To Pause & Reflect

Jingoism

Noun: The feelings and beliefs of people who think that their country is always right and who are in favor of aggressive acts against other countries.

The word, read without any context, sounds vulgar and plebian, does it not? Who amongst us are willing to accept that quality in us, are even erudite enough to acknowledge nestled faults?

Even as I am typing out these words, I can already feel the waves of offended incredulity building up in my reader, the quick opinion forming – Stupid girls, they don’t know anything. They should be thought lessons.

I am here to vent out my frustration, just as many of you are so freely and vocally doing. And in doing so, you are snaring more people into a poisonous web which is so surreptitiously hidden. And before you boil yourself in a vat of wrath, hear me out.

Over the past few days, every person belonging to this beautiful farrago of a nation has known an unaccustomed restlessness. Newspapers are eagerly awaited; our ears are constantly ringing from the thunderous voices of news channel hosts with their colourful words. Even my office is not spared. Usually inured to events uneconomic, every nook has held whispers – a quickening in the air which has hinted at the underlying rage. What astonishes me is the sad dearth of people who pause and think: Why?

I have always been a firm proponent of circumspection. Of unhurried, unrushed deliberation. A steady believer in prevalence of grey over the simple black and white. Do not be so easy to judge, I always chant to myself.

And never have I seen a time when this seems to be more important than now.

A clamor for war. A thirst for retaliation. A need to avenge the lives lost. A helplessness. India is my home, my land. I have felt it too. I understand.
Just hearing the words Pulwama & Kashmir fill me with shame. Here I am, sitting a thousand miles away. The bead of sweat caused by new heat eradicated by the air conditioner before it has the chance to roll down my face. My bed is soft, my body blanketed. A seat with a comfortable backrest. My muscles know no hard toil, the vagaries of climate a stranger.

And there is Kashmir. The ground and soil soaked with blood spilt so effortlessly. Teeming with people who are trying to make sense of ceaseless massacres. A populace which strives every day to adjust to a normalcy of gunshot sounds, pellets, tear gas. Mothers with missing sons, youth with torn & splintered identities.

And there is Us. The general, civilian population. Which is roused suddenly and spectacularly when 40 soldiers are killed. Enflamed when a military pilot gets captured in the enemy territory. Riled due to the impotency engendered by watching forty funerals in various states of a single nation. Which is shocked beyond belief when it realizes that the man who crashed into the military van with explosives was not a Muslim from the neighboring country, but an Indian Muslim. Which has abused anything related to Pakistan with exhilaration. Which has joyously celebrated the alleged “Surgical Strike 2.0” with righteous triumph.

And which has also been so very common, so very illiterate in failing to think beyond the stories fed by hyped up hosts and newspapers.

Since the time we gained independence and Pakistan theirs, the two countries have known little peace. And Kashmir even less so.

Heaven on Earth. Paradise on Earth. India’s Switzerland. Valley of Flowers.

A land so beautiful that it is described only in superlatives.

Yet, also a land which has the smell of blood constantly mingled with its cold, floral air. Where bursts of rifles and guns couple elegantly with the namaz. And families which are constantly used to leisurely tense hours brought about by curfews. People who are Indians, yet are not. Who are constitutionally separate. Who have inadvertently become the children of a bitter custody dispute. Both India and Pakistan, jealously coveting its border, are also callously ignoring the steady venom seeping in its veins.

The stories of civilian sufferance, of kids blinded by pellets, of loss to trade and commerce, of armed forces brutality are not widely publicised.

Glance at the map above. I was as shocked as anyone to realise that the maps we had naively learnt by rote in school did not actually give a clear picture. The state of Jammu & Kashmir, so distinctive in shape and that which gives the Indian map its true character is not in reality controlled by us completely. How would it be to live in a state which is claimed by three different nations and still never be clear about your address?

You might have heard the adage “Children to whom evil has been done, do evil in turn” and easily dismissed it. Everyone suffers, and they don’t all turn out to be mass murderers, do they? I am not naïve, nor stupid enough to excuse the asshole Adil Ahmad Dar his actions by claiming “Oh! But he was tortured by the army before!”

But the ground reality is that the atmosphere in Kashmir is so easily nurturing the fanaticism and insurgencies that we are witnessing today. Common people, everyday folks are desperate enough to believe promises made by far righters and are turning into bomb-happy terrorists.
And very few are questioning it. We are busier hating Pakistan and everything it stands for, occupied in sounding the war cry rather than dedicating a thought to what actually works. That we could have a part, that we might have contributed something to today’s situation is adamantly refused. Kashmiris across India were attacked in the aftermath of Pulwama attack, and hardly anyone believed  it to be an atrocity.

Yes, terrorism requires a response. A targeted action to shatter it out of existence. That a system can use religion, any religion, as an excuse to kill, to maim is a blasphemy. The need of the hour is logic and efficiency. There are people on the other side of the border who are as affected by terror as we are. Pakistan suffered one of the worst attacks on humanity when its Army Public School in Peshawar was attacked in 2014 and 132 children were killed. There are people there who are as bewildered by happenings as we are.

They do not deserve our hate.
Banning India Pakistan cricket matches is not the solution.
Forcing a lone bakery in Bangalore to remove “Karachi” from its name is not the solution. It is stupid.
To demand a war which will only see a thousand more bodies come back to us draped in the tri-colour is not a solution.

Every person is a hero in their own unknown story. In a world which is webbed with a multitude of intricacies, hidden grief and melodrama, labelling in absolutes is grossly unjust.
To demand patience and compassion for fellow beings who have nothing to do with what has happened does not make me anti-national.
To ask people to refrain from making callous judgements about people, based on just their place of birth or religion does not make me an Islam sympathizer.
When collectively we recognize that there are several forces at play, that there is always cause and effect, to respond to others pain and not publicize it with untutored opinions – that is when we can be responsible, rational humans.

That is when our grief gains an authenticity and respect.