Why you should not spare Prince Harry

Some things are sacrosanct. Like childhood secrets exchanged between siblings and friends. Like private conversations that lay bare feelings and opinions only meant for the ears (and hearts) of those closest to us. Like the minute details of relationships—between siblings, between lovers, between spouses. Like loyalty forged in the heat of war and adversity. Like the bonds of family. Like honour. No matter what the provocation and how much the personal hurt. So I am in a quandary. As a lifelong Windsor watcher and royalty enthusiast, I have collected many books on the British bluebloods—and erstwhile Indian ones too. So buying Spare should be a no-brainer. Only, by doing so, I feel I would be contributing to the coffers of—and thereby condoning—a man who has not only betrayed his parents, grandparents and brother to avenge slights—imagined or not—but done so for the proverbial 30 (million) pieces of silver. British royalty has had enough warring siblings, disastrous marriages, treachery, betrayal, love, loss and the rest of it to fuel thousands of chronicles down the centuries. But most of it happened before technology made those traumas public in real-time, and brought all voices and opinions—no matter how irrelevant and ill-informed—on par. Now, washing dirty family linen in public has become not only morally acceptable but also more lucrative than ever before. The Windsor family has weathered ‘explosive’ (and ghostwritten) memoirs before, particularly from the couple who appear to be precursors of the Sussexes: the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Edward VIII (‘David’ to his family) and his American divorcee wife Wallis Simpson, also ‘stepped back from royal duties’ with stakes considerably higher than those of Harry and Meghan, at a time when family and public animosity to their liaison were much higher too. His was titled A King’s Story (1947) in which he refuted the conventional wisdom of that time that he did not want to be king. He wrote that he had, in fact, wanted to be a “successful” king but in “a modern way.” She wrote The Heart Has Its Reasons (1956) and revealed she offered to end their relationship so that he could remain king (which he rejected) and even declared that she was “prepared to go through rivers of woe, seas of despair and oceans of agony for him.” Indeed, the revelations by the Duke of Windsor find several echoes in Spare, including the lack of tactile affection between royal fathers and sons. There was also much more public disapproval at the time about the former king trying to make money out of his travails. But his ‘earnings’ from the book were nowhere close to the mega-deals struck by his great-grand-nephew 70 years later; nor will Wallis’ remuneration be comparable to Meghan’s imminent memoir. Jumping a generation—the ‘spare’ Princess Margaret never turned on her family unlike her uncle then and grand-nephew now—there was Princess Diana, whose audio tapes detailing her personal traumas became the basis for Andrew Morton’s his 1992 bestseller Diana: Her True Story. I did buy it but was plagued by the same feeling of unease Spare evokes today. That no money was asked (or paid) for her revelations was the crucial mitigating factor for me. We also now know Diana was grievously misled by the now-disgraced BBC staffer Martin Bashir, who played up her own insecurities to convince her that she was under attack so that she would speak out. Had she known then what we know now, would she have done that Panorama interview in 1995? Unlikely. But Harry would be the first to assert he is not being misled by anyone into firing Spare salvoes today—and that Meghan is not Bashir. Or Morton. Unlike Spare, Princess Diana’s revelations did not stem from petty jealousy, envy or pique. No one can deny that constantly playing second fiddle to her husband’s mistress was certainly a more valid and painful reason to lash out than the current instance of a younger brother begrudging practically everything about his older brother. Diana’s was a desperate cry for help but her son Harry has clearly decided to tear down the House of Windsor, brick(bat) by brick(bat). This bitter outpouring of personal bile is very Hollywood—which he is closer to now, geographically and otherwise. But the fact that he is willing to accept any and all collateral damage in this War of the Windsors—including putting targets on the backs of his family and fellow soldiers by writing about killing 25 Taliban—also makes me deeply uncomfortable and more unwilling to spare Rs 1,227 to buy Spare. Better to spend it on something more positive. Why would a man who went through the trauma of deep tragedy in the public gaze and developed a visceral hatred for the media now want to use them himself to put his relatives through it all over again, especially his only sibling, who experienced the same pain? He has clearly long resented his family, especially his older brother, perhaps subconsciously most of the time. Something and/or someone has brought it all to the surface now and he has weaponised it. Even in our ordinary circles, neighbours’ ears perk up at any inkling of warring couples; feuding siblings inevitably rouse the interest of near as well as nearly relatives. And the sound of a family imploding is the most exciting of all, turning strangers into pyromaniacs. And Harry is cynically counting on this insatiable voyeuristic interest we humans have in other people’s travails, especially those in positions of privilege, to swell his bank balance via sales of Spare. We would not feel kindly towards others — particularly strangers — willing to pay to hear or read about our own most private issues. However, most of us have no qualms about delving into the personal matters of families of those we do not know, as revealed by disgruntled members. That is precisely the human trait Harry, his ghostwriter and publishers are counting on to make his chronicle of woes sell as well as the six part Netflix documentary did last month. His plan to relentlessly weaponise and monetise will harm only the family he grew up with but any people who may have had candid interactions with him. Some things in life must remain sacrosanct, not violated by the twin desires of revenge and profit. So my collection of books on royalty will finally have a small gap. But for those who cannot resist reading what he has to say, maybe pirated copies are the answer so that Harry is ‘spared’ the benefit. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal. 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