j accuse......................a trial that tore a nation apart.

Yesterday, after a long day at the office, I flopped down on my favourite chair in front of the TV and was audience to the most bizarre talk show, that I've been privy to in recent times. This was a talk show with the following, on Times News.....
.Rahul, the anchor.
.Mahesh Bhat- Movie Mogul and known to sympathize with minorities.
.Pooja Bhat- Mahesh Bhat's daughter.
.Oza- Head of some kind of fringe group operating in Gujarat.
.Naveen/Nikhil ( ? )- Spokesperson for the BJP, in Gujarat.

The talk show was about, yesterday's vandal attacks on movie houses across Gujarat, screening Bhat's new release 'Tum Mile'. The vandals apparently are encouraged by the likes of Mr.Oza, who appeared to be a top level functionary in the group.
Why? Because Bhat's son Rahul ( Not the anchor )is in some way connected to a Headley who is connected to the LET which carried out the attack on the Hotel Taj, at Mumbai, last November. Everybody had their say. Mahesh, alternatively called Oza, a joker, a badmash, a gentleman, a scourge on the collective conscience of India and rounded it off by calling him Oza Saab. Pooja, kept referring to some mirror & was very verbose. Much of her talk went above my head and frankly she looked a wee bit tipsy. Mr.Oza, was amazing. He kept referring to the Mahabharat & Dritrashtra in particular.Left me flumoxxed. The anchor, Rahul, was pretty aggressive himself and had his share.
The crux of the story is that Rahul Bhat is being condemned even before he is proven to be guilty much to the sorrow of his family............I lost track after a while because dinner was served & I had to leave.... ( No TV while eating )
The sad story remind me of another amazing one, played out in France about a 100 years ago....... Capt. Dreyfus, a young, military officer in the French Army was accused of spying for the German's and sentenced to prison.........at Devil's Island French Guiana. Dreyfus was innocent, but the problem was that he was a JEW & at the height of anti Semitism, you did not want to be a Jew in Europe, in the 19th Century. Before being sentenced to prison, Capt.Dreyfus was cashiered and court martial led in public.
The drill...
His cap was removed & thrown on the ground. His eapulets ( badges ) were torn off & thrown. His decorations removed. His regimental stripes stripped off. His sword broken in two. All this in full view of his regiment. It leaves an officer naked. The tragedy of the episode was that there was mounting evidence that Dreyfus was innocent but French counter intelligence refused to look at it and in term fabricated fresh evidence to prove that Capt.Dreyfus was guilty. This is called escalation of commitment. An interesting OB theory, wherein you make a commitment, realize, it is wrong but continue on the course, because you cannot admit that you were wrong and cut your losses.
The Dreyfus affair grew steadily worse.................. Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light identifying a French Army major named Esterhazy as the real culprit. However, high-ranking military officials suppressed this new evidence and Esterhazy was unanimously acquitted after the second day of his trial in military court. Instead of being exonerated, Alfred Dreyfus was further accused by the Army on the basis of false documents fabricated by a French counter-intelligence officer, Hubert-Joseph Henry, seeking to re-confirm Dreyfus's conviction, and uncritically accepted by Henry's superiors. Finally....... Word of the military court's framing of Alfred Dreyfus and of an attendant cover-up began to spread largely due to a vehement public protestation in a Paris newspaper by writer Émile Zola, in January, 1898. The case had to be re-opened and Alfred Dreyfus was brought back from Guiana in 1899 to be tried again. Eventually, all the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army in 1906. He later served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.He was an old & tired man. The spirit in him was gone for ever.......
I hope Rahul Bhat, fares better & the larger point that I'm attempting to make is that as a manager, if you have made a mistake, own up & correct course. Do not escalate commitment.....................
As for Gujarat, the mind boggles...............