Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Shudders sell, and how. All through the last month and a half, the international media has had a jolly good time bombing the mindscape with all manner of scare scenarios involving the subcontinent8217;s two nuclear powers. Don8217;t confuse this with serious assessments of actual dangers by serious political commentators and strategic experts.
This is just a freelance frenzy fed by wordmeisters who can pump their computer keys awhile and spin out a stylish treatise on just about anybody or anything, anywhere. In 2,000 words flat. Never mind the glitches and the casual quotes thrown in by way of value addition.
And so it came to pass that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the subject of one such intrepid wizard.
By the time he finished his 2,000 words flat, there was the prime minister flat on his back, with his cholesterol levels, his liver function, and his surgically altered knees up for international inspection.
Is he the right man to have his finger on India8217;s nuclear button? That was the burden of the Time exposition. Of course, what is forgotten in all this is that the curious history of nuclear politics has witnessed some very unlikely guardians of the button.
Consider, for a moment, Old Ronald Reagan, who presided over the world8217;s largest stockpile of nuclear arms in the human history? Would anyone have suspected that he would not blow up the world several times over? Richard Nixon, who presided over the Vietnam war, was known to have enjoyed his evening drinks. But did Time magazine wonder about the wisdom of such a man supervising US strikes?
But the question remains, does the Time exposition deserve the kind of attention it evoked in the Indian establishment? Did the PMO have to go ballistic and the MEA fuss over it? Did the government have to take official note of the piece, and senior ministers cry blue murder? We think not.
Have a sense of proportion. This, after all, is not the US State Department speaking, it8217;s only 2,000 words masquerading as profundity. It deserves to be ignored or, at most, rebutted. This breast-beating does not behove a nation that takes its freedoms seriously. In any case, Time is fleeting. Let8217;s move on.
