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Drumbeat: Ad Buzzaar
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Sunday, May 17, 1998
Magic Mushrooms
After a radioactive week, during which some of us got to celebrate Diwali on Buddha Purnima, here are a few stray thoughts and general observations that rise like a mushroom cloud from the sands of Pokharan.... Like, how is it that a handful of men, who are ambitious to fulfil their own political agendas and most of whom are over 70 years of age, get the right to steal the future of my children? Like, how is it that the BJP could, with 25 per cent of the vote in these elections, its right to rule based on the tentative support of a motley group of regional parties, decide to spring five nuclear explosions on us within a few days of coming to power? Like, if this isn't political arrogance and a total contempt for ordinary people, what is? Like, the breath of a Nuclear Winter isn't exactly the prescribed way to bring down soaring summer temperatures. Like, how is it that patriotism is today being measured in terms of the number of fire-crackers one burst outside PrimeMinister Vajpayee's residence after the explosions, rather than by demonstrations of outrage over a reckless step that could bring the country closer to an apocalypse? Like, I wonder whether Lord Buddha would really have smiled if he had divined that his birthday was going to be celebrated in this manner. Like, what is it about nuclear bombs that makes it seem as if the nation has just swallowed a bottle of Viagra pills, with leaders like Bal Thackeray justifying it in the crudest of sexual terms? Like, shouldn't nation-building be just that, shouldn't it be creating useful things like roads, schools and reservoirs, rather than extending the shadow of the mushroom cloud over the region? Like, isn't it ironic that the country's estimated 340 million people, who don't get enough bread to feed themselves, get to feed on bombs instead? Like, isn't it ironic that the more aggressive the postures of the rulers and their sidekicks, they more they claim that they are doing all thisfor future peace? Like, isn't it ironic that the more dangerous the political activities of the ruling elite becomes, the more Pramod Mahajan, adviser to the prime minister, smiles before TV cameras? Like, isn't it ironic that Prime Minister Vajpayee promises that he will now brief the Opposition on the nuclear testing, long after scientists went ahead and exploded the devices? Like, isn't it ironic that the Opposition quietly swallows these assurances for the sake of ``national interest''? Like, isn't it ironic how both the Congress and the United Front lot are scrambling to corner for themselves some share of the ``glory'' of what is, all said and done, an inglorious move? Like, isn't it ironic that there is no man or woman among the Opposition who has the courage to stand up and say that the newly-nuclearised Emperor wears no clothes? Like, isn't it ironic that even as we celebrate 50 years of the Gandhian legacy of non-violence, we should be witness to ademonstration of the country's capabilities in wielding the world's potentially most ugly form of violence? Like, isn't it ironic that the more our leaders speak of ``protecting our national security'', the more insecure the rest of us become? Like, doesn't it all make you nostalgic about an era when ``low yield'' were words used to describe sunflower seeds of poor quality, ``fusion'' was a term bandied about only by adhesive manufacturers and TNT referred strictly to a TV channel that showed films like Gone With the Wind? Like, doesn't it make you want to raise funds so that the entire Union cabinet could pay a quick visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and discover for themselves how ugly and unacceptable nuclear weapons are? Like, all this still doesn't justify the move on the part of nuclear states like the USA, who had done a Pokharan hundreds of times over, to impose economic sanctions on India. Like, sanctions hurt -- not the power elite who will always get to ridein the white Ambassador cars of power no matter what happens -- but ordinary, faceless, voiceless Indians who have had no role to play in this Faustian pact with destruction.Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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