Dear Angry Patriotic
Indian,
At the onset, I must
extend my admiration and respect to you. Over the years, and more particularly
in the last few days (after the unfortunate Uri Attack, the much celebrated
Surgical Strikes and the Karan Johar-Fawad Khan-Raj Thackeray controversy), you
have strongly and openly stood in the support of our nation's soldier, and have
tried to fulfill your patriotic calling by sharing, blogging, posting and
debating about how Pakistanis have wronged us, and that we must once and for
all say 'enough is enough' and be done with them, their artists, their
cricketers, their diplomats and stop indulging them with dialogue. While I am
tempted to stand and salute you for your thoughts and shout at the top of my
voice "Bharat Mata ki Jai", I won’t, because the virtue of reason and
logic within me suggests that your sentiments are misplaced and your
suggestions are if not grossly wrong, futile at the least.
Before I try and
explain, may I make a suggestion of my own first to test whether you truly
stand with our martyrs and believe that it is because of their unaccountable
sacrifice that you and I can sleep peacefully at night. Below are a few links through
which one can provide support to the martyrs' families.
http://voiceofmartyrs.in
http://www.vasantharatna.org/
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=151736
May I request you to
make a donation of at least 1% of your previous month's salary to one of the
above, or any other that you find, and then follow it up with your vocal
support to their families, not on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Newshour, but in
person - find out any one Martyr family in or around your city - through a
letter, a personal visit with a thank you gift, an invitation to your
society's/ organization's next function as a chief guest, or the like.
While I'd love to be
proven wrong, something tells me that most would give it a pass. But I won't
judge you - I understand - because like most Indians, while you believe you are
patriotic, you are not. As a dictionary would attest, patriotism is love for
your country, its people and willingness to sacrifice for them. Patriotism is
paying taxes and being happy about it; Patriotism is following traffic discipline
and not overtake from the left; Patriotism is not lighting a Laxmi bomb or a
louder one near a hospital or an old age home; Patriotism is not breaking queues;
Patriotism is housing societies let out to Non vegetarians, Muslims, Bachelors
and unmarried couple in a secular and free country; Patriotism is stepping back
and finding more of these things and then doing them. And yet somehow, I find everyone
thinks patriotism is this big race event with cheers & flags & songs, ignorant
that they are trampling over these intrinsic attributes actually defining
patriotism.
"This guy is a
loud mouth, self righteous left wing idealist - ", you must opine, "-
if I am not patriotic how come I feel such rage when I see Martyrs die and when
attacks take place? to the extent that in '99, I was ready to go to the Kargil
and fight myself if I was given the chance." You may be right, but I think
I have a theory for that too. Now see that is how violence works against a
common person - it instills fear and insecurity as it slowly and spirally
affects various aspects of your life. And as it grows, it breeds repression,
slowly turning into anger and hatred emboldening you to take the gun, if you
have to, and destroy the gun bearer, not just simply, but by making them go
through the same pain and helplessness. If you have any resonance with that
feeling, I want you to understand that the same logic works with the terrorists
and Naxals with the only one difference - someone gave them the gun.
Now let me come to
the issue of boycotting Pakistani artists and cricketers. To my mind it is as
stupid, laughable and counter-productive as rickshaw drivers going on strike to
protest against Ola & Uber cabs - those are the most profitable days for
the cabbies in terms of money and app downloads, shifting more and more travelers
to stop using rickshaws even for short distances. If you have ever paused to
understand the terrorism industry breeding in and around Pakistan, you will
realise that they strongly use cultural disengagement and isolation among the
recruits, to paint the picture of India as a self serving, tyrannical and Hindu
biased regime to instill profound anger and hatred. Now that may be wrong you
say, but the notion works nevertheless for very effective brainwash. With
cultural disengagement not only this notion is further validated, it takes away
the opportunity to detoxify minds in remotest of lanes in Kashmir & POK
which may not have access to books and town halls but do watch movies and
sports - which may choose a bat or a camera instead of a gun dismissing narrow
ideologies after noticing Fawad Khan win a filmfare, or Wasim Akram as the
Indian coach, and may want to train in movie making instead of bomb making.
What better way to kill the Terrorism Industry then to redirect their employees?
For those who assert that boycotting Pakistani actors may pressurize their
Government to take strong action against terrorists, I ask the Alice to come
out of wonderland and realize the Indian Hierarchy - Government > Military
> Intelligence - does not work in Pakistan.
Let me submit, that
by no means I stand and say that Pakistan as a political state is not to be
held liable for the tacit support to terrorist outfits, for which there are
examples and references aplenty. But that is a political issue and it merits a
political solution for which might I endorse surgical strikes as a meaningful
and exemplary approach. Although, I am not sure if it was a wise move by the
government to broadcast the covert operation and then later keep on justifying
its happenings, but maybe they did the right thing as people need to feel
assured I guess. Having said that, a conflict with Pakistan does
not mean conflict with Pakistanis, as much as Cauvery dispute did not turn
Tamilians and Kannads against each other or their artists. There are many Pakistanis who are infact in
genuine fight against terrorism and oppressive regimes, Malala for one, because
believe it or not they suffer a lot at the hands of terrorism too. The solution
to terrorism shall only be less distant if the fight against terrorism in India
and Pakistan is unified to catch the terrorists groundless, which we do not let
happen because we create a parallel fight, that amongst us, falling prey to
Divide & Rule yet again. I therefore humbly opine that fruit of solution in
this issue may look like a solid spherical orange, but unless you peel the outer-cover,
separate the slices, remove the white threads and manage the seeds, you can't
have the fruit properly, let alone enjoy it.
I close
my note by reaching out to the angry patriotic Indian and suggesting - Don't be
angry at anyone, just:
tangibly
thank the Indian soldier and their families for the unfathomable hardships
& sacrifice;
embrace
the Pakistani citizen, for being the you in Pakistan, equally fearing terror
and waiting for peace, even if our countries are in a conflict;
respect
the Pakistani soldier, for selflessly serving his country as a part of his duty;
empathize
with the terrorist who is most likely axed by poverty to take up arms for
money, or has gone through some unfair and extreme loss harnessed by brainwash;
understand
Media & Politicians for doing what they do because cheap sells; and
be a
patriot and find ways to make India & inturn the world better by what little
CONSTRUCTIVE YOU CAN DO .
-
Abhishek 'Banjara' Pandurangi
I am no
political expert. But I did grow up seeing my Dad wear the green uniform day in
day out. He did serve in Jammu and Kashmir for years during which time I had
been to Uri with him, at the edge of LOC, feeling a butterfly in my stomach
wondering if there's a bullet heading our way, as happened on 18 Sep 2016. I've
seen my Mom freeze when the phone rang during the Kargil war while my emotions
became almost numb scraped by daily news on TV. Today, I do feel fortunate my
Dad is with me, for a drink or a talk or a hug whenever I want, while painfully
realizing that some military kids no longer do. Brave soldiers want to serve
the nation, but their kids want a little more, so that their serving Dad/Mom
stick around long enough - peace for the nation - and where there is anger,
there can be no peace.
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