Reflections, reflected

When there was evidence enough of a cross-border link, 8216;The Guardian8217; wrote a beautiful editorial about nothing

Mumbai, 26/11 might have done its bit to resurrect the long-dead notions of 8220;national character8221;. Even an elusive, momentary revival of this ghost would put us in an incredibly unflattering light. But how does it feel when sympathy and counsel come from foreign shores, but with 8220;national character8221;, a stereotype if ever there was one, blinkering columnists and papers? They cannot altogether sunder us from ancient images of us built into their heads. From headlines and all-explaining straplines, you know what the Yanks would say. You know what the Brits can8217;t forget and what they don8217;t get. The curious variations on the same theme from the Continental press. And you know how boring the Israelis can be.

No offence should be taken where none is meant. In times when we are hurt, we seek out what others have to say about our pain because of their outsider8217;s 8220;perspective8221;. We get part of what we want; we remain disappointed. To be fair, we8217;re guilty of looking for what we want to read. The Israeli press has been the most vocally sympathetic and outraged. They were reasonably more concerned about the Chabad victims, but came out ostensibly in support of closer Indo-Israeli ties. But then comes the harangue on Islamist terror which begins right but goes wrong as its rhetoric explodes and writes Palestinians into Indian Muslims. And yet, the Israeli and American press have made the best efforts to pull 26/11 in a global context; not just the fallout for the international community as the British press seems to have in mind. The US and Israeli press differ in the maturity and practicability of what they suggest. The three-pronged Israeli reading has been: the horror and sorrow of it all; the dangers posed by Islamist terror, with its origins in Islam per se; and how inefficient the Indian defence establishment is. P.S.: Of course, it must have been Pakistan.

In Britain, the papers have reported extensively and opined intrusively. They are very uncomfortable about India8217;s midnight twin being dragged into it and look askance at mentions of Lashkar. No. The roots must lie deep within. And India hasn8217;t solved Kashmir, has it? Without Kashmir there can be no peace. So India mustn8217;t escalate at the border lest Westminster lose sleep. The Times said in an editorial: 8220;To let the peace process drift would not just delight the cult of murderous victimhood that trained the Mumbai gunmen8230; the attacks confirmed Kashmir as the most dangerous flashpoint in the struggle against militant Islam8221;. Since the LeT, 8220;disowned8221; by the ISI and 8220;coopted8221; by Al-Qaeda, was established solely to 8220;wrest Kashmir from India8221;, India must join hands with Pakistan to fight terror 8212; the common enemy. Ditto Times columnist, Bronwen Maddox, who bettered the editorial line by putting more onuses on India. Long-distance opinion gets away with clicheacute;s about strengthening the 8220;fragile8221; government. They know how close to coming off the hand we must hold is. They remind us how fragmented Pakistan is, not admitting that very fragmentation is the cause of our tragedy.

But the jewel in the Brit print crown is that arch-defender of all causes noble, the redoubtable Guardian. Its habit of overtly editorialising reports meant they kept digging for the local socio-economic roots of a bunch of trained, professional criminals. By the time they wrote yesterday8217;s edit 8216;The Unforgotten Dream8217;, they must have tired of looking for worms in a can from Azamgarh, they must have tired of expat-Indian sociology lectures. There was by then enough to suggest a cross-border link. So The Guardian did what it does best: it wrote a beautiful editorial which said nothing.

The other pole of the Anglophone press that matters is the only one we might take seriously at the moment. Not because we see behind them, in small or large degrees, the warm faces of Bush/Obama. It8217;s because they have come closest to the heart of the matter. The defining editorial appeared yesterday, surprisingly or not, in the New York Times 8216;The Horror in Mumbai8217;. And the opening sentences reassured one about the twin concerns of NYT : sharing the horror which to be fair everybody did and very kindly so and understanding the questions Indians would raise. This most encompassing leader blasted government and intelligence failure, questioned the authenticity of the name and existence of Deccan Mujahideen, mentioned the pointers from both Indian and US intelligence towards LeT, the LeT8217;s roots, ISI training and collaboration with Taliban.

The Continental media gave 26/11 space aplenty. And a word on our own biases: the Spanish press, so inconsequential to us, did a particularly good job in faithfully reporting, with every possible feed. If 8220;national character8221; is the walls of ignorance we build around ourselves through which we then see the world for centuries and which we imperceptibly grow out of, or don8217;t, the Spanish think less and are more forthright: they voted out Joseacute; Mariacute;a Aznar the moment they learnt it was Al-Qaeda in March 2004 and not ETA. El Paiacute;s and El Mundo were among the first to take the Indian assertions seriously and highlight the 8220;external8221; origins of 26/11. But our 8220;national character8221; naturally headed first, and justifiably, to the opinions of the

Anglophone world.

sudeep.paulexpressindia.com