I wake up to the sound of a humming
air-conditioner, the melodious rhythm of my wind-chimes and the sound of my doorbell. It’s the beginning of a work week. I let go of the comfort of my bed
and as if by instinct go for the news channels. A terrorist attack at Karachi
airport and around 20 feared dead… A fear grips me and there is a quality to
that. It’s a fear unmingled with hope; a panic that confirms the fading of a
promise; a confirmation that there is nothing to fear when danger is at hand.
A terror attack in a neighboring
country should perhaps be the least of all reasons for one to turn into an
atheist; nonetheless, it has happened. Skepticism and our relationship with
Pakistan has gone hand in hand for decades and one could perhaps hope that with
the advent of a leader we could look forward to health and hygiene. Am not sure of that anymore!
“People
who ask us when we will hold talks with Pakistan are perhaps not aware that
over the last 55 years, every initiative for a dialogue with Pakistan has
invariably come from India”… and truly so were the words of Mr Vajpayee at
one point in time…
And we keep at it, as do unpredictable
skeptics, in anticipation of the achievability of the implicit claim in
Vajpayee’s observation that we shall see (perhaps) the light of day. Little did we realize that the demonstration,
from Pakistan, of the implicit claim would be low-slung and could hardly be effective
in a controlled environment. And as
skeptics do, we witness two images - the imaginative and placebo-ridden
democratic Pakistan; and another, the real one being operated in a double-blind
fashion. The former imaginative and the latter controlled. And like any skeptic,
we resentfully infer that the implicit claim of Mr Vajpayee is indeed that of a
moral one and can possibly be read as…
We have a
duty to make all attempts possible to have a good and fruitful dialogue with
Pakistan
The key insight here is that while
politics and morality are interconnected; they are not necessarily indistinguishable.
A skeptic operates from the belief that all political actions ought to be rational,
logical and perhaps moral even; however, the reverse is not necessarily true
and may not hold good. And hence the implicit claim espouses political
overtones and is interpreted as …
Pakistan must be gently nudged to concede to a dialogue
This was
bound to happen. Any attempt to link politics with morality or moral values is
feeble due to the inherent and insurmountable differences of opinion woven into
it.
The
resurrection of a failing skepticism marked by Nawaz Sharif’s India visit on
the eve of PM Modi’s swearing in ceremony hails as one such subverted political
morality moment. Hands shake, eyes meet,
and maternal instincts crystallize to be quickly dispersed with yet again. It
didn't take too long to bring home the fact that a marriage of politics and
morality would yield unintended (?) consequences. And today, the world has
witnessed precisely that.
For a
discussion with Pakistan on any issue, specific or otherwise, one needs to be all
geared up to deal with the invisible
echelons of power; namely, the military - an organisation that casts its
sullied shadow on the whole shebang of its democratically elected premiers. In Orwellian terms, a ‘legitimately’
elected Pakistan establishes a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; and its
military fashions the revolution to establish its dictatorship. The sovereignty
of military in Pakistan exemplifies the emotional fiefdom of an entire nation
granting it the licensed liberty to use guns ….. And thus is born an unusual
kind of radicalism. The skeptic settles for the word ‘terrorism’.
The attack
at the Karachi airport (not Lahore or Islamabad!!) is symbolic. The past is the
symbolic capital that the militia invested in and that cannot be forfeited at
any cost. One wonders if the event is truly a terrorist attack as presented.
Either which way, it’s the reign of Chaos. There is some seminal
truth in PM Modi’s observation...
“It goes
without saying that pragmatic foreign policy has to be guided by an
understanding of the ground realities. However, I think the people in Pakistan
increasingly want to strengthen the democratic institutions in Pakistan”.
I was born
post the Indo-Pak wars and have by default been immersed in a generational riot
that questions the “love thy neighbor” commandment. This
age band attains a contained insurgency when political leaders with their blend
of morality attempt to suture singed relationships. Nonetheless, there is some
merit to morality and there are indeed moral absolutes. We get blown away by a
political language woven by one poet, and repeated by yet another a decade later,
lending solidity to pure wind. We trudge
on and make for one final effort to retain a seed of hope; only to wake up and
realize that we have got the framework all wrong. Big Brother is watching. He is the fly on the
wall. There can be no dialogue….. and what we see today is the vision of a
future…”a boot stamping on a human face”
Skeptics are cynics. We doubt. We
thrive on the despair that is caused by inexplicable ambiguity; or whatever
that means. And nestled in that inexplicable ambiguity is the germ of hope; a
perhaps! "Maybe, I am wrong"... moment. It is
that one seed that we fervently hope is not destroyed. It's destruction converts
the skeptic into an atheist. We then travel to the other extreme and move from the
realm of questioning to a space of negation. We annul all possibilities; reverse any
probabilities; and satirize galore the skeptics.
There is no dialogue that is going to
work with Pakistan. It’s a dead-beat, dead end, and deadened conversation. I am the skeptic turned confirmed
atheist on this!
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