A month after Mumbai, 4 years after Tsunami...differences in response

The news paper reports are today replete with people paying homage to Mumbai terror attack victims as well as  recollection and homage of those who died in the tsunami 2004.


One natural disaster that saw, in response, a resurgence of human compassion and voluntarism while the other disaster wrought by humans led astray is responded to with anger and animosity. As the year comes to an end, war on Pakistan is increasingly being spoken to as 'when' and not as 'if'. Pakistan itself seems to be under greater  belief that India will go on a war with them. 


The war is being already fought by the media.  The media in Pakistan seems to be working overtime now.  I am sure that makes better business sense, imagine Indians had terror attack and could get good TRP for a television for a week maybe, Pakistan is selling the response to terror and getting probably better TRP (or whatever is the equivalent there) for a month. 


Modern technology and economic organization that provided Kasav and his people with easy access to guns, grenades, global phones and positioning systems has also provided the media in both countries with information on weapon capabilities, about the N processes, about the preparedness for attack, minutes for response, about weapons and their uses...the amount of knowledge we possess on instruments of violence seems endless. 


Many Indians feel that we should show that we too, 'know' how to use these tools of violence, Pakistanis feel that they should show their superior 'knowledge' on the tools of violence, while fanatics on both sides tease each other about each others' ability to use such 'knowledge'.


If the sense of security of a nation comes out of its knowledge of violent tools and methods, it must be a extremely violent society to begin with. I don't think our knowledge (and possession)  of tools of violence provides us with the sense of security.  If the response to the Mumbai attack results in us getting increasingly aggressive in acquiring, possessing and exhibiting (using) tools of mass violence, then we only perpetuate the violence, not work against it. Response to human pain cannot be in causing more human pain, response to the sense of hurt in a nation's pride cannot be solved by hurting another nation's pride. We did not win our Independence by hurting the pride of the colonials. They did not become our 'enemies' despite causing greater damage to us and killing more people for longer duration. 


I don't think India is a violent nation, it does not come to us naturally to be violent. Violent people are not majority in this country, violence does not stay in power too long either. Our tendency is to gravitate towards peaceful existence, and what we tend to, is our true stable nature, our own character.  This is defined by the traditions we have built and the leaders we have come to revere. However, we don't seem to have created either pride in this character or suitable methods of applying it in all situations. Gandhi successfully applied it against the Colonials, and since then it has surfaced once in awhile in different policies almost inadvertently.



As the year draws to the end, the image of the Mumbai attack will overshadow all other images and moments for most of us. The response to this attack on the nation's pride could unite us as a nation. We could be united  as a mob, faceless, identity-less, lynching an unequal but protesting and fighting 'enemy' or we could be united with an understanding of our true character that bring in spontaneous bonding and could make us stronger. Such understanding was seen after the tsunami, in the way many Indians bonded and worked together with complete strangers, in an understanding of compassion and peaceful co-existence. Our responses then were highly innovative, they were spontaneous and made us stronger. Our response now? 

Being careful on the cry for war

The joint cry for 'war on terror' that India has to unleash on Pakistan has marched from the periodic rhetoric of political right to a sales pitch for mass media since 26/11. For more than a week now our media seem to precipitate the idea of war in our midst.


The westward looking among us have sucked up duly to this. We want our own version of American War on Terror. We want to be part of that global fight which would lead to  many of us do not know what. 'Cold Start, 'Surgical Strike' are the kind of terms suddenly crowding our media space, seeking to suddenly educate us on offense strategies and technology about which none of us have any clue, I don't.


If the American example has taught us one thing, that is this, you can't win a war on terror by terror alone. They have been made to bleed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are caught in the quagmire which was set-up by the trumped up war potential with the same 'precision bombing' and other such terms on their television after 9/11. More importantly, hate for America has not decreased in any part of the world. If anything people hate America more. 


The Americans have not gone on 'war on terror' in their own land or that of their neighbours. This too holds an important lesson for us. Pakistan is an extension of India, we cannot root out the virus that is crippling the Pakistani society by destroying part of the society. The 'fundamentalist' virus will remain. India has for long stayed blind to the developments in its vicinity. 


While we have been aware of and engaging in the economies of the western nations, we don't know how many people die of hunger in Afghanistan or Pakistan. While we are proud of our corporates getting listed in NASDAQ or other western markets, we don't know the threats of  local markets in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma and other countries of this region (of course many of us don't know some of these facts about our own country, that is a different issue).  If India wages a war in its neighbourhood, the war will drain India forever. We have the Sri Lankan example. A nation waging a war on parts of its own people has been bleeding now for decades and its economy crippled.


Let the feeling of being 'hurt' and 'anger' not lead us to approve or indeed demand a war. We may not be able to afford the consequences. 


The other rhetoric that has emerged from the Mumbai 26/11 is more important. The need to cleanse our system of governance. I had earlier blogged on the need for an Indian character in our response to terror. Two interesting response for that post ensued, (1)  my pointing out the inherent inefficiency in our governance systems was refuted by Joe. He took it as implying inefficiency on the part of the IAS officers. I have nothing against them and do think some of them are amazing individuals. What I implied was that they are often imprisoned by an archaic system that they cannot press F5 on. They have to navigate within the system for their survival. Some perhaps are efficient navigators, but, it cannot be denied that our arms of governance, the legal system, the system of public participation and the method of governance need a far more systemic assessment for their limitations. They have failed to deliver and those of us whose lives are not linked with day to day engagement with this system are the ones feel the impact the least. Indeed most of us who are hurt and angered today are often the least inclined to engage with the system. 
(2) the second response was as a long phone call from Sathya, who said that India has no right to interfere in the affairs of Pakistan, after  all they have a democratically elected government now. I don't agree. Reports make it clear that Pakistani democracy hangs by a thin thread with multiple players holding it up. India cannot today ignore the weakness of Pakistani democracy and demand action out of its government or by the same token denounce the government for inaction and bomb and destroy some of the terrorist places. The Pakistani government can only do the former at its own peril and will have to respond to the later through violence to survive.  A mature approach is to help Pakistan build their democracy, we have ignored their weaknesses for too long only treating it as our strategic advantage. It could be a long haul, but, for too long we have ignored their societal problem through the infiltration of fundamentalism. 


Indian governments have to stand up for a character of this region and build in that in its response to terror.  Currently, there doesn't seem to be a great approach of our own, we are parroting (and indeed being encouraged to) 'our right to respond' because someone else has said it. This is what I had earlier written as lacking in character. If there was a 'Indian response to terror' that was built from fundamentals on the foundations of the Indian world view, then it would be different from that of others and rooted in our own strengths and understanding. I cannot accept that a civilizational entity that prides its record of not going to war for over 5000 years lacks the courage or vision to come up with its own response to terror.


Finally, any war in any part of the world today means more production and marketing of weapons of war. There are businesses that are dependent on production and servicing of war machines which rightfully look at any semblance of a new large scale war as a good opportunity. As part of their marketing strategy, one cannot find fault with them if they encourage the parties to move in the direction of the war. It is important to see how much of our public opinion on war is being influenced by such elements.  It is important to see how much of the Pakistani public opinion on war is influenced by such elements. Being victims of such influence is something we share now and that could be a good point to start a dialogue. 

Arundathi Roy and challenging the status quo in Kashmir

Politics of Kashmir is for India and Pakistan, what Isreal is for USA and many other western states, a sacred cow. Kashmir has always been there as part of the larger sub-continent identity and geography. Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists have long history in this beautiful part of the country. Security concerns, particularly with Pakistan has dominated the Kashmir politics for India, the access to the state and the Muslim majority has always made it an easy target for the Pakistani politicians.

Arundhati Roy has done yet again on the issue of Kashmir what she did for the Supreme Court, challenge the status quo, show the state machinery for its inherent weakness. Her courage is admirable though I suspect it would not politically mean much. I think it is time that someone took a serious look at Kashmir issue beyond the security concerns of India and strategic concerns of Pakistan, as though the people of Kashmir did matter and are not mere collateral damage.

When Arundhati Roy for contempt of court (in the Supreme Court) spent a day in Tihar jail a few years back, a prisoner is supposed to have given her a poem that reads as follows:
Raja bola raat hei, Mantri bola raat hei, court boli raat hei, yeh subhe subhe ki baat hei (the King claimed it is night, so did the minister and the court and all this was at dawn).

I suspect our understanding both in India and Pakistan about Kashmir is based on the propaganda of our respective governments and the apparent national issues enjoined to its future. If we see ourselves as world leader in various sphere, one of the weaknesses we need to overcome forever is the courage and conviction on the issue of Kashmir. It cannot be resolved completely for a couple of generations at least, as long as the memories of atrocities and terrorism and their effect in families remain, it cannot fade from the social discourse within the state itself. Warn torn states may need more time than children victimised by violence to regain a normal life.

But, any beginning for Kashmir resolution has to start not from earlier bureaucratic or military understanding, any peaceful beginning should start with stating the aspirations of the people and their issues. It should provide the people of this state to live through a social trauma of de-addiction to imposed violence. If we were to look at Roy's statement as one such beginning (only expressed with all the frills of international free thinker today) then this could be used to create a process of dialogue amongst the different players. Kashmir is reaching a stage where somewhere someone has to take the first step with courage.