Editorial»
Let’s keep it secret
DEC 15 - Indians as a nation love secrets, of all sizes, shapes and formats. Secrets are the seductive veils which mask the warts and pustules of our everyday ugliness. And if we find we don’t have enough secrets to go round, we just go and make some more.
Take the old Hooghly bridge between Calcutta and Howrah. Built in 1943 by the Braithwaite, Burn and Jessop combine, it’s practically an historic national landmark, almost as well known as the Red Forts in Delhi and Agra. It’s a part of our folk lore. Quiz questions are routinely asked about it: By how much does thermal radiation cause the Howrah bridge to expand and contract each day (One-and-a-half feet); how many nuts and bolts were used in its construction (None — only rivets were used. Daily, thousands of trucks, buses, cars, thela-gharris, rickshaws and two-wheelers trundle across it. Even more thousands of pedestrians swarm over it, some pausing to relieve themselves mid-way. Lovers hold hands and sigh at sooty sunsets from it. Suicides have used it to leap all the more emphatically into the murky depths of the Hooghly far below. The bridge has been featured in several films, and appeared on countless artists’ canvases and sketchpads and on tourist picture-postcards.
But despite all this public over-exposure the Hooghly bridge remains an official secret: officially, you’re not allowed to photograph it. Buried in some forgotten statute book, this no-photography rule is probably a relic of World War II security regulations regarding strategic installations introduced after a couple of stray Japanese bombs fell on Kiddepore docks, a few kilometres downriver from the bridge. Fifty-seven years after VJ day, the Howrah bridge stands as a monumental testimonial to our enduring passion for obfuscation.
The Howrah bridge represents not an exception but the rule of officially endorsed enigma. In 1974 I was invited as a reporter for the JS magazine, by the state government to visit Nagaland. Hostilities were at their height and there was a sizeable presence of military and para-military forces to counter the insurgents. Members of the Naga underground that I met variously put the Army strength as anywhere between 70,000 to seven lakh. Some claimed that there were more soldiers in Nagaland than there were Nagas.
This seemed over the top, even by propaganda standards. I went to the Army PRO in Kohima, presented my credentials, and asked if he could provide me some figures. He said he couldn’t, for reasons of national security. I asked if I could quote him to that effect. He said I couldn’t, for reasons of national security. For reasons of national security you can’t cite reasons of national security for someone refusing to give you information.
Things haven’t changed much since then. Recently a colleague of mine went to meet the Delhi police to find out more about the public awareness campaign that they had launched. She wanted to know the name of the advertising agency responsible. She was told she couldn’t have it. No reason was given for this refusal, presumably for reasons of national security.
There are two things about a public awareness campaign. It should be public. And it should encourage awareness. The Delhi police campaign is certainly public in that it is everywhere, on hoardings, in newspapers, the works. So far, so good. And it has certainly encouraged awareness that the Delhi police does exist.
Even better. But should the public which has thus been made aware be allowed to extend its awareness to include which advertising agency it is that has caused it to become aware? Not a chance. What would reasons of national security say?
Some people are pushing for a Right to Information law. They argue that in this age of infomatics and the Internet, access to information is the democratic right of every citizen. What these well-intentioned but misguided folk fail to understand is that information is important and valuable only to the extent it is concealed and kept secret from us. The moment information is accessible it becomes devalued, mere trivia.
That is why a thoughtful officialdom surrounds us with secrets. Like when the power supply which has suddenly gone off in the middle of the night is going to be restored. Or when the government babu you’ve come to see about a missing file and who is currently ‘not in seat’ will be back in seat to attend to your work. Or what they’re planning to do about the fiscal deficit. Or why Atalji chooses to sleep in meetings instead of his bedroom. Secrets all, and closely guarded to see they remain that way.
And of course the biggest secret of all is so big and so zealously preserved and protected that even when the answer is in full public view, and has been so for years, all the evidence clearly tagged, document ~ ~ d and exhibited, we not only resolutely refuse to see it but are beginning progressively to learn to not even recognise the question that the information relates to Bofors? What’s that?Posted on: 2003-12-15 02:49
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