Truth be told

So our parliamentarians are outraged yet again. This time it's a stupid television programme that has their jocks in a bunch. Sach ka Saama, the recently launched Indian version of the ridiculous American show Moment of Truth, has our enlightened representatives agonising over the future of Indian culture and morals.

The show basically has people answering a set of 21 questions that progress from the mundane to the increasingly embarrassing and personal in the hope of making some quick cash. In India prize money is Rs. 1 crore (just over 200,000 USD). This is how it works. Aspiring contestants have to submit to a polygraph test where they are asked several questions. When they actually appear on the show, they are asked questions picked from the same set of queries and their answers are tallied against responses in the lie detector test.

I have watched a few episodes of the Moment of Truth and could never understand how people willingly made complete asses of themselves on prime time television and tore their families asunder just to win some money. Questions relating to professional ethics could be very uncomfortable and those relating to fidelity were downright cruel. And yet people queued up to appear on the show! The smug Indian in me dismissively shook the head because it fit in with the popular global perception of Americans.

Truth be told, I was a little shocked to discover a few weeks ago that India was now to have its own version of the show. It shook my belief that to an Indian, family comes first. But then I suppose one has to acknowledge the emergence of a new breed of Indian to whom cash is king. I am also a firm believer in the principle of laissez faire, so I was curious to see how this would pan out. If people don't mind endangering conjugal harmony in the hope of easy money, more power to them.

Not surprisingly, Sach ka Saama has hit a roadblock in its very first week. Members of the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indian parliament) are up in arms over its "obscene content" and the broadcast ministry is reportedly considering throwing the book at Star Plus (a channel desperately trying to shore up ratings after its bouquet of soap operas fell out of popular favour) for apparently violating the content code. What's really stirred the cauldron is a married woman being asked if she has ever considered adultery. She said no, but the polygraph ruled she was lying through her teeth.

Now what's the point of taking the TV station to task? If there are asinine people who voluntarily go on the chopping block to satisfy India's newly acquired insatiable voyueristic appetite, let them go hang. They walked into this with their eyes wide open.

And what's this about Indian culture yet again? Are you saying that no married Indian woman has ever fantasised about having a fling, if not actually gone ahead and had one? Come on people! Why is it that everything is fine as long as it's not discussed in the open? Has this country never witnessed infidelity? And don't try to brand this an urban phenomenon triggered by the degradation of values under the influence of the crass West. You know just as well as I do that this doesn't just happen in big cities. And none of this is new.

So let Sach Ka Saama run its course and die a natural death. Believe me, it'll happen. People will fairly soon tire of watching skeletons tumbling out of closets. Just leave it be, because you'll just appear hypocritical trying to shut it down under the guise of high Indian morality.

Frisk farce

I find more than a little ridiculous the Indian leadership's collective outrage on former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam being frisked by employees of an American airline at Delhi airport. What's the fuss about? Isn't he just another world citizen, subject to procedures designed to keep us all safe in the skies? What's more, the man in question didn't seem to find anything offensive in being asked to take his shoes off and being swept with a metal detector.

Explain to me, how is this a slight to out national honour? The reactions have ranged from the melodramatic to downright mischievous. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has reportedly called the act "absolutely unpardonable". Congress party's Jayanti Natarajan has dubbed it an incident of national humiliation and gone as far as to recommend that Continental Airlines services to India be scrapped till those responsible are punished. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley claims we bend over backwards to pamper our state guests (which I agree with to an extent) while Indian VIPs are subjected to humiliating security measures the world over. The Marxists, of course, have again taken the cake. Sitaram Yechury of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has reportedly suggested that the Indian government investigate whether the former president was frisked because he is a Muslim!

Was Kalam's a singular experience among passengers of the Continental flight from New Delhi to Newark? Highly unlikely. Did Continental staff ask only those passengers with Muslim names to step aside for frisking? They might be able to do that in the United States, but I can't imagine a foreign airline trying to pull such a stunt on Indian soil. Besides, people, Kalam isn't the least bit bothered or offended!

This Indian obsession with wresting special treatment at all costs is just annoying. Actually it's no surprise that these reactions are streaming out of Delhi, a city notorious for its "jaanta nahi mein kaun hoon (don't you know who I am?)" culture. Every has been, is and wannabe in our national capital aspires to VIP treatment.

Kalam WAS our president. He is now an ordinary citizen. He has earned the respect he deserves not just from the nominal office he held but for his scientific work and as a national motivator. If Continental staff were brazenly discourteous to him, I would take strong objection. But a security check isn't disrespect. It's common sense. And former leaders the world over would be well advised to submit to them in order to set a good example.

Surely the Indian leadership can find more worthy causes for outrage and action? How about the agony of millions of farmers whose crops are withering on parched fields across northern India? Or the billions of rupees being wasted on erecting statues of egomaniacal leaders? How about expending some of that misdirected energy on making sure our defence personnel are better looked after as we reminisce as a nation a decade after the Kargil war with Pakistan? Please stop wasting your breath. You're on our payroll and we'd like to see more responsible use of your time for a change.

Thanks, Mr. Zardari

Thank you Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. Other than for marrying the charismatic Benazir Bhutto, history will now remember you for admitting at long last that Pakistan has been nurturing terrorists as part of deliberate national strategy. At least Indian historians will. Your nation might now plead with the world to put your remarks of July 7 in the context of the situation in Afghanistan after Soviet withdrawal, but few are buying that line.

The Indian press has, understandably, pounced on those few words you uttered while addressing former civil servants in your country. Your statement was front page news on all Indian dailies on Thursday, July 9. Because finally there is something we can throw back at a world that for decades has been unwilling to openly back us when we say most of the worst terror strikes on Indian soil have had their roots in Pakistan.

Incidentally, and not surprisingly, the Pakistani press has been uncharacteristically silent on the issue.

Was it a gaffe, Mr. Zardari? Or are you actually trying to set things right? Just a few days ago you had reportedly admitted in an interview that militants were, in the past, considered "strategic assets". What's going on? Is someone twisting your arm? Holding a gun to your head? Why these sudden bursts of conscience?

Whatever the reason, we as a nation are thankful. Hope the world will now recognise just how these subversives your nation has bred have left India bleeding. We have reportedly lost 60,000-70,000 lives to militancy since the 1980s. Punjab, Kashmir, the Northeast - wherever discontent surfaces, your "strategic assets" have fuelled the fire and taken an unacceptably heavy toll.

We hope that your public acknowledgement of responsibility as a nation (yes, many of us see it that way) will mark the beginning of the end to this inhuman strategy.