January 25, 1987: Doordarshan begins screening Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan every Sunday at 9.30am.
July 30, 1987: Rajiv Gandhi is assaulted in Colombo by a Sri Lankan sailor in a Guard of Honour ceremony, after signing the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, before leaving Sri Lanka.
July 31, 1988: Last telecast of Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan.
The first and the last incident of this short chronology are related but the second is not without relation, at least as per my memory’s dictation. I remember this only because my family recorded all the episodes of the dramatized mythology which we could replay as we grew old enough to desire Laxman, and eventually let our desire rot following the chop off of the dark princess’ nose.
These video recordings of Ramayan also featured the 9am news, and on one of these tapes was the most exciting piece of news I was ever interested in for many years. An extremely handsome and balding man with Ray Bans and a safari suit walks down, as he checks, a line of white coated and booted young men standing in perfect order with their rifles. As we waited for Arun Govil’s face to come on, the single hit from the rifle butt of one of the sailors was enacted perfectly: Our real-life hero sees the attack coming, ducks, takes a hit on his left shoulder. Men in black rush to the rescue. The attacker is pinned down by other men in white.
Rewind. Replay. Real Ramayan—rexciting!
It was only a few months back, while watching a documentary on the LTTE, that I caught another glimpse of the incident. By this time politics had begun to make sense and the assault by 26-year old Wijayamunige Rohana de Silva, a Sinhalese naval rating, on Rajiv Gandhi a day after signing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 didn’t look so exciting anymore. It first made the Sinhalese unhappy, and then the Tamils. Adding to the Lankans’ embarrassment and Gandhi’s humiliation was then wrinkled Sri Lankan President Jayawardene’s immediate acknowledgment of the incident to J.N. Dixit (Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 1985-1989).
“Nothing serious,” he quipped, “Rajiv Gandhi tripped a little and slightly lost his balance as he was reaching the last group of soldiers in the guard of honour.” After an hour of the incident, Gandhi had to go ‘online’ with his statement, “What is all this nonsensical speculation? Of course I was hit.”
Pure comedy if Rajiv Gandhi hadn’t been blown up 4 years later in 1991 by a Tamil girl, Dhanu. This incident alone has lengthy connotations on India’s political double tact, playing the Sinhala and Tamil populations alternatively, in the Sri Lankan civil war.
It’s not the only time Indian policies and leaders played double games and got categorically humiliated respectively. For instance, when Jawaharlal Nehru was in Kohima in March 1953 with Burmese Prime Minister U Nu to address the Nagas on something about how India didn’t recognize a plebiscite (1951) in which more than 98% Nagas opted to be outside the armpit of Indian democracy. As Nehru came to address them, the entire Naga crowd at the event walked out on him, adding copious amounts of other insults. Nehru was naturally riled. Eventually when coaxing cajoling or charming didn’t work with the Nagas the policy was shifted to ruling them through division and force.
But let’s focus a few lines on the Rajiv Gandhi scenario. The President of India has nodded her approval (took them 11 years and 4 months to decide) of bringing to the chopping board Murugan, Santhan and Arivu, accused of plotting Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, the suicide bombing killing 16 others as well. They were to be hanged on September 9th at Tamil Nadu’s Vellore prison, and kept in seclusion till then, but a Madras High Court ruling has stayed this process for 8 weeks till a better form of punishment can be tailored. Or till the various mechanisms finally decide that it’s time to put an end to their lives anyway, after they’ve been shut up for all these years. Some politicians are jumping in to reap the remaining benefits from the carcass of this drama and there has already been a self immolation protesting the death sentence.
At this point wonder creeps in with the obvious: if Rajiv Gandhi was still alive, would he have been tried and indicted for IPKF’s activities in Sri Lanka or the Bofors’ case? Even if he was, would he be given the death sentence, or any other sentence for that matter, as criminal responsibility for war crimes? Or be kept in total isolation for 10 months at least for facilitating a dodgy arms deal? Would the politics of his crimes attract self immolation?
Nope. For reasons we all somehow know.
Then how can aggrieved parties be expected to approach the book of law and its courts to tackle all the wrongs ever inflicted on humanity by humanity? The impossibility of law’s however long arms to tackle with justice has given birth to revolutions that popped and continue to pop, with its armed versions propounded by legends like Jean Paul Satre, Franz Fannon, Ali Shariati, A.Z. Phizo, Kobad Ghandy and many more. If these revolutions have risen, revised and risen again repeatedly, a large part of it is because equality and compatibility with new ideas have parted ways with law. Justice is no more about balancing the scale. Anyway people have lost faith in the accuracy of the scale and weights used for balancing the same. But of course this as measurements have themselves changed.
Last week, as the ministry of Indian home affairs pinned the number of insurgent groups in the Northeast at 79, the Assam Rifles chief claimed in the same breath (week) that ‘classical’ insurgency in the Northeast has been put to rest. After all these years of counter insurgency, they still define ‘classical’ insurgency as guerilla warfare or tend to believe that such movements work on extortion alone. But it might also signal shifting security gimmicks in the region, finally moving towards a ‘law and order’ strategy rather than the ‘armed force’ way.
Whatever it is, these agencies and their political masters better start understanding a bit of what justice they’re out to distribute to smaller nations that surround them. If that deficit is not regained, there will be humiliations and bloodbaths galore as the latter try to part with their own sense of justice, which if not formulated well will be ultimately detrimental to both types of nations. Sri Lanka, Nagaland and India—all stand testimony to this.
July 30, 1987: Rajiv Gandhi is assaulted in Colombo by a Sri Lankan sailor in a Guard of Honour ceremony, after signing the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, before leaving Sri Lanka.
July 31, 1988: Last telecast of Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan.
The first and the last incident of this short chronology are related but the second is not without relation, at least as per my memory’s dictation. I remember this only because my family recorded all the episodes of the dramatized mythology which we could replay as we grew old enough to desire Laxman, and eventually let our desire rot following the chop off of the dark princess’ nose.
These video recordings of Ramayan also featured the 9am news, and on one of these tapes was the most exciting piece of news I was ever interested in for many years. An extremely handsome and balding man with Ray Bans and a safari suit walks down, as he checks, a line of white coated and booted young men standing in perfect order with their rifles. As we waited for Arun Govil’s face to come on, the single hit from the rifle butt of one of the sailors was enacted perfectly: Our real-life hero sees the attack coming, ducks, takes a hit on his left shoulder. Men in black rush to the rescue. The attacker is pinned down by other men in white.
Rewind. Replay. Real Ramayan—rexciting!
It was only a few months back, while watching a documentary on the LTTE, that I caught another glimpse of the incident. By this time politics had begun to make sense and the assault by 26-year old Wijayamunige Rohana de Silva, a Sinhalese naval rating, on Rajiv Gandhi a day after signing the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in 1987 didn’t look so exciting anymore. It first made the Sinhalese unhappy, and then the Tamils. Adding to the Lankans’ embarrassment and Gandhi’s humiliation was then wrinkled Sri Lankan President Jayawardene’s immediate acknowledgment of the incident to J.N. Dixit (Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 1985-1989).
“Nothing serious,” he quipped, “Rajiv Gandhi tripped a little and slightly lost his balance as he was reaching the last group of soldiers in the guard of honour.” After an hour of the incident, Gandhi had to go ‘online’ with his statement, “What is all this nonsensical speculation? Of course I was hit.”
Pure comedy if Rajiv Gandhi hadn’t been blown up 4 years later in 1991 by a Tamil girl, Dhanu. This incident alone has lengthy connotations on India’s political double tact, playing the Sinhala and Tamil populations alternatively, in the Sri Lankan civil war.
It’s not the only time Indian policies and leaders played double games and got categorically humiliated respectively. For instance, when Jawaharlal Nehru was in Kohima in March 1953 with Burmese Prime Minister U Nu to address the Nagas on something about how India didn’t recognize a plebiscite (1951) in which more than 98% Nagas opted to be outside the armpit of Indian democracy. As Nehru came to address them, the entire Naga crowd at the event walked out on him, adding copious amounts of other insults. Nehru was naturally riled. Eventually when coaxing cajoling or charming didn’t work with the Nagas the policy was shifted to ruling them through division and force.
But let’s focus a few lines on the Rajiv Gandhi scenario. The President of India has nodded her approval (took them 11 years and 4 months to decide) of bringing to the chopping board Murugan, Santhan and Arivu, accused of plotting Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, the suicide bombing killing 16 others as well. They were to be hanged on September 9th at Tamil Nadu’s Vellore prison, and kept in seclusion till then, but a Madras High Court ruling has stayed this process for 8 weeks till a better form of punishment can be tailored. Or till the various mechanisms finally decide that it’s time to put an end to their lives anyway, after they’ve been shut up for all these years. Some politicians are jumping in to reap the remaining benefits from the carcass of this drama and there has already been a self immolation protesting the death sentence.
At this point wonder creeps in with the obvious: if Rajiv Gandhi was still alive, would he have been tried and indicted for IPKF’s activities in Sri Lanka or the Bofors’ case? Even if he was, would he be given the death sentence, or any other sentence for that matter, as criminal responsibility for war crimes? Or be kept in total isolation for 10 months at least for facilitating a dodgy arms deal? Would the politics of his crimes attract self immolation?
Nope. For reasons we all somehow know.
Then how can aggrieved parties be expected to approach the book of law and its courts to tackle all the wrongs ever inflicted on humanity by humanity? The impossibility of law’s however long arms to tackle with justice has given birth to revolutions that popped and continue to pop, with its armed versions propounded by legends like Jean Paul Satre, Franz Fannon, Ali Shariati, A.Z. Phizo, Kobad Ghandy and many more. If these revolutions have risen, revised and risen again repeatedly, a large part of it is because equality and compatibility with new ideas have parted ways with law. Justice is no more about balancing the scale. Anyway people have lost faith in the accuracy of the scale and weights used for balancing the same. But of course this as measurements have themselves changed.
Last week, as the ministry of Indian home affairs pinned the number of insurgent groups in the Northeast at 79, the Assam Rifles chief claimed in the same breath (week) that ‘classical’ insurgency in the Northeast has been put to rest. After all these years of counter insurgency, they still define ‘classical’ insurgency as guerilla warfare or tend to believe that such movements work on extortion alone. But it might also signal shifting security gimmicks in the region, finally moving towards a ‘law and order’ strategy rather than the ‘armed force’ way.
Whatever it is, these agencies and their political masters better start understanding a bit of what justice they’re out to distribute to smaller nations that surround them. If that deficit is not regained, there will be humiliations and bloodbaths galore as the latter try to part with their own sense of justice, which if not formulated well will be ultimately detrimental to both types of nations. Sri Lanka, Nagaland and India—all stand testimony to this.
