The thin line between a human and a patriot
My first reaction when I heard of India’s ‘surgical strikes’ against terror launch pads across the border was one of optimistic caution — that the scalpel would remove the thorns that have pricked us for long, while nursing a hope that the action will not amputate the leg and leave the innocents caught in between and on the periphery of a festering problem handicapped, or worse, dying. My first impulse soon after was to reach for my phone and touch base with the only Pakistani connection I have here, more to assure myself that the goings-on between the two countries will have no bearing on the equations between the two peoples living here, despite the widespread cheerleading on our side of the LOC and the collective consternation on the other side.
A Facebook post to this effect evoked lukewarm response, and expectedly so, for as an Indian, I was supposed to have exulted at the episode, worn my nationalism on my sleeve and punched my fist in the air. But the emotion that swept over me was ambiguous, like it must have been for scores of liberal minded Indians. I was pleased that we had ambushed a colony of bugs with satisfactory results, yet even as I am writing this piece, I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping against hope that this is all there is to it, that it was just a one night stand-off with no domino effects.
These are occasions when one’s personal notion of national love is put to severe test. It is pitted against one’s concept of universal good, and conventional theories of nationalism begin to look perilous. It is not easy to hold a sentiment tangential to what a huge chunk of the population holds, no matter how benign it is purported to be. I am expected to be in line with popular feelings because that is what is deemed right in the given context, and expressing anything different it will invite derision.
How can I not hail the men who got the undesired persons with such clinical precision? Of course, I do. Regardless of which side of the line I belong, I salute all men who put every ounce of their lives and every whiff of their breath into sanitising the world of evil. There are no two ways about how one must feel about weeding out wickedness, but it worries me when the venom is directed
To see educated people subscribe to the enemy theory and portray the other side without exception, as deserving of sweeping punishment, is a pity
towards people who have nothing to do with the perpetrators. My heart is leaden with woe when an offensive to root out a common menace is stoked by a sense of nationalism that splits than unites and divides people into them and us, our films and their actors, their rivers and our waters.
The real danger lies in this heightened frenzy that loses sight of the fact that the terrorists and their abettors are different from ordinary folks whose immediate concern is with earning a decent living and leading peaceful lives. To see even educated people subscribe to the enemy theory and portray the other side without exception, as deserving of sweeping punishment, is a pity. It hurts when hollering news anchors and conceited politicians whip up negative passions, when jingoistic campaigns and false propaganda make people buy into the revenge rhetoric and the zealot in us fails to distinguish commoners from conspirators, and we advertise our patriotism in the meanest ways.
As I write this from the food court in a mall, surrounded by people of various nationalities, (many of whom are Pakistanis), I wonder if thoughts of enmity and hate even cross our minds. Or do they? We are an egalitarian mass of expatriates here, with concerns and cravings alike, fully conscious of our evenness as immigrant workers in a foreign land, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet, like the janitors and the waste collectors I see in the vicinity. We all have our national love, dignity and pride distinctly tucked in our consciousness, but quintessentially we are colleagues and friends connected by a single human destiny, and separated only by our workstations. We are neighbours whose children play together in the common playground.
What happened at the LOC last week is spillover of historical errors and political manipulations that is being exploited by vested interests. There are people caught in the middle to whom peace is still elusive and there are those on the periphery, like me, who still can’t determine what I am supposed to be first – a patriot or a humanist. The dilemma of having to choose between narrow individual preferences and greater common good will remain forever. Yet, hope springs eternal that peace will prevail, for there is more that we commonly love and share than a disputed patch of land.