The atmosphere has become toxic after the Mumbai terror attacks, so much so that hysteria seems the prevalent mood.
People are calling for war. People want death - blood, destruction.
But, really, how many really wants it? In a response to a comment on
a previous post, I was rather rude to someone whom I assume to be young lady. I will not apologise for my response, but I sincerely regret my tone.
The truth of the matter is, I am a bit fed up with this "Off with their heads" responses.
Who do we fight, and why?
Would a Hindu want to go out into the streets and kill the first Muslim you come across? And in retaliation, would you have a Muslim go out and kill a Hindu, a thousand miles away? Ridiculous.
The deaths and destruction we saw in Mumbai is the climax of decades of systemic apathy. It is the result of generations of irresponsibility. The perpetrators are, simply put, terrorists - whether they claim to be Muslims or not, Pakistanis or not.
Have you seen a live brain pulsing through a broken skull? I have. I have smelled stale blood. I have faced crazed people who were trying to set fire to the boat I was in, on the Arabian Sea. These are not pretty or exciting sensations. Nor is the smell of a hot gun barrel...
War is easy to talk. What would you have happen now? To see tens of thousands of soldiers march off to the border, attack another set of soldiers, kill each other mindlessly for a few days...till the international pressure makes both countries take a step back, and status quo ante bellum is restored...
Only, to a few thousand families, the status quo will never be ante bellum. They will have dead bodies to receive, invalids to tend, losses to count.
Or, would you have a few nuclear missiles shot over the border, to kill untold numbers, only to have retaliatory strikes take another number of lives here?
Oh, yes, I am sure our armed forces have contingency plans for all these scenarios. But do remember, they are for 'contingencies' and they are only 'plans'.
Do not, in your wildest dreams, imagine that India will be able to attack Pakistan and come off unscathed. Especially at this moment, Pakistan is a desperate nation. The paranoia and institutional fear of India will, in all probability, force them to use nuclear weapons first, and damn the consequences - for an animal afraid for its survival is impervious to consequences. And the people who have always been in power in that unfortunate country have also been unstable.
True, hypothetically, in a war, India would 'win'. But, how do you measure victory? By lesser number of deaths? Or by the higher number of survivors? And whose life are you willing to sacrifice? Yours? Or those nameless soldiers in green and camouflage?
You might then ask, why do we have an Army...
This is not the 19th century, or even the 20th, where a nation can invade another with impunity. The defence forces are exactly for that - defence. How have the USA gained by attacking Iraq? Or invading Afghanistan? If there were no more attacks on the US after 9/11,
it is not because GW Bush was a great president. To all practical purposes, USA is an island. But, is the danger any less after 9/11...? Time is the key.
What we must do is to see
why we had to suffer through Mumbai and countless other attacks before that...
Sixty years ago, seeds of hate were sown as India was wrenched apart. We have been presented with the fruits throughout our history till now. We owe it to ourselves to look around and see, is the hate worth it?
We cannot discover a new set of leaders, out of the blue, just because we do not like the present crop. What we can do is ask for a bit more responsibility from those we elect to represent, legislate and administrate for us.
We call the people we choose 'leaders', for want of a better word. They are our representatives. They are the reflection of what we are. They reflect us, in all the imperfections we ourselves suffer. We make them powerful because we hate to assume responsibility.
Let us, at least now, take some of that responsibility - and ask for answers. Jingoism leads to a blind alley, bigotry to darkness. Be tolerant, be more aware, be more questioning. Let us not, above all, elevate these 'leaders' to such height that they are unreachable. They are not gods, they are not mothers or fathers, they are just as human as we are. Keep them human...
We owe it to our children.
One more thing... Watch this:
Ofra Haza. This is a Yemeni Jew, from Israel, singing lyrics written in English, Hebrew and Arabic, performing in Turkey. I could have chosen many an Indian video, but this seems so appropriate, especially as she died of AIDS, contracted from her husband...