This morning I stopped outside a neighborhood unit (in Urbana IL) where a friend used to live, paid a silent tribute, and expressed silent thanks for her ebullient friendship. Some months ago, she had moved to a nursing home. Word came couple of days back that she was no more. She was in her early nineties.
Preventing a final farewell even of close relatives, let alone friends, has been one of Covid’s cruel achievements. People have had to touch, wave and cry remotely.
However, Covid has not been grief’s sole cause. Each day presents its quota of depressing news. Off and on there’s good news too, mercifully. To this category belonged the apparent ending, at least for the time being, of a potentially horrific standoff in the Himalayan heights between Indian and Chinese soldiers.
And very much in this category are hints that the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan might meet at the end of this month in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. After two years of crippled diplomatic ties and recalled high commissioners, this is certainly good news. So is Prime Minister Modi’s message wishing recovery to Imran Khan, Pakistan’s Covid-hit premier.
Perhaps most positive of all is the statement of the general heading the Pakistani army, Qamar Javed Bajwa, that “it is time for India and Pakistan to bury the past and move forward”. No one aware of the army’s influence over Pakistan’s relations with India misses the significance of General Bajwa’s message.
I don’t know what it was that relaxed the Sino-Indian tension. Nor am I aware of the reasons for the apparent and unexpected improvement in Indo-Pak contacts. Whether the two advances are connected or unconnected is also not known to me. Given China’s long-standing relationship with Pakistan, a link should not be ruled out.
Was the Biden administration involved in either development? Was Putin? What connection if any is there between these moves and America’s choices over Afghanistan? Is it of any significance that Pakistan’s ally, Turkey, a player in negotiations over Afghanistan, is said to be involved in the (possible) Dushanbe talks?
Neither gladness at these twin developments nor curiosity about their causes can remove one’s helpless rage at the assaults that continue in India on democracy and its institutions. Here I will only mention two fresh instances.
One is the resignation that Professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta has felt obliged to offer from his position at Ashoka, India’s most prestigious private university. In recent times, no critic of government and politics in India has been more bitingly persuasive, more scholarly, or more respected than P B Mehta.
He has resigned because the University’s Trustees indicated to him that his “public writing” creates “risks for the university”. India’s premier institution for imparting advanced education in the liberal arts is thus uneasy with the frank expression of opinion by a public intellectual of Mehta’s stature. It is the latest sign of India’s descent.
The other incident I must mention is the cruelty with which Asif, a 14-year-old boy from a humble Muslim family, was beaten for the crime of quenching his thirst at a tap in Ghaziabad’s Dasna Devi temple. A video put out by the attackers’ associates reveals the mercilessness of the thrashing.
Unexpectedly, though, conscientious police officers in Ghaziabad booked the attackers. Thank God for them. And on social media many Hindus expressed shame at the beating and told Asif that they were sorry. Thank God for them too. Before long, however, their comments were overtaken by a frenzy of postings praising the attackers and vilifying the boy.
There hasn’t been a single statement as yet by any leader of the BJP, or any spokesperson for the Hindu faith, criticizing the beating!
The message is unambiguous. If you are a Muslim, or if you belong to the wrong Hindu caste, don’t expect the state or “society” to protect you. Even if you are poor, weak, and alone. Above all, therefore, pray for luck.