The silence of icons in hours of need

Asia Times

2 days ago

Two articles–one from The Caravan, the other from The Atlantic–circle around a deceptively simple yet thought-provoking question: Can a global icon, someone capable of shaping the public thought of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people, afford to remain silent during times of political and moral crisis?
Take Sachin Tendulkar, cricket's eternal deity and arguably one of India's most venerated public figures. In a searing 2021 piece titled 'Establishment Man: The Moral Timidity of Sachin Tendulkar,' journalist Vaibhav Vats conducted a quiet evisceration.
Yes, Tendulkar is humble. Yes, he's famously self-effacing. But Vats doesn't let those qualities mask the deeper absence at the heart of Tendulkar's public life: a glaring moral void.
At a time when India was being battered by the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aggressively advancing an exclusionary Citizenship Amendment Act, Tendulkar–idol to a billion–offered no comment, no concern, no gesture of civic responsibility.
Vats recounts a moment of almost surreal dissonance: as nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act gripped India, with mass demonstrations, police crackdowns, constitutional questions burning in the public square, Tendulkar took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his preferred chutney ratio for vada pav.
'Red chutney, very little green chutney & some imli chutney,' he wrote, as if utterly insulated from the country's moral convulsions.
The Caravan did not mince words. It describes Tendulkar as a man curiously unaware of his own symbolic gravity. He occupies perhaps the highest pedestal in Indian public life, and yet appears incapable–or unwilling–to grasp the ethical responsibility that comes with such cultural elevation.
His misreading of his own stature, the piece argues, is precisely why he retreats into the trivial when the moment demands conviction. Even more damning is the article's assertion that Tendulkar embodies the 'worst traits of the Indian middle class' – a trifecta of moral indifference, democratic apathy, and intellectual hollowness.
He is a mirror, the piece suggests, not of who we aspire to be, but who we have become: more comfortable with consumer comfort than civic courage.
Fast forward to this week's Atlantic piece, titled bluntly, 'Where Is Barack Obama?' writer Mark Leibovich asks a similar question, this time of the man who once embodied hope and change.
Yes, Obama did his time–eight grueling years as the leader of the free world. Yes, he's earned the right to decompress, to cash in, to hover above the fray.
But as Donald Trump barrels the whole world towards an unchartered territory during his second term–threatening to dismantle democratic institutions and global stability–Obama's detachment does feel a bit irresponsible.
Leibovich, in The Atlantic, cuts through the nostalgia surrounding Obama with surgical precision: it would be one thing if Obama had slipped into quiet retirement–taken up oil painting, perhaps, like George W Bush. But that's not what's happened.
Obama remains firmly in the public eye, only now his presence radiates curated ease–movies or book recommendations over X and beachside photoshoots–while much of the country and the whole world spirals into democratic anxiety.
What makes Obama's absence more than a symbolic lapse, Leibovich argues, is the profound contradiction it exposes. His career was built on the rhetoric of engagement–grassroots activism, community organizing, civic renewal.
In 2008, the entire ethos of his campaign was not 'I will save you' but 'We are the ones we've been waiting for.' That message, once electric, now rings hollow in the vacuum of his detachment.
His conspicuous silence as Trump mounts a vengeful return and democratic norms buckle under pressure is a betrayal of the very premise on which Obama built his political identity. Leibovich calls it what it is: a dereliction.
A man who once inspired millions to believe in the power of collective action now seems content to watch the civic unraveling from the comfort of a higher plane, buffered by wealth, acclaim and a curated brand of chill.
The two articles have essentially pointed out that even though both Tendulkar and Obama represent vastly different cultures, different histories and different spheres of influence, the 'apparent moral failure' they share is unmistakable.
When the world cries out for moral imagination, for voices that might still command trust and clarity, they evidently retreat. And in doing so, they remind us that silence is rarely neutral. In moments of crisis, it speaks volumes.
Yet the underlying question posed by both articles is the same–and it grows more urgent by the day: What is the moral obligation that comes with influence?
When someone holds the power to shape public opinion at scale, to steer collective attention and imagination, what does he owe the world in moments of crisis?
Is there a duty to speak out? To take a stand? Must influence always be tethered to conscience? Or can the privileged few retreat into apolitical comfort, shrugging off the burden of moral clarity as someone else's job?
Faisal Mahmud is the Minister (Press) of the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi .