Just as I had expected, the massacre of CRPF soldiers at Pulwama kick started the outpouring of patriotic sentiments on print, TV and social media. The scorn and ire has been unilaterally directed at Pakistan for harboring the terrorists who instigated the massacre. There have been calls for sanctions against Pakistan, declaring it a terrorist country, surgical strikes along the border and one article had even mentioned that India wouldn’t mind using the nuclear button.
In between all of these vitriolic outbursts, pointedly relevant questions about the lead up to the massacre have surfaced and how the government of India chose to ignore an intelligence warning about a possible attack.
Journalists who asked similar questions have been hounded, shamed and even given death threats on social media by supporters of the BJP.
Despite all other political parties unanimously restraining from politicizing the deaths of the soldiers, BJP leaders including PM Modi have been addressing rallies asking for votes to make the country stronger, an obvious reference to the horrific event. This is what I was wary of when I wrote the first article about the massacre, the extreme lack of empathy and compassion politics and political leaders have in their quest to hold on to power.
What is worrying for me is how people across the cross section of Indian society are targeting the entire Pakistani people. Tariffs of Indian exports to Pakistan have been doubled and there have been calls to stop the supply of electricity from India to Pakistan. Most of the areas of Pakistan especially the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has been a volatile one for a very long time because of the influences from Afghan tribes, central Asian tribes and the proximity to Middle East. It is these tribes that have kept the Indian continent safe from marauding ancient tribes such as the Mongols. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Afghan tribes started pouring into Pakistan and all thanks to the prevalent Cold War, the US stepped into the scene to train and arm these tribal warriors to fight the Soviet Union forces. Finally, when the Soviet Union retreated out of Afghanistan, huge cache of arms were left both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The well trained Afghan tribes started fighting among themselves for dominance in Afghanistan, Taliban got created and all the fighting, suicide bombings and massacre of people spilled over into Pakistan and became part of Pakistan society.
The people of Pakistan are in fact far bigger victims of terrorism than Indians are. It doesn’t help either that the military of Pakistan plays a decisive role in the political landscape of the country, powerful tribes have massive influence over politics and armed forces and ISI works largely as an autonomous body and has vested interests in nurturing terrorist organizations. How does heaping more trouble on the ordinary people of Pakistan through sanctions and other means help in straightening out it’s mangled system? In the Bollywood movie “Happy Bhag Jayegi”, there is a particular scene in which a Pakistani police officer refuses to travel to India because he does not ever want the taste of salt of India on his tongue and the Governor’s son mocks him saying all of the salt Pakistan uses is imported from India.
There is no surprise that dissidents from Jammu & Kashmir get to become terrorists so easily when factories manufacturing terrorists function just across the border. But is anyone asking why so many such camps exist in Pakistan? Where are they getting funded from? Will the government of any country run terrorist training camps on their soil? Why does the Pakistan government or army have no control over these camps? But blaming Pakistan alone for terrorism in J&K is India not taking ownership of deploying its armed forces on the ground in J&K for such a long period of time. To make matters worse, the chief of the CRPF has ludicrously compared firing pellet guns on Kashmiri youth to wife beating.
I can give him a better analogy. When the Kerala government implemented a complete ban on alcohol in the state some time back, alcohol shops appeared mysteriously across the border on the other side in Tamil Nadu close to Sabarimala. Why? To cater to the pilgrims who had finished praying at the temple and were desperate enough for alcohol after the 41 days of abstinence they undertook before visiting the temple. Similarly, through pellet guns and other means, Indian soldiers are creating distress and disenchantment among Kashmiri youth who then become gullible and fall for the terrorism propaganda. This is what keeps those training camps across the border functional which is simply according to the law of demand and supply. If the CRPF chief is a wife beater then the only way he knows how to handle questions and dissent would be by superimposing himself through violence, be it on his wife or on the people. It is this mindset, right from the government to the civil administration to the armed forces that has kept the J&K issue alternate between simmering and burning for so long.
This article could brand me as an anti-national in India but before anyone decides to jump the gun, I would want them to check out the videos of Pakistani music bands and singers such as Strings, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Atif Aslam and countless others on YouTube. The most number of comments and the most passionate ones are from Indians. We are so passionate about Pakistani music that Bollywood would be incomplete without those stunning performers from across the border. Similarly the lives of the people of Pakistan would be incomplete without Bollywood films. I am an unabashed fanboy of Strings and one of my wishes is to see their concert live if possible in Pakistan. When the people of India and Pakistan are bonded through salt to music to movies, where are we fighting each other?
The people of India are not at war with the people of Pakistan. There is a systemic problem in Pakistan and a political problem in J&K. Both countries have elected governments and people on both sides have voted to solve existing issues and for better governance. Now the onus is on the governments to do what they have to do to solve the issues. But the governments are behaving exactly like corporate companies. When there is a good result, the top leadership jostle among themselves to take credit. When there is a bad result, the consequences are passed on to the team members at the lowest possible level of corporate hierarchy. The governments of India and Pakistan have passed on their failures to their respective people for far too long.
Soldiers are also human beings with their families and emotions. Thousands of soldiers have died on both sides since 1948 and still there is no solution to the strife at J&K. Add to this the thousands of dead and maimed people of Jammu and Kashmir. This clearly indicates that neither government values the lives of it’s soldiers and of the Kashmiri people. These are the reasons why I detest temporary outpouring of emotions for Indian soldiers every time a tragedy strikes because people have such selectively short memories and narrow vision. J&K is an open wound and as long as the governments of both India and Pakistan keep throwing mud at it, the wound will never heal.