This week it was all Osama. Choosing a subject other than this can't perhaps qualify as a column in a newspaper. Well, that never means to underrate the importance of other events and issues. But that certainly underscores the impact of this event which media marketeers rate (after China's rise and Obama's entry) as the third biggest news of the twenty first century.
How to place your point amidst all kinds of arguments put forth by individuals and groups. Is there anything untalked or unwritten about. Osama being the product of American imperialism, Obama's craziest gestures to celebrate his `victory', tributes that flowed from some corners for Osama for standing up against the most oppressive power, US aggression on Iraq and Afghanistan and their hunt for Osama which resulted in a colossal loss of life and property, American flagrant violation of Pakistan's air space -  all this has been thrashed out to the limits. More than anything else what actually hogged the whole space and time was Osama's hideout. For the rest of the world, it was Osama and America, for India it was Osama and Pakistan. All these days a section of Indian media in particular showed an obsessive concern in the whole Abbotabad operation. For them too Osama's killing sure makes a big news, but bigger in appeal is the news that Osama was hiding at a spot which, they keep trotting out sixty times a minute, falls just at stone's throw from the military academy of Pakistan. The point is not too invalid to deserve an outright dismissal. It definitely raises some serious questions about the very image of Pakistan as a state which has already experienced a battering at a global level. But the way this section of Indian media is spending all their energies in `proving' that Osama's hiding in Pakistan is no accident, but a well thought-out plan in which Pakistan as a state can be found involved is thoroughly unprofessional and purely propagandistic. One is reminded of that infamous Bob Woolmer murder when Indian channels tried all they could to accuse Inzimam and his boys of killing their coach. The news for them was not Woolmer's death, but perceived Pakistan's involvement. Here too they are exhausting all they have and the goal is defined. Pakistan as a state is to be `proved' a harbourer of terror. Osama might not have applied for a shelter in Pakistan. He could have had his place anywhere in the world. No doubt Pakistan, the way it appears to be at present, is largely seen as the hotbed of violence which makes the point even more tenable in favour of India.  And may be certain quarters in Pakistan might have been in know of the whole secret, but it can't be held as a conclusive evidence against a state called Pakistan. This transnational phenomenon knows no territories, recognizes no borders.
For argument's sake, how would have Indians reacted had Osama been hiding anywhere in India itself or may be in China or who knows anywhere around the White House. What if Aiman Al-Zavahiri will be tracked down anywhere within Indian territory. Though that is an imagination too far fetched, but will that prove India's `involvement' in hosting a man who figures next in the Obama's hit list.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 May 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 8 May 2011 00:00:00 IST