Mr. Tunku Varadarajan recently whined in the Wall Street Journal (“When News Suppression Hits Home”, April 12) that his brother, a foreigner living in India, has been served legal notice based on a citizen complaint pointing out violations of Indian law. Isn’t this shocking? I don’t mean the arrogance of the Police of the largest state in India, home to more people than the USA or Brazil, in respectfully serving duly drawn-up charge-sheet papers to his home, instead of summoning him to the local police station. I mean, first of all, that Mr. Varadarajan (call him Tunku to distinguish from the alleged perp) conceals the fact that he is not merely the Executive Editor of a US University-based think tank.

Patanjali (Tunku) Varadarajan, per Wikipedia,  “in 2000, joined the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, under its editor, Robert L. Bartley. He worked there as a senior editorial writer, deputy editorial features editor, chief television and media critics, and, for five years, as the paper's editorial features ("op-ed") editor (a post to which he was appointed by the paper's editorial page editor, Paul A. Gigot.) In 2007, he served briefly as assistant managing editor of the Wall Street Journal..”

Why was that not worth disclosing to readers as a possible conflict of interest? Isn’t it the same trait that perhaps got others of his DNA in trouble with the law? Their cocky assumption is that they can abuse their official connections to pursue personal agendas? Such a senior journalist in America, and a Director of a top American Think Tank, did not consider it necessary to disclose this? Did no one at the Wall Street Journal today have the basic skill to do basic due diligence to find this out? These are the ethics of the Heritage Foundation? The “0.1%” controlling the so-called Mainstream Media discourse and trying to con Americans?

With that disposed of, let’s get to the merits of his whine. From what we see, the complaint against his bro was from a private citizen in India who observed a gross violation of Indian law, and reported it conscientiously to authorities. Perhaps they have that right?

India is not “socially distant” as America is, though they have kept down pandemic spreading far better than Americans have. People (not the Varadarajans of course) live in cramped frugal quarters. Streets are narrow. One cannot avoid human contact, so to speak. And so they have to practise some hard-learned social skills that have evolved into laws under the Indian Constitution. One is the idea of not “offending religious sensibilities” or otherwise inciting rage. This is because one yahoo, imported or not, yelling a few drunken obscenities and lies in such a crowd, is enough to trigger another’s ire, and within seconds an explosion of very personal violence. India has a tiny fraction of America’s Police Per 1000 Citizens. Mobility is far tougher in the crowded streets, and Police do not bomb neighborhoods as the US Police did in Philadelphia or Waco Texas. And most police carry canes, not Peacemaker Colts on trigger-happy fingers. Long before they can intervene, dozens of homes and shops would have been burned, and people brutalized. Enough grist for the WSJ and its lookalikes to tom-tom for the next 30 years.

So Indian law has put in some sensible controls. Both Varadarajans know this very well. And.. amazingly, India increasingly expects foreigners, even Americans (!!!) to actually respect and abide by the laws of the land. Otherwise, to quote an Atlanta saying, “Delta is ready when you are!” There is a video circulating on twitter of a Uruguayan Embassy woman High Official being disrespectful of first Indian law and then the police. Please see freely-expressed Indian popular reaction to that video for an education. Elsewhere is a video of scofflaw tourists sitting demurely-distant on a beach and diligently writing in noteboooks supplied to them: “I did not respect the law. I am very sorry”. 500 times. Under police guidance. In both cases, had the roles been reversed, American police would probably have pumped 34 Colt 0.45 bullets into each alleged transgressor and been found to have been totally justified.

And that is the context of this case. Readers of the Wall Street Journal pointed out that Bro Varadarajan had been caught red-handed, lying in slander against the Chief Minister of UP.  Readers pointed to alleged links of his wife and himself to the brutal “Naxalite” terrorists who recently killed 17 policemen. I will not comment on the precise merits of the case against the alleged perp. In India there is a concept called “sub-judice”. Cases are not settled when the First Information Report is filed: the Judges consider the evidence. The Accused is given every opportunity for a good defence. I am sure Varadarajan is not too poor to afford a good lawyer. People are not presumed guilty: they are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. And so, one does not emit Opinions on things that are being settled in court until the court settles it.

Journalists are given particular leeway by Indian judges – and the perp here will probably be let off when he apologizes, as another reader said. But neither Varadarajan is helping himself: One gives Americans a bad name in India by his arrogant scofflaw behavior. The other gives Indian immigrants a bad name in America with arrogant disregard for ethics. A great advertisement of family integrity standards, no doubt?

But in the end, the fact is that even a Varadarajan needs to obey Indian law if he chooses to live free in India. That is a very American concept too, if Tunku could get the Heritage Foundation to check American Heritage.

But after they and the Wall Street Journal check their Heritage for the ethics expected of their top Officers and Editors, please. Thank you.

The US Heritage Foundation with HQ on Massachusetts Ave, minutest from the Capitol is regarded as a conservative think tank, far removed from the election-bombing Marxist-Maoist Naxalite terrorists. But what about the ethics of their senior executives?

Image Credits: PTI/The Wire, Wikipedia, Heritage Foundation.