From wonderland to reality

In perspective

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is replete with fantastical characters whom Alice encounters when falling into the rabbit hole. Memorable, in a not so happy way, is the Queen of Hearts. Unlike Princess Diana, who was affectionately called the Queen of Hearts, this queen was a contrarian who, at the drop of a hat, would pronounce death sentences when things didn’t go her way. “Off with his/her head” or “Off with their heads” were the phrases that one associated with her. But thankfully, the author Lewis Carroll, created a King of Hearts, who promptly reversed the orders behind the queen’s back. Her soldiers would also amuse her by dragging the victims away, but they would never execute them. Hence, a child reading the story would understand that the queen was peevish and unreasonable but be reassured by the positivity of the just people around her.

Wonder what would author Carroll, logical in both thinking and writings, make of the real world of today? Reading about a protestor in Iran being hanged on trumped-up charges for taking part in the Hijab protest, one could wonder about the prototypes of the Queen of Hearts who are at the helm of affairs in Iran today.

Strangely, in another era, Iranians overthrew the last Shah of Iran, Reza Pehlavi, as his regime was known to be corrupt and too close to the Western powers. The Shah was said to command the “Savak,” or secret police, who, unlike the soldiers of the Queen of Hearts, would take his orders seriously and crack down violently against any form of dissent. Ironically, Iran seems to have come full circle, from the Shah to the present government.

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If this kind of violent reaction to dissent had stayed within Iran, one could still say that it is an aberration, while some would gleefully say that it is because it is an Islamic state that lives by the sword.

The very next day after the events in Iran, Russia sentenced Opposition leader Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.

The reason for his imprisonment is a YouTube video in which Yashin boldly reveals the expose of Western journalists who exposed the Russian army’s atrocities in Bucha. Needless to say, there is another Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who survived an attempt on his life and yet returned bravely to serve time in prison. He has shown the courage to take on a corrupt administration and is able to rally tens of thousands of supporters. Clearly, the macho man Vladimir Putin will tolerate no opposition to his plans to remain leader for life while fulfilling Russia’s dream of expansion. That The Times should name Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader, as the 2022 Person of the Year should probably have Putin wishing that he was the Queen of Hearts and saying, “Off with his head.”

And if as an Indian, one is feeling smug about all these violent and unreasonable autocrats leading the world, it is time to wonder how Saket Gokhale, the spokesperson of an opposition party, can have his bail cancelled and be dragged off to prison by the Gujarat police for his unverified tweet on the expenses incurred on the one-day visit by the Prime Minister after the Morbi bridge collapse tragedy.

Prior to this, Mohammed Zubair was jailed over his tweet, until the courts finally came down heavily and he was released. So is the case with Dr Kafeel Khan, who was imprisoned for revealing that a lack of oxygen caused the deaths of 60 children in a Gorakhpur hospital. Again, the courts had to intervene over trumped-up charges. The list of jailed dissenters being denied bail is too long to even list here.

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While the Alice in Wonderland tale had sensible people like the King of Hearts and the Queen’s soldiers, what is it with people in reality who do not speak up for the unblemished truth? Is kowtowing to injustice the only way to get ahead in life, or is it the “hum bal bacche wale hain” syndrome that has people preferring to opt for a safe path rather than risking the lives of family and friends?

But, happily for the world, there have been Kings of Hearts in reality. In September 2003, 27 reserve pilots in the Israeli Air Force handed over a petition stating, “We refuse to participate in air force attacks on civilian populations.”

A similar petition was signed by hundreds of reserve soldiers who stood their ground in refusing to serve in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. Truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. All it needs is a heart!

(The author is an independent writer)