I is for India; I is for Hypocrisy

Also, who made Sudha Murthy Author #1?

Payal Kapadia’s amazing triumph at Cannes has been followed by many other successes. A few days ago, a tweet from the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune congratulated Kapadia with the following words: “Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ tops Sight and Sound list of best movies of 2024. FTII family congratulates its illustrious alumnus on another feather in her crowded cap. Best wishes.” How nice! But this is what I want to point out about our institutional hypocrisy. No bleddy acknowledgment by the brazen clerks at FTII that while she was a student there, Kapadia had participated in the protest against the political appointment of an unqualified person as the institute’s chairman, a man known more for his right-wing fervor, and that, as a result, Kapadia had been arrested and also lost her scholarship. I also learned that until as recently as June 2024, Kapadia had to attend court to answer charges in that same case.

So, no thanks, FTII. Go back to signing files that come to you as diktats from above!

Photo from India Today website

Let me come to another subject.

During the year of the G20 summit, you couldn’t turn in any direction without the face of the Great Leader reminding you that India was “the mother of democracy.” Here is a video presenting some dubious evidence for this claim; here is a different video making a contrary claim, one that I believe is closer to the truth of our sad republic. (All we imagine as dark.)

The reason for my entering this debate is because of the news that emerged yesterday from Bastar. A journalist’s body was discovered in the home of a man whose corruption the journalist had reported on just a few days ago. The young journalist you will see in these videos was Mukesh Chandrakar. On December 24, he had filed a report about a shoddily-built road—what another journalist describes as “an obvious case of corruption”—and that led to an official inquiry. Chandrakar’s body was next found in the septic tank in the home of the contractor who had built that road. So, no. No to the mother-of-democracy claims when journalists are murdered for doing their job and protesters are punished without trial for raising their voices against those who spread hate.

(Here is my own report from some years back on the struggles of journalists in Chhatisgarh. And my account of the fight for environmental justice in the area.)

In the book that I’m teaching in my journalism class next month (Telling True Stories), there is an essay by Adam Hochschild on his reporting from his travels. He makes a note in the essay about the need for taking time to digest personal experience and making sense of it in the future. He writes: “During the first weeks I spent in India, for instance, I mostly noticed how different it was from the United States: spiders the size of a child’s fist in the cupboards, five weeks and several trips to many offices required to get a telephone installed, unreliable electricity. Early on, I filled my diary with those stories and with the exasperation I felt. In later months, I found myself thinking, ‘Well, maybe this is a healthy experience. Have we become too dependent on things that aren’t so important?’ Everyday minor crises meant that we got to know our neighbors. When the water ran out, we carried buckets back and forth between our house and theirs.” Sure, I know where Hochschild is coming from. (I say this despite being full of complaints myself about not having some basic comforts.) What Hochschild is warning us against is carrying our privilege into places where there is less. Good point. But when it comes to human rights, there can be no basis for making accommodations. No conceivable reason to submit to suffering and injustice. So, no. No to any level of acceptance out of guilt of being a well-heeled scholar or writer. I plan to complain, and then complain some more.

P.S.

Actually, what am I even saying about being privileged? I have been signing copies of my books at airports; here and there I have caught sight of my own books but there’s no fooling me. No one is reading me really. I have felt the indignity of seeing Sudha Murthy being described as “the nation’s #1 storyteller” on the covers of her books displayed at airports. Who chose her? (I know it wasn’t you, dear reader.) The books on the bestseller shelves have titles like The Diary of a CEO; The Psychology of Money; Think Like a Monk; Focus on What Matters. This experience I have had at the airport bookstores is where Hochschild’s advice actually comes useful. You cannot in these circumstances possibly want more. If those are the books that are popular and being read, I embrace rejection. Yes, I prefer anonymity in order to keep saying no.