No hand on your chest…you’re in Kerala!

All of a sudden, the intellectual lions in Kerala have a sumptuous prey thrown into their den. Hungry for meat, and more meat, they traditionally pounce on anything smelling blood.

Shashi Tharoor who not so long ago had kept some of us on our toes with his campaign at the UN has once again walked into a cauldron. This time, as part of the electoral process of the world’s largest democracy.

There has been much hullabaloo over his placing his hand on his chest while the national anthem was being sung. Grave mistake! One shouldn’t move when the national anthem is being sung, lest one is eternally damned!

Aren’t we being too legalistic? Give us a break. We should know the dangers of going by the letter rather than the spirit. Check out the motive. Did Mr Tharoor do it with a motive of disgracing the national anthem and thus bring shame on India? Answer it honestly.

Quick on the heels of the National Anthem Attack by a group of extra patriotic citizens, Mr Tharoor has been pitch-forked by a set of intellectuals who have discovered one article from a pile of so many by him to prove their point that he is a mouthpiece of Tel Aviv.

I don’t know how many have read Mr Tharoor’s story on the Haaretz. I have, and in my understanding of the English of the story, it is all about India rather than a praise of Israel.

The sentence which is oft quoted by many as sympathetic of Israel is this: “Israel is a small country living in a permanent state of siege, highly security-conscious and surrounded by forces hostile to it…”

Is there any factual error in it?

Isn’t it Israel a tiny country surrounded by its enemies? According to my geographical sense, it is. And, doesn’t it live a life in a permanent stage of siege? My political awareness as a journalist who has worked on ‘Middle East pages’ of a Gulf daily for some years tells me it does live a life in a permanent siege. Aren’t the Israelites highly security conscious? They definitely are since any time a suicide bomber can go off in a crowded public place. Now, aren’t they surrounded by forces hostile to them? If not hostile, what is Hamas? Haven’t we heard of the Iranian president’s desire to wipe out Israel from the globe? If that’s not hostility towards a country, then nothing else is!

The Economist, while writing about Israel’s entrepreneurial potential in its March 19, 2009 edition, says: “…Israel’s main qualification for entrepreneurialism is its status as an embattled Jewish state in a sea of Arab hostility. The Israeli army not only works hard to keep the country at the cutting edge of technology, it also trains young Israelis in the virtues of teamwork and improvisation…Add to that a high tolerance of risk, born of a long history and an ever-present danger of attack…”

So factually Mr Tharoor hasn’t committed any sin.

Now check the context. Read the rest of the sentence. “…India is a giant country whose borders are notoriously permeable, an open society known for its lax and easygoing ways.”

Anyone who understands good writing will agree that you compare to highlight the difference. Mr Tharoor has used ‘tiny’ against ‘giant’; ‘permanent state of siege’ against ‘an open society known for its lax and easygoing ways’; and, ‘highly security conscious’ against ‘borders are notoriously permeable’.

For me, it is good writing. Simple yet telling. But unfortunately it hasn’t gone down well with the political and religious intellectuals who, I am afraid, suffer from myopic vision, and are experts in extracting messages that suit their palate.

Read carefully and you will understand that the article was not intended to be about Palestine but was written in response to several suggestions made in India, when Israel commenced its assault on Gaza, that India should do the same in Pakistan in response to the Mumbai attacks. “The purpose of the article was to argue that India is NOT Israel and should NOT do what Israel did. To twist this argument into an anti-Palestine one is grossly unfair,” says Mr Tharoor.

One writer, who begins his article in a vernacular newspaper by flashing his feather of a Fullbright-sponsored travel to the US, has accused Mr Tharoor of being a Zionist stooge. He also accuses Mr Tharoor of ‘acting big and busy’ by not meeting the visiting person of ‘importance’. It seems that if Mr Tharoor had set aside all his official and protocol assignments for a meeting with the writer, he wouldn’t have haboured such an ire against him!

Personally, I find no reason for Mr Tharoor to take any pain to explain his position on Palestine. But since he has taken the plunge into politics, he may have to bring to people’s attention what he has done for peace in Middle East while he was at the UN. This is what he says: “I have strongly been in favour of a Palestinian state with clear and defensible borders, co-existing in peace with Israel.”

Mr Tharoor was part of several UN initiatives to see peace in the region. He adds: “I have been closely associated with various representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and have several times met the late president of the Palestinian Authority, Yasir Arafat. I have convened and chaired several United Nations Conferences on Palestine around the world from 2001 to 2006, attended by Saeb Erakat, Yasser Abed Rabbo and many other Palestinian notables, for which I was bitterly attacked by several Zionist organizations (as any Internet search will confirm). I was closely associated with Ambassador Nasser Al Kidwa of Palestine, and the former ambassador of the Arab League in Delhi, Amb Clovis Maksoud, is a friend. Nowhere except in Kerala have I found it necessary to establish my credentials as a friend of the Palestinian people.”

Yes, nowhere other than in Kerala will you find people with such lofty thoughts and ideas with little touch with reality that you need to establish your credentials even if you are someone who was vetoed by the Bush Administration in race to succeed Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General or a winner of the Zakir Husain Memorial ‘Pride of India’ award and the Hakim Khan Sur Award for National Integration.

It doesn’t matter. The higher you grow, the harder they come at you.
In Kerala, you don’t have to turn the other cheek. They will turn it for you, and smack!

In Kerala, you need to walk that extra mile, and perhaps give away your tunic along with the shirt, to appease the all-knowing, always-right intellectual giants!