A Window To Perceptive Journalism

L'affair Captain and A General
A very Dyal Amarinder

S P Singh

Shock, an emotion preserved for those rare occasions when human beings were jolted by things they would dread, is currently used as an alternative to Pretense. So thousands were shocked when they watched Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, that scion royale who had quit the Parliament to protest against Operation Bluestar, honouring and embracing Lt Gen (retd) R S Dyal.  

Dyal was the man who led the Indian armed forces inside the Golden Temple as they tried pounding out the militants with heavy ammunition and purging the menace of terrorism from Punjab. (That it only led to more bloodshed for a few more years and a nearly-permanently hurt community is something that surely did not find its way into Dyal's ACR.) 

The MH1 channel, which I am told is normally the exclusive preserve of a bevy of beauties displaying the limits to which human bodies can be stretched and displayed, covered a ceremony in Mumbai meant to honour film personalities and NRIs from Punjab. (There must be some connection between film people and NRIs, though I didn't understand that). It was at this function that Amarinder extended the honour to Dyal, though neither the channel nor the state government, made it clear whether Dyal was a film personality or an NRI from Punjab. For some reason, the function was called Media Entertainment Summit. Chew that. 

But what was clear was the distance travelled since that ugly summer of 1984. Amarinder could afford to honour Dyal, newsmen could afford to report the story like pedestrian stuff they do everyday, Akali Dal could afford to issue froth-from-the-mouth routine reaction and government could afford to issue banal comments: "Amarinder was only honouring him in his capacity of being Chairman of blah-blah organisation." 

Pity the imagination of an Abdali who couldn't think of setting up a Turk Victims Rehabilitation Centre. Then Amarinder could have honoured him too. Of course in his capacity as patron saint of TVRC. 

A particularly intransigent reporter was worried lest the Akali Dal media advisor gives out the photo of TV grab to someone else before the story is published. And shocked at the suggestion that the Akalis did not have the photo.  

But as I said, shock these days is an alternative word to denote pretense. We are shocked to see people wrapping RDX belts around their waists and blowing themselves up. And a shocked middle class watches the war on terror so that these people -- so touchingly known as human bombs -- could not kill innocent soldiers. That the young who blow themselves up with such regularity may have a problem is for Noam Chomsky to write about and Arundhati Roy to rail about. What has that got to do with me, or you, or Amarinder, or Badal? 

Our job is to be shocked. So enterprising journalists report Amarinder honouring Dyal, clear in their minds of the shock value.The action is seen as politically volatile because elections are looming large on the horizon. Tcch! Tcchh!! Why can't Amarinder's advisors be told that men like Dyal should be honoured at least two years before Assembly polls?  

More explanations have also come up why someone who protested against Op Bluestar honoured its strategist. "The general’s name did not figure on the list originally and had come up suddenly." Good. Too good. Afterall, it was Entertainment Summit. 

The story has already run full circle. Akali Dal president Prakash Singh Badal has said Amarinder has always been anti-Sikh.  

And that sage among politicians has also piped up. Sukhbir Singh Badal has spoken. His take? “It is a very serious development.” Again, pretty good.  

In the next few hours, the shock shows its real synonym. By now the newspapers need to describe Dyal. After all, you can't call the main ‘key strategy planner of Op Bluestar ten times in a news story’. So they now refer to him as Operation Bluestar hero. Good. Very Good. Best indeed. 

As I said, shock rhymes with pretense these days. How shocked are you?  

Media Entertainment Summit? Now that was good. It was.■

May 5, 2006

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