PULWAMA TERROR, AND POLITICS OF VIOLENCE
By Partha Banerjee
Terrorism is terrorism. Islamist terrorism is a vile enemy of mankind. I will shed a tear for the fallen soldiers — martyrs of Pulwama. I will stand beside their families.
I am no less a patriot: in fact, I am more patriotic than many of you out there. And it doesn’t matter where I live: in earth, heaven, or hell.
I am not a communist. I am not a Congress Party member, not a Maoist, and never a BJP. I had been in RSS for long, and left it for good. After leaving it, I’ve become a better Hindu, Indian and Bengali. And a much better global citizen.
With age, all the lies and politics of hate and violence have become clearer to me.
I’ll make certain things very clear.
Mainstream media won’t speak against the new war drumbeat. They won’t take a stand against divisive politics. None will protest against the bloodthirsty and jingoist Hindu jihadis. That will take a toll on their ratings and revenues.
Congress Party, like the American Democrats, will assume a soft war-patriotism position. Elite liberals will stay silent — as nothing ever affects them. My clever friends from the left have already started demanding a new “blood for blood, eye for an eye.” Brainwashing made them brainless too.
A terrorist attack would certainly benefit the people in power. More so if it is from Pakistan, or Kashmir. It can be assumed that terrorists’ murder of forty-plus Indian army men just before the elections guarantees victory for the ruling party; they will then act according to their whims.
And those who hum a different tune will be excommunicated, either physically or mentally. They will be jailed and fined and trolled and hacked.
They’ll be called anti-nationals. Friends, family and society will alienate them.
No investigations will be done. No questions will be asked. No one will face any interrogation on the causes and lapses — deliberate or not — behind the brutal terrorist massacre.
No one will ask how terrorists killed more than forty armed military men out of existence in a place like Kashmir, where not even a fly enters unseen. We won’t be eager to question, because we are now angry. We want “not peace, but war.” Our minds are now full of knee-jerk hate. We can’t think.
Similarly, we never asked how a few years ago, the Mumbai Taj secured by the black cat commandos was infiltrated by machine guns. How terrorists got in there. Just the same way no Americans ever asked how the 9/11 terrorists went past four airports with watertight security in place. If you ask, you’ll be branded anti-national by the government, politicians, and their media. Prison owners would be elated. Your own people will view you as a green-eyed monster.
No one has asked: why, from 1947 to 2019, has the Kashmir issue not been dealt with and resolved. Why the USA and the CIA have used India and Pakistan as puppets, with Kashmir as an ace up their sleeve? A trump card!
No one asks about the poverty-stricken, hapless, ignored Kashmiris. Corporate media branded them as terrorists, and that kept us “happily informed.”
Terrorism and terrorists are born and raised out of poverty and desperation. Blind fanatics arm them and wash their brains with religious and jingoist doctrines. And then they either target the innocent or slaughter soldiers.
The traders of war then add more fire to the flames by spewing even more hatred and animosity. Not forty but four hundred, four thousand, or even forty thousand innocent men, women and children are then bombed and machine gunned by the venomous flames of war. Many lose their limbs, eyes, nose and what not, yet they live on.
But guess what, that terror is never called terror! It becomes nationalism, patriotism, defense, and just revenge.
Nobody raises any questions about it. In case of India, those who once killed Gandhi are branded as Gandhian nationalists. People still line up to vote for them.
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Nelson Mandela once said, “Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.” Our big political leaders never go to war, they watch from afar. It’s always the starving pawns sacrificed at the altar of war.
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