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Dear Shoe
Jagmohan Singh
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Jagmohan Singh writes an Open Letter to the
Shoe of Jarnail Singh who made a history of sorts and brought
some cheer to a beleaguered Sikh community reeling under the
memories of carnage and destruction. |
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 Dear
Shoe:
I
wonder how to greet you, but greet I must. Since the last few days,
every time I remove my shoes, I treat it with more respect and care
than ever before. Let me say a sweet Sat Sri Akal. Though you are
not my shoe, you are special for me and most Sikhs. Instead of
having a rickety old small cupboard, I am planning to have a nice
setting to place your brothers and sisters in my house.
We love you for
you have achieved what years of legal wrangling and executive
prevarication could not do. The gentle toss from the gentlemanly
Jarnail Singh’s feet to the vicinity of Indian Home Minister P.
Chidambram has immortalized you. In two and half metres you traveled
twenty five years.
Throughout this
year, the commemoration of 25 years of the 1984 pogrom would have
been a sordid and painful affair, but you have given the Sikhs a
reason to pause and be a little satisfied. In a span of less than
five seconds, you put the Congress party on the mat and made them
change their profile. A bit. I cannot recall any incident like this
in Indian or world political history. The mere show of a shoe
brought the Congress party on its knees and the perpetrators of
mayhem were shown the door. Booted out would not be liked by you,
isn’t it?
Why did you miss
Palaniappan Chidambaram? Was your wearer Jarnail Singh being as
polite as he normally is? Did he merely want to score a point? Was
it off the cuff or premeditated?
I think you
managed the trajectory. You were cleverer than Jarnail Singh. You
did not want to be tainted with the touch of a person who justified
mass murder. You were conscious that in his earlier avatar as
Minister for Internal Security, he probably had some hand in the
murder of Indian Post journalist Dhiren Bhagat -who had exposed
massive illegal arms sale to vigilantes and police in
Punjab.
The media has
been extra nice to your foe -the Home Minister and has called him
sweet and soft. Perhaps, he was as soft as Kurt Waldheim who went on
to become the Secretary General of the United Nations, till his Nazi
past was discovered and he was called persona non grata.
 Dear Shoe, I am
sure you must be laughing at all this talk of ethics, journalistic
norms and good behaviour in a section of the Indian media. Your boss
-I hope you do not take offence, if I call him so, merely tossed
you. What about the running commentary of jingoistic journalism that
we were fed with after 26/11? Saner elements all across
India and the
world were bewildered at the manner in which the incident was being
telecast minute after minute, round the clock by satellite
television. The shrill voices of renowned anchor-editors –Barkha
Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai even today through their Terror TV, send a
chill down the spine.
Till how long
can one function without a spine? How long? Spinelessness kills
character; can we have journalism without character? Can we govern
the country without character? What you perhaps may not know is that
the person who has given you fame witnessed immense pain and
suffering twenty five years ago on the streets of
Delhi.
What you may know as his constant companion is that Jarnail Singh
was certainly inspired by the election campaign of his paper, Dainik
Jagran. Billboards all across the country are telling the
electorate, “Ham Nahi Karenge to Kaun Karega? –If not us, who will?
Not stopping at this, they go on to say, “Ab Nahi to Kabh? –If not
now, then when?
I am sure Dainik
Jagran will take this into account when they consider any action, if
any against your friend Jarnail Singh. They may also take into
account the fact that they have sponsored many neon-signs of
Gurdwaras in
Ludhiana
and elsewhere and should the decision of the paper be unwelcome to
the Sikhs, these bill boards will meet the same fate from you as
that meted out to His Excellency P. Chidambram.
You must be
wondering about all this sudden limelight that you have gained. Your
pals have been in the papers and on television but have always
remained confined to the paid advertisement sections. You were
never placed on the upper half of the page. That too, the front
page. Companies who have branded you spend millions every year but
the company which manufactured you and the store in
Seattle from
where you were bought by Jarnail Singh, may see more Sikh patronage.
For the Sikhs,
the footwear of the devout and the brave is the carrier of the
sacred dust which can wash sins and make one more humble. Next time
when someone picks your brethren outside a Gurdwara, one is sure to
remember you and your contribution.
While writing to
you, I also remember the admonishment of my school headmistress, who
used to scream, “The first thing to see in school uniform is a clean
and bright shoe. Gradually the sight moves upwards.”
Dear Jarnail
Singh’s Shoe, I have not had the occasion to talk to Jarnail Singh.
He is busy nowadays, though he must be feeling your loss, hopefully
temporarily.
I do not know
where you are –in the custody of the police or in the backrooms of
the Home Minister’s office. I am not sure at this stage whether you
will land at Christies till some unknown Sikh millionaire may bid
for you just as they do for your other fellows worn by David
Beckham.
What I do know
is that later that day, after you had finished your task, you heard
the minister say, “I forgive him.” Subsequently you also heard the
lumpen leader Jagdish Tytler say, “I wish to apologise to the Sikhs.
Whatever happened was a shameless act I had actually abused the
governor as he was enjoying his drink while the carnage was on.”
Nobody heard
you. The whole country was obsessed with the minister, the would-be
MPs and Jarnail Singh. I heard you loud and clear.
You said, “We do
not forgive you. Who was enjoying what drink has still to be
unearthed. We have a long way to go.”
I am with you in
this journey and we should show shoes to all who have been testing
our patience and undermining our loss and pain.
With best wishes
and hopes to meet you someday.
Respectfully
yours,
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan Singh
is editor of World Sikh News. He may be contacted at jsbigideas@gmail.com
15
April 2009
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