Author: B Shantanu
Publication: IndiaCause.com
Date: August 3, 2006
URL: http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_060803.htm
Post the bombing in a calm moment, I came
across this email, "Dear terrorist
", it began, "
you
cannot defeat us
we are Mumbai-kers
(our) spirit is very strong
and cannot be harmed
"
Where did we get this fatalism? Because that
is what is - it does take a great deal of courage and a soul of steel to go
back to work the next day after an attack like this - but that is not what
Mumbai-kers have - they go to work the next day because they have to - there
is no moment to pause and think - about what we should do
how do we prevent
this from happening again?
But the "luxury of (time and space for)
thought" is a thing that few Mumbai-kers can afford.
And even those that can will pretend that
nothing has happened. Someone I know and who can afford this luxury said to
me, "
we will not be defeated" - perhaps not in the literal
sense of the word.
But believe me if two hundred of your fellow
city dwellers are dead - for no reason except that they were at the wrong
place at the wrong time - and you still get up the next morning, behave and
act is if nothing has happened, you have already been defeated
the enemy has broken your spirit -
the enemy has taken away the tears that should flow - the enemy has subdued
the rage that should boil over - the enemy has already won over your soul
- a soul that feels compelled to go to work the next day and pretend as if
nothing has happened.
This is the same soul which will go to work
the day after India gets "balkanized" or looses it identity - this
is the spirit of defeat and fatalism, of utter hopeless-ness. This is not
Mumbai's spirit - it is the spirit of a city that is so wretched and so in
despair that it does not know how to react, that feels so helpless with rage
that is prefers to forget and move on - a city that is in denial - a people
that want to forget and - will forget - until the next time there is an attack
Where did we get this spirit?
In a land of Krishna and Arjuna where arms
were borne for a just cause, how did we sink to this level?
I came across this interview of Sir V S Naipaul
- where he talks about this
I feel all of this tells people that they
should be defeated again, it's good for them to live with defeat, and that
somehow beauty comes out of defeat. I don't think beauty comes out of defeat,
I think the Indian wretchedness comes out of the Indian defeat, and this idea
of experiencing is utterly wrong. I don't think the Sanskrit texts pre the
Muslim conquest, dealt in this kind of negation. I think this negation has
come with the years of squalor and defeat.
Defeatism, denial and helplessness have become
the defining Indian traits and this is the battle that needs to be fought.
Francois Gautier - at the time of the parliament
attack in December 2001 wrote a piece titled, "The Kurukshetra war of
the 21st century"
The article was written in the context of
enormous pressure that was brought to bear on India to not to engage in hot
pursuit as this would lead to a nuclear war with Pakistan.
The logic of the pressure was bizarre - to
say the least.
India should avoid a showdown with Pakistan
as Pakistan - if forced into a corner - may use the nuclear option. Instead
of putting pressure on Pakistan to never use nuclear weapons as first choice,
the world community forced India to avoid taking matters to their logical
conclusion - even though India has publicly and repeatedly maintained its
"no first use[1]" policy on nuclear weapons.
As Gautier puts it, this was nothing but "nuclear
blackmail" by Pakistan - and it succeeded because we were too weak-willed
to call Pakistan's bluff.
To those who argue that it would not be possible
to accept rational decision-making from Pakistan in case of war with India,
I would only point out how meekly (and quickly) the Pakistani leadership agreed
to side with US in the run up to the bombings in Afghanistan post Sept-11
- even though this was a regime which they had fed and nurtured for several
years - and even though public opinion was virulently anti-US as it continues
to this day[2]
Francois suggests that:
"Two factors appear to have inhibited
the Indian courage to face adversity when faced with threats: the first is
Buddhism, which made out of non-violence a rigid creed; and the second is
the Mahatma Gandhi's equally unbending theorem of non-violence, which may
have precipitated India's partition.
And this is why maybe, under the guise of
non-violence and peace, so many Indian intellectuals and politicians have
shied away from war since independence, witness Nehru's refusal to heed warnings
about China's hostility, which triggered the humiliation of the Indian army
in 1962."
He then poses the question whether there is
likely to be a nuclear war with Pakistan:
"But will there be a nuclear war? Musharraf
is
an intelligent man: he knows that if he does manage to drop one nuclear bomb
on Delhi or Bombay, there will no more Pakistan worth the name,
Islam,
who has made of the use of violence a near religious practice, understands
the language of violence: see how it kept quiet when America showed its muscle
after the 11th September attack, or when the Allies invaded Iraq.
If there is a war between Pakistan and India,
whatever the politicians say, it will be a war between two brothers, for except
for their religion, everything unite Indians and Pakistanis: their colour,
ethnic origin, food habits, language... In fact, some Indian Muslim soldiers
might have to shoot on some Pakistani cousins, or uncles. Will they pull the
trigger when their commander says so? Will not their conscience tell them
that it is wrong to shoot on one's brothers? Does not that remind you of something?
Did not Arjuna face the same dilemma five thousand years ago in Kurukshetra?
Did he not throw his bow on the ground and tell Krishna: "no I will not
fight, because war is such a horrible thing and I refuse to kill my bothers".
But what does Krishna tell him: "not
only you are not killing the soul, but merely the material body; but also
sometimes, when all other means have failed and it is necessary to protect
one's borders, wives, children and culture, war can become dharma.
And that brings in the final question: is
a war against Pakistan justified? Would it be dharma? Well you have to decide
for yourself: for nearly twenty years Pakistan has waged a proxy war against
India in Punjab, in Kashmir and now more and more in the North-East; it has
killed thousands of innocent people, raped women, dismembered children, mutilated
Indian soldiers in the most horrible manner... Several Indian Prime Ministers
have made one-sided attempts at peace, without getting reciprocity from Islamabad.
Indeed, a war between Pakistan and India might
be the Kurukshestra of the 21st century, the ultimate war which will set right
fifteen hundred years of Islamic terror and both redeem the Hindus' karma
of cowardice, as well as the Muslims' karma of bloodshed.."
But honestly, do you think it would ever happen?
Not really, because "we Indians are like that only
" or to
couch it in "drawing-room speak" - our spirit is indomitable and
indestructible
.really?
The last one thousand years of history certainly
doesn't suggest so. The reality is what we have is not indomitable nor indestructible
but a scared sprit hiding under a veneer of nonchalance that cloaks the fears
deep inside it.
When you dig deeper, it is not the indomitable
spirit
what we have today is a spirit that tolerates injustice, unfairness,
indignities
.and still keeps moving on
searching for "moksha".
Because no matter what we do, what is bound
to happen, will happen and if it is in our "karma" to die, we will
die
why bother about "this life" when the next one could be
so much better?
And this is the spirit that we need to fight
- before we fight any wars against Pakistan or whoever those "across
the border" people are.