Punjab, united in grief, divided by hatred
An air of unspeakable pain and horror overhangs Punjab after the horrific and tragic killing of its popular icon, Shubhdeep Singh or Sidhu Moose Wala. Regardless of one’s views on the politics and culture that he sometimes seemed to symbolise, there is no doubt that the youngster was incredibly gifted and blessed with a spirit that was soaked in the savour, the smell, the taste, the vision and the fragrance of Punjab’s countryside. In a true literary sense, he was a path breaker whose contribution to the daring inflexions of language and ideas and experiments with music cocked a snook at the “literary, social and political establishment,” his turban always set at a defiant (but not insulting) angle. The boy was exceedingly loveable. “Chobhar de chehre te noor si”, and not even the Kalashnikov can extinguish that for ages to come. But at another level, this blow brings into sharp relief Punjab’s need for returning to its spirit of unbounded fraternity, bonhomie and its joie de vivre.
It is perhaps a little out of place to talk of life in this hour of dark death, but it is precisely in turning our back on songs of life that we have allowed death to find a way to and dance in our streets. The land of the Gurus still awaits a recovery from the moral and emotional atrophy caused by the eighties and the nineties. This is where the life - and tragic death - of one of Punjab’s best loved and most debated sons in recent times have a social relevance. The blow comes wrapped in a twin potential: It could either drive us deeper into this dark moral depress where hatred has become our mother tongue or it could be the turning point for Punjab’s journey back to its liberal, tolerant, festive and loving magnanimity. More than gangsterism, what plagues Punjab is the idolisation of violence and hate. Day and night, vulgar hatred spewed on social media is murdering and replacing the back-slapping bonhomie of our folk spirit. Punjab has forgotten the difference between honour and arrogance.
Plagued by lethal virus of hate
Though our folk colours have always had a streak of the ‘good Samaritan’, Robinhood brand of violence woven into the fabric, this streak has seldom got mixed up with hatred and violence for their own sake. The idiom of honour and courage has never got confused with insane vanity and issueless violence. This is a new Punjab we are seeing, plagued by an ugly variant of “honour”. The impact of this lethal virus will be harder to erase than was even the fallout of the bloodiest partition in history. Incredibly, the scars of 1947 began to heal in less than a decade. But the ugly scars left on our social psyche by the raging hate-virus may take much longer to erase. The malaise is best expressed by Punjab’s politics of hate and vilification. The healing shows no signs even of beginning. The Moose Wala tragedy may not be linked directly to politics but it has everything to do with the way we have practised politics over the past four decades, especially the past decade. Demonisation has replaced debate. And social media, spewing blood and hate round the clock, has become the most wanton weapon of mass destruction, its lethality unmatched by any chemical killer invented so far. The whole social fabric lies fractured. Honourable debate has been replaced by the crime world lingo: “With me or against me? You are my man or a filthy guttersnipe, worthy of vulgar abuse. Your options? Exit with disgrace or suicide or broad daylight assassination of character or of life itself.
A Moose Wala killing is only a Facebook or Twitter post away every minute. The killer stalks cyber space, and resides in all of us. Ideological schools have been replaced by Facebook gangs wielding both a keyboard and a Kalashnikov. Run away or perish in cold blood! And yes, Moose Wala may not be a political victim but he is most definitely a victim of the demonising culture that has been injected into politics in Punjab over the past four decades, particularly in the past 10 years or so. And even as one closely linked with politics, I strongly advocate that the seeds of solution will have to be sown outside the political arena.
This will have to be in villages, towns and cities. The solution will depend on how soon people in the countryside end or at least reduce their reliance on politics and go back to their traditional ways of conflict resolution – the unofficial and informal panchayati mindset in which every opinion, even the one that is not accepted, is valued and respected.
Time to be the solution we seek
Only you and I can force politicians to behave and civilise their language. Punjab’s earthy social life has always had automatic, in-built mechanisms for either resolving differences of opinion and approach or living with those. The hopeful sign in the wake of the Moose Wala tragedy is that the air is filled as much with anguish as with a desire for change. This is just the “tide in the affairs of men which taken at its flood, will lead to immeasurable fortune”. This is an opportunity as much for the politician who dares to be a statesman as for the people in general. Any politician who shows the courage to shun the politics of hatred and demonisation and returns to the path of dignified debate will find history waiting for him. Those in a hurry will not heed. They will fall by the wayside. And we as people can help by beginning to behave as supporters or critics of policies and parties rather than as members of gangs. Gangsters are only an extension of the gangsterism that thrives in each one of us. Like it or not, so far at least, we have been a part of the problem. It is time to be the solution we seek. It must begin at home – with you and your child.
THE MOOSE WALA TRAGEDY MAY NOT BE LINKED DIRECTLY TO POLITICS BUT IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE WAY WE HAVE PRACTISED POLITICS OVER THE PAST FOUR DECADES, ESPECIALLY THE PAST 10 YEARS