(A)Valentine’s Day

(A)Valentine’s Day

Amitabh Bachchan’s famous one liner about English that ‘English is a funny language’ cannot be bettered. Add “A” to a word and it becomes its antonym such as (a)alive,(a)base, (a)bate,(a)symmetry, ….So(a)valentine’s day for Pakistan becomes an antonym of love. It is a day of hatred and violence; it is terrorist’s day.

Valentine’s Day on February 14 is a day of celebration of love. 2019 marks the 1750^th martyrdom of Saint Valentine who was executed for refusing to convert from Christianity to Roman paganism as ordered by the Roman emperor Claudius in 269A.D. Before his execution he had restored sight to his jailer’s blind daughter and sent her a Valentine’s card, signing it as ‘Your Valentine’. The tradition of celebrating love on Valentine’s day has been in practice in England and Europe  and gradually spread to the other parts of the world except the hard core Islamic countries. Pakistan is one such country where its High Court has banned Valentine’s Day as it is not a part of the Muslim tradition and therefore un-Islamic.

It is inconceivably tragic that the Jihadist group Jaish e Mohammed, operating from Pakistan’s soil, spewing venom and hatred against India decided to make it a Terrorist Day. While large parts of the world dedicated the day to express and exchange love and affection for one another, Pakistani terrorist group planned and executed the killing of Indian para- military personnel and turned Valentine’s Day to a day of mourning. On Valentine’s Day India grieved for the forty soldiers who had lost their lives, but  more so for the cold blooded, underhand murder that had taken place, denying the soldiers the satisfaction of dying through heroic action on the battlefield. The frightening aspect of terrorism is that it kills not only innocent people, but it denies any kind of heroic challenge to its evil machinations.  These faceless terrorists, the modern ‘Aswattamas’ act in the most cowardly, heinous  and surreptitious manner as they do not have the face to fight a just and righteous war. We have no Lord Krishna in our midst who in the Mahabharata cursed Aswattama with terrible leprosy and to experience eternal suffering without death to relieve him for his heinous and cowardly act of killing the young sons of the Pandavas.  For us in India and Pakistan, from day one after the partition there has been no cessation of hatred and violence, anger and vengeful fury against one another. But the hysterical war cry hyped by the military and political leaders in Pakistan has no comparison with the fanatic violence unleashed by terrorist groups who have no understanding of Islamic religion and the Holy Quran. India which had all along prided herself as a secular country had lived true to Goethe’s aphorism: “Tolerance should only be a temporary attitude; it should lead to recognition”. India has given due recognition to all religions. But in the last few years it has veered towards intolerance giving a creeping sense of disquiet among those belonging to the minority religions.  The last seven decades have seen four wars between the two nations and huge spending on procuring fighter planes and manufacturing of deadly nuclear arsenal. India has also been a hapless witness to a large number of furtive and feline terrorist attacks that have killed a large number of innocent civilians. The present NDA government has had a greater share of such covert terrorist activities, though the target had been mainly the army and the military forces.

Attack engenders counter punch and the recent suicide bombing of forty CRPF soldiers in Pulwama similar to a similar deadly assault in 2016 on our armed forces in Uri had to be avenged. The immoral and dastardly act made our Air Forces fly into action. One does not have to look for the number of terrorists killed in this attack .One does not have to count how many terrorist camps were destroyed. All that was the end result  was war hysteria and dog fight on the skies with shooting down of planes on either side. The capture of Indian pilot on Pakistan’s side, the village mob lynching him, his subsequent release by Pakistan as a prelude to peace initiative, the heroic welcome given to the relea -sed hero by India and our refusal to take the hand extended by Pakistan as a token of peace gesture have only added additional pages to the seven decade old history of Indo-Pak conflict. In a rational and objective writing Shoba De has quoted a few lines from the Pakistani poet Fakir Syed Aijazuddin which are a telling comment on the unresolvable tension between India and Pakistan. The poet in his poem We are at War writes:
We are at war, yet never really at war

We are at peace, never really at peace

What is this land in which we live-

Seeded by hate, by the sword tilled

scythe harvested by Death

Since neither of us can win

Let our unequal guests meet

Bury arms instead of limbs

And negotiate a mirror’d defeat

 How true are these words! Today Indian media hails it as Victory of India as the nation is in the muscular hands of PM Modi while the Pakistan media and the International media have praised the Pakistan PM for his gracious hand of friendship amidst the gravest provocation by India( though not mentioning who first provoked) . Both sides want to claim a win- win narrative for its military might, artful diplomacy and exemplary leadership of their respective Prime Ministers. But who is the real winner? Who is the loser? Who will have the courage to come out with truthful data? Who is going to be the author of future history that willprovide a win- win narrative for both the nations? Is there any possibility of 70 year old conflict getting resolved at any time?

Questions that have no answers today nor will they have in the future. Truth is the casualty in order to support the intransigence of the hawkish  leaders on both sides. We in India have the political compulsion to keep up war hype as it will (unfortunately a mistaken notion) show us to be a strong and muscular nation and the present government can have a fresh lease of life for five years especially after their chips were down in the last few weeks on all fronts. Pakistan continues to suffer from an inferiority complex with reference to India. It seems to be still suffering from nostalgic loss of those days when the Mughal empire was ruling India and feels hurt from a dented complex of being a neighbour of a new and strong India, free and democratic, respected for its economic development, social  fusion of tradition and modernity and for its cultural-cum-religious  pluralism. On its part, it knows that Pakistan is all that India is not-  narrow minded, insular, inward looking, full of religious bigotry. It is still looking for economic aid from Saudi Arabia, US, China and elsewhere to sustain its economy. It has abdicated moral and ethical leadership to the Jihadist forces who incite the people in the name of Islam about which their understanding is next to nothing. It depends therefore on its army, well equipped and well trained with  both nuclear arsenal and the most sophisticated weaponry. The parliamentary form of government in Pakistan cannot continue unless it has the backing of the military or put it in a sharper focus, the military will not allow the Pakistan PM and legislature to continue if the latter does not toe its hawkish line with reference to India. It is not the survival of the fittest, it is the very survival of Pakistan that has been brainwashed into believing that all the Kafirs of India have to be killed.

In an incisive article in the Indian express Prof.Bhanu Pratap Mehta has reiterated the concern of all in India(and quite a few in Pakistan like the poet mentioned above) that a solution that provides  a win win narrative for both sides  may never be forthcoming. The only time this became almost a reality was Musharaff-Manmohan Singh four step formula that had the following key points:  (1) military forces on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) are kept to the minimum; (2) people of Jammu and Kashmir on either side of the LoC should be able to move freely from one side to the other; (3) to ensure self-governance for internal management in all areas on the same basis on both sides of the LoC, and (4)Jammu and Kashmir with the active encouragement of the governments of India and Pakistan, must work out policies to solve the problems of economic and social development of the region through prioritising socio-economic issues like tourism, travel, pilgrimages to shrines, trade, health, education and culture” (excerpted from Mr. Lambah’s “Discussion between India and Pakistan on Jammu and Kashmir — A Historical Perspective” delivered at the Institute of Kashmir Studies, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, May 13, 2014).

When we can never find answers as to who won and who lost, when we have allowed fundamentalists(both Hindu and Muslim) to incite us with war Jihad, when hawkish leaders and a pliable media are constantly hyping conflict between the two nations, when we ignore at our peril the shared culture and civilization that had its highs and lows during the Mughal rule, when there is appreciation as much for Bollywood stars as for the Pakistan film artists and singers what hopes can there be for peace? Those who talk peace will be branded as traitors. In Cricket, Hockey and in Squash both nations have produced great players. Instead of taking pride in our achievements as two South Asian nations, people are force fed with hatred, envy, violence by the leaders on both sides. It is not only difficult to be good, it is easy to be bad. Patriotism, nationalism and emotional jingoism have dried us of the idea of collective, integrative humanity. Let us not expect that another Mahatma will appear and steer us through ethical and moral path. We have to re discover the spark he had left behind,  the spark of non violence that can never be put out as long as humanity lives, and reignite it to bring sunshine and brightness from darkness of ignorance and inhumanity. Let us forget the bitterness and hatred fanned by the hawks and let us exchange greetings with each other through sports, music, dance, film, theatre and trade. Let us make this (A)Valentines day  to be truly a day of acculturation, civilization and humanization. It is in our collective effort that we can set an example to the rest of the world that peace is a reality and not a fantasy. To use our PM’s phrase for a better world, we can say Na Mumkin be Mumkin hai(the Impossible is now possible)