of "Dilli vs Delhi" was primarily a class issue and that there was
curious politics behind the demise of the concept of 'class' ) saying that
it was impossible to class-ify society in neat categories any longer as
things had become very complicated and hence uselessness of the concept of
'class'. I believe, it is the 'intent' and not the 'nature' of things around
us that makes the difference. Is there something that is goading us to reach
the conclusion? Which class do we belong to now? Which class we used to
belong to before? Which class my parents and their parents before them
belonged to? Which class do i identify with? Which class do i aspire to
identify with? These are some of the questions which strike me when i begin
to rethink about the issue of class-ification of contemporary society and of
the people who overly stress of its very impossibility.  (My guru used to
tell me: "ki bhayya pheeta, do hi class hoti hain, ek jo roti ke waaste
kamaati hai aur doosri wo jo majaa marne ke liye munaafe ki roti chakhti
hai.")

People who are intent on reaching a conclusion, on making a 'just' point
(which the maze of contemporary category confusions render impossible) would
strategically deploy these categories rather than treating them as junk from
a forgettable past. Surprisingly, the concept of 'strategic essentialism'
comes from one of the elites of the academia itself, the tribe i intend to
criti-size ( and not critique). It is a point not very uncommonly
observable, that people who run their shop in the academia, must always
employ themselves in the business of deferring just conclusions. Anything,
any interpretation, that would defer the 'judgement day' is welcome. It is
the 'aesthetics of deferral' that distinguishes the world of an academic
from the world of an activist  which is solely defined by the 'ethics of
arrival'. It also explains the phenomenon of a sudden proliferation in new
scintillating categories in prodigious numbers in the later half of the 20th
century. So one fine evening, if you, by your god's grace, find yourself in
a seminar hall full of creatures from academia, just try to grab their
'conclusions' and the points that drive them to them. Savour each and every
turn of phrase, every other word that at once remind you of your sumo
dictionary, every other sentence that slips from your grasp like a jelly
fish. The fun would not be in discovering the Emperor naked but in finding
that "is hamaam main to tamaam nange hain!"

My sincere apologies for hastening the con-clusion.

Pheeta Ram