We have mastered the art of forgetting…….

The week gone by proved that how short public memory can be. It showed that even the biggest traumas are not indelible, and can be wiped out by new events. You got the feeling that an entire nation has hit the delete button on their memory simultaneously. Let us take the Commonwealth Games (CWG). Today we celebrate the Games and look forward to winning medals so that it can be a befitting reply to our history. The hatred against the British that fuelled our freedom struggle has long vanished. We have forgotten the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and many other atrocious incidents. However we do remember the trains, schools, colleges, post offices, churches, the architecture and the English language that the British had left behind. The latter has in fact enabled us to open up to the modern world, to science and technology, which we would be forever indebted to them for.

Now, take the Ayodhya verdict. Even before it was announced last week, we knew that whatever happens, India has moved on from 1992. In less than two decades, both Hindus and Muslims have set aside the contentious issue that killed thousands of men, women and children. Despite all efforts by certain political parties to keep the issue alive and sore, it is now dead. Everybody, particularly the young yearn for peace and progressiveness today.

Coming back to the CWG, I am sure that after two weeks of hysteria and India’s gold medal rush, we will forget Suresh Kalmadi and the most shameful and corrupt set of events that preceded the CWG. That our collective memory is getting shorter and shorter is also exemplified by the fact that the Pakistani contingent at the CWG got the biggest ovation after the Indians in the opening ceremony. It amazed me that, we speak so bitterly against Pakistan on every international platform for exporting terrorism to India and destabilising Kashmir, yet we love their sportspersons so much, their actors, singers and even their Page 3 people.

I am not surprised either at the fact that a nation which once hated Mohammad Azharuddin would vote him back as an MP; or in fact an Ajay Jadeja would be a cricket analyst in one of the leading TV channels even after the ignominy that he was handed over by the BCCI. What about the four wrestlers and the two athletes who failed the CWG dope test month? They are all back in the Indian contingent once the CWG has started. After all, we are implementing the first principles of our holy book – forgive and forget.