Random thoughts on the latest Rushdie incident

Random thoughts on the latest Rushdie incident

Ever since the latest round of news surrounding Salman Rushdie has come into news, a peculiar idiosyncratic ritual can be seen on the part of some members of Indian intelligentsia. This can be categorized as selective fellow-filling on the part of those very members of our intelligentsia.

Incidents like the recent one involving Salman Rushdie gives the Indian intelligentsia an opportunity to prove to the common people their credentials for being representatives of a freedom-loving and creativity-cherishing society. This gives them the opportunity to show their sympathies for someone who resembles their lifestyles and way of life. This is an expression of sentimental-fellow feeling on the part of these members of our intelligentsia.

The World in these days is watching a lot of tragic and sad events which call for the attention of all of us who are concerned about the future prospects of humanity. In my view these events require a strong position-taking for all those who are concerned about the current situation of humanity.

The recent murder of the Iranian nuclear scientist Ahmadi-Roshan is condemnable for the fact that leaving politics aside this was an attack against an individual who was doing scientific research which could have led to the betterment of people. This was a deliberate attack to target the intellectual talent of a country.

All of us have criticized the incident of the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas. We called the perpetrators backward, inward-looking people who do not understand the benefits of art and culture. In my view this killing of the nuclear scientist in Iran has also need to be seen in the same light.

This killing is attempted to deprive a people the knowledge and know-how to do scientific research. This is just to ensure that the people remain blunt and stupid as the attackers would probably want the Iranian people to become so.

Some days back I heard a American radio talk show whereby a very prominent American commentator was discussing with glee about how the western-educated, modernized Iranian urban female population have stopped producing enough babies and he predicted within a century there will be no one speaking Persian in the World. I was perplexed and shocked to hear him enjoying the prospects of a millennium-old language being extinguished forever. He went on cheering live on air, “I dislike Rumi, I dislike Hafez and I do not care if they vanish from the collective minds of humanity.”

I still cannot believe those words. I mean where we are going as humanity when we can relish about the prospects of annihilation of a language which has given this World so much.

There were more things to feel horrified about the future prospects of our humanity. Next few days brought the disgusting pictures of American marines answering nature’s call, on dead human beings.

Yesterday, an American marine pleaded guilty in the heinous murders of an innocent family in Haditha , Iraq and what was shocking that the court just gave him three months in prison.

This is not only shocking but a real cause of concern if we try to analyze the inherent pattern in these two events. We have a man accepting in public that he was responsible for the murdering of innocent people and then the court of law just giving him so light a sentence.

To me if this man goes out of the court after three months and murders some more people, you have to blame the judge who let him get away with murder. No wonder some of the friends of that man was busy celebrating relieving themselves on the dead bodies of fellow human beings. After all they know that if their counterparts can get away after making the bodies of some innocent people lifeless, surely they will get away with dishonoring those very same lifeless bodies.

The last event that came to my notice was the lucid remark by a very famous American television commentator about how a certain American presidential contender who is known to posterity as a rich and powerful corporate guy ; could use the Golden temple at Amritsar as one of his holiday luxury suits.

This to my mind is not only a show of a lack of sensitivity for the sentiments of people but it is a far greater malice.

It is just yet another symptom of a mindset whereby a person thinks that if he is rich and famous then for him everything is up for grabs.

This is the most significant thing that all the thoughtful people in this World should be really concerned of.

Our World is going through an intellectual and identity crisis. The mindset whereby people feel indifferent to natural norms like the revulsion in the killing of innocents and desecration of dead bodies is taking over more and more innocent hearts and minds. This mindset considers everything as material terms. This mindset considers itself superior to all the rest and is completely indifferent to whatever happens to the rest of the unfortunate people whom it considers as “insignificant and collateral”. To this mindset there is very little value for other people’s feelings, sensitivities or their lives.

The World will be moving to an uncertain territory in terms of intellectual and for that matter any kind of progress if this mindset continues to march on with its macabre dance of death and destruction.

There is a moral responsibility on the parts of thinking peoples all over the World to speak out loudly against the further spread of this mindset. This is much bigger than affronting the rights of free speech of a single celebrity individual.

If today’s Indian intelligentsia is selective in showing concern to one of his own and completely silent on the spread of this marauding exceptional mindset that I have been warning now, it will be too late for them when this mindset turns against them.

Selective judgment from the intelligentsia of a country is the most sure and most short route towards intellectual irrelevance in the present and complete oblivion for posterity.