The power of Solzhenitsyn’s thought gripped my mind. I wondered: “Is it the responsibility of only artists and writers to defeat the lie? What about journalists and columnists? Aren’t we, too, writers in a way? Since journalism now encompasses TV journalism, don’t TV reporters, cameramen, producers, editors and owners of TV channels also have the same responsibility? And what about the responsibility of political activists, leaders, parliamentarians, ministers and the Prime Minister? Aren’t they obliged to do more than what is expected of ordinary citizens? Or at least as much as what Solzhenitsyn expected from ordinary citizen — namely, not to participate in lies?”

For any thought to implant itself, it needs a context. For me, the context was when Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh audaciously asked “Where is the proof?” in the course of the confidence motion debate in the Lok Sabha in response to the opposition leaders’ grave charge that his government was indulging in large-scale horse-trading in order to save itself. The PM’s poser lent itself to only one of the two conclusions — either he was convinced that the Congress and Samajwadi Party leaders were not engaged in any horse-trading at all; or he believed that no truth could emerge to validate the charge of bribing non-UPA MPs. The first conclusion means that the Singh who became king on July 22 did not know what was happening in his kingdom. The second conclusion would lead any fair-minded to ask: “Is the PM fulfilling even the ordinary citizen’s responsibility of not participating in a lie?”

... contd.