To Quell the Killing Spirit
Shujaat Bukhari is the latest victim of mindless violence that has
gripped not only Kashmir, but our entire
nation for the last few years. It is now
a daily routine in many households to hammer a nail on the wall to keep alive
the memory of their beloved persons whose right to life had been aborted by frenzied
killers. Today is the turn of the Kashmiri editor, a peacenik whose cold
blooded murder has jolted not only the media world, but the entire nation for
its brutality and purposelessness, unless the purpose is for the terrorist
organization to thumb its nose at his efforts to broker peace in violence hit
Kashmir and to generate fear among those
brave voices who, like him speak for restoration of peace in the valley. In the
hour of his death, amidst the shock and sorrow of fellow journalists, the media
had given a passing reference to the gunning of his bodyguards whose families,
away from the media glare are grieving in shocked silence and anger. The same
day there was the death of an Indian soldier, abducted and killed by Jaish aka
Pakistani force. These are not one off killings; they are daily happenings. The
frequency of the killing spree that is flashed on the TV news channels and on
the print media have made us immune to this daily savagery and inhumanity. A
strange sense of numbness grips us today as we go about our daily chores, but
helpless to the point of resigning ourselves to the truthful reality of having
no alternative to this mindless brutishness. Shujaat’s is not the only moderate voice that
has been silenced. Many more voices have been muted that include both the dead
and the living. A single voice silenced
forever triggers the silence of many living voices. The nation from Kashmir to
Kanyakumari, in a state of nervous
palpitation hears the sound of silence. It has witnessed not only the silencing of Gouri Lankesh, Kalburgi,
Pansare and Dhabolkar, but of many
voiceless voices by frenzied mob for alleged crimes of eating or storing beef, of
lifting cattle and children. Kerala and Kolkatta have been the epicenters of
political killing between the right and the left. The shocking confession by
the murder accused in Gouri Lankesh’s case that he killed her because she was
“anti-Hindu” is a chilling echo of jihadi terrorists who claim to kill people
because they are “anti- Islam”. All sane
people abhor Hitler because he was anti-Jew while the world looks askance at
Trump’s outlandish efforts to enforce anti-migrant laws. In today’s game of
politics, every politician ups the ante to be anti-something to get elected. S/he
does not care if in the bargain this arouses irrational passions of hatred and
vengeful fury. It is dreadful to see contemporary politics ruled by
vengefulness, intolerance, anger and extreme hostility- which is not just an
Indian, localized phenomenon, but one that is world- wide pervasive. The more
we go about shrieking that Pakistan is a terrorist state, the more we arouse
their animus and enmity. Though I fear being lynched, I cannot help agreeing with the young Einstein
who in his early twenties commented that Indians were stupid. Indians, Einstein seemed to have
believed were "biologically inferior" and were hampered by the subcontinent's
climate that "prevented them from thinking backward or forward by more
than a quarter of an hour." If we study our ancient history, we had been
stupid and had never forged unity as one nation except for a brief while during
Gandhiji’s freedom movement. It has always been a clash of different kingdoms
and the notion of ‘Akhand Bharat’(united Bharat)was time and again betrayed by
warring kings. What we see today is a continuation of the same conflict as states fight over water and power sharing, on crop
burning and raising pollution levels in neighbouring areas, on linguistic
minority as against linguistic majority within a state etc. Whatever may be a
pejorative exaggeration in Einstein’s comments, the truth is we can neither
match the Chinese in industrial, scientific and military advancement, not to
leave out their achievement in sports nor match the cunningness and word
mastery of the Pakistanis nor the doublespeak of the Nepalese and Srilankans
nor the resilience and progress of the Bangladeshis. We are simply people of
empty words ,unmatched by action. Merely citing our ancient scriptures to
illustrate all wisdom was here and nowhere, we are cutting a sorry figure with
nothing great to showcase our superiority. We seem to lack killer instinct to
achieve great heights, but have replaced
it by insensate killing instincts. While we go about shouting from the roof
tops that Pakistan is a rogue state, the World Report of 2018 by Human Rights
Watch is far from flattering to India. Vigilante violence carried out by
fringe groups claiming to support the ruling party aimed at religious
minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government, besides their
threat to freedom of expression, fake
encounters etc have been highlighted, though ,no doubt with considerable exaggeration.
On the same day, CIA from US has even branded VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) as a
militant organization. There may not be much truth in these criticisms as they
are based on perception but still the core truth remains that there has been in
recent years, an increase in the level of intolerance and in the visceral
hatred of those who are opposed to the majoritarian ideology. In this sense,
one cannot help accepting with embarrassment the criticism of Einstein,( though
in his later years he had decried racism and said “racism is a disease of the
white people”) that shows us to be inferior by privileging passions over reason
and humanity. It is one thing to dismiss
all negative perceptions as engendered by prejudices, but if we claim to be
wise, we should see the mirror image as reflected in these criticisms and seek
to remedy wherever we have fallen in world’s esteem. This alone can refute
Einstein’s criticism of Indians being biologically inferior.
It may not be out of place to mention one
of the latest TV serials on Sai Baba to commemorate the hundredth year of his
Samadhi. One of the episodes has direct relevance to us today - his role in re-uniting the divided Hindus and Muslims during British
rule. For Sai humanity is one and cannot
be divided by religion. All religions lead to God, the ultimate Truth and he asked
people not to fight in the name of religion when Ram of the Hindus and Rahim of
the Muslims were one and the same. The plurality of Hinduism has been eroded in
recent years leading to a divided house that is witness to the killing of many
moderate and sane voices. Shujaat Bukhari had braved all assassination bids
with his belief that gun cannot silence the pen. Though he has been eternally
silenced, his voice still rings in many of us who mourn his death. If Sai’s
stress on Shraddha and Saburi(faith and patience) is followed, our faith in
humanity and our patience to harmonize with other religions will bring some
solidity to the strife torn nation. In this context Sun Tzu’s advice is worth
recalling: “Walk in the path defined by rule, and accommodate yourself
to the enemy until you can fight a decisive battle” The only injunction is that
the decisive battle should be a fight for peace.
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