Stigma of the question mark haunts and hurts

I do not know Mahesh Bhatt. I bumped into him once in a seminar and he seemed a curious, intelligent and a forthright man committed to ideas as experiments. One realised that here was a likeable man, someone you could enjoy a drink and a quarrel with.
Recently I saw him and his daughter Pooja Bhatt on TV answering questions about Rahul Bhatt. They were quieter, not quite their spontaneous selves, trying to reason, being careful with words. A quieter silence substituted for their visual spontaneity or their candidness.
What one watched was a kind of experience that was saddening. The two of them were defending Rahul Bhatt whose name occurred frequently in messages recorded by the terrorist David Headley. Rahul appears to have met Headley and has been mentioned frequently in email exchanges recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The logic of these events worries me. When a person is connected even inadvertently with a terrorist, a pall of suspicion envelopes the individual and his friends. A barrage of accusations and questions hammer the family. It turns defensive explaining events, ideas and conversations, one would have not thought of. Freedom after all is the Freedom from suspicion. But as you watch a family run a gauntlet of question marks, you begin to reflect on certain things.
Terror at a collective level is anonymous. You do not know who it is going to hit. But terror creates an ambience of suspicion around people. Many innocent people get marked as suspects. They are haunted by the stigma of question marks. It is a symbolic branding which can destroy friendships or even the taken for granted world you have lived so happily in.
Terror dissolves the everydayness of the world. It destroys it twice: once for the suspect and also more poignantly for his family and friends. Let me explain through an analogy. Many people talk of the suffering of patients but few deal with the suffering and burden of those who take care of the patient. I think, sometimes, the heroism of a patient palls before the efforts of those who take care of him. The everydayness of caring for someone close can eat into you. It corrodes deeply.
Scandal and suspicion have a similar impact. Suspicion creates a tacit ostracism. When scandal combines with the shadow of terrorism, the word turns grey. You become the other varna, marked for questioning. The courage a family needs to show is demanding. Not only does one have to stand up for the person’s innocence, one needs to stand up for oneself, one’s values, a way of life. One has to do this all patiently and unapologetically. The questions which people ask make you want to scream. Instead you have to answer patiently and with dignity.
Watching Mahesh Bhatt on TV reminded me of all this. Father and daughter performed with enormous dignity. No question was too demeaning to answer. What impressed one was the honesty, the readiness to confront one’s vulnerability in public.
Here are two people who are quite bindaas as the slang word goes. They often flaunt their freedom, the way others flaunt their BMWs. They are proud of the way they live, open about their mistakes, loyal to their worlds. Suddenly, the world turns murky and questions hurt.
The minute Mahesh Bhatt learns that Headley is a suspect. He reports to the police himself. His daughter explains they have been upfront prompt about the Headley intervention into their lives. But the press watches them with different eyes. The pauses are uneasy, even silence creates a fresh ripple of doubts.
Suddenly, it is not only Rahul who is in question, but also Mahesh Bhatt who has stood up for rights, fought against censorship and been open about his mistakes. His earlier admissions about his search for meaning or freedom now acquire a new burden in this obsession with patriotism. Terror or suspicions of terrorism challenge a way of life.
The question of Rahul Bhatt will follow its own long and tedious career. The law takes its time and justice is absent minded about clearing the innocent. I realise the process of investigation is important. I respect the need for it. But what I wish to ask in my bumbling way is who protects families, friends and associates of someone who falls under suspicion. The blanket of suspicion becomes like a Delhi fog; it dirties you, chokes your sense of freedom.
I want to end with two reflections. I want to ask first whether the public or the press can treat such people as easy game. Is there a right to interrogate in public? Does transparency demand the inquisition? Often when I watch TV and I wonder if I could stand such humiliating rituals. TV has a long memory. It makes you account for previous mistakes and apologise for earlier arrogances.
As the media casts its hungry eyes at the scandal, it ironically humanises Rahul Bhatt in a pathetic way by talking of his attempts at fitness. It is almost as if gaining weight is greater problem than terror. It becomes the everyday terror of the six pack anorexic world. Scandal and humiliation almost seem negligible in his universe. Courage and dignity become ephemeral languages before the grit and determinism of the weight loss obsessive.
The second thought was about friendship. There is something about middle-class India which makes friendship an ephemeral affair in these moments. People you have known and cared for, students, neighbours and fans suddenly turn iffy and hostile. Investigation exploits these moments to pin you. The trauma of ephemeral friendship haunts you.
But this much I must say, openly and quietly.
Mahesh and Pooja Bhatt showed courage and composure. They talked reasonably and showed reasonableness about the law. It was courage of quiet kind. One must salute that because I sometimes, put myself in their place and wonder how I will perform. Doubt sneaks in like a deadly fog.

* Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist