Children of a lesser God

What is it about a child that makes us all have a soft spot? Maybe it’s the innocent smile, maybe the soft delicate features but it’s mostly about children being the future. Whether its individuals or countries, we would like to invest into our future generation and make sure they bequeath a safe and secure world which they will then handover to their future generations after they have made their contributions. Children depict potential too. Potential to change status quo, potential to bring a fresh perspective, potential to surmount challenges that the present generation finds insurmountable. There is not a country in the world, even ruled by hardcore dictators, that does not invest in its children. Above all, children are a hope that our tomorrow will be better than today.

Gun violence is not new to the US. It’s generally accepted as the collateral damage of defending the individual rights to own fire arms. The process of purchasing firearms (even assault rifles) is much simpler than getting a driving license, maybe as simple as purchasing a toy gun. You do not even have to register yourself as a licensed arms holder  – maybe the most they do is ask for a ID proof to check for US residency status. In case, a gun is used for violent means, it won’t be easy to trace the owner as the weapon is not registered. In 200+ years of democracy and over 150 years after civil war, the Americans are lax about sale and purchase of firearms. It’s a astonishing fact for an Indian (belonging to India, not the native American) who will not be able to buy a handgun, let alone an assault rifle (which is illegal anyway) without providing adequate argument for the need to own one – on the lines of threat perception. Even then, they are supposed to register themselves and get ammunition on need basis. In many cases, police can ask you for account of ammunition used and in cases they deem fit, revoke your license to hold arms on account of being a ‘irresponsible’ user. This in a country where, in most cases, Police arrive late to scene of crime. In that background, US seems the wild west to most of us, where one can own an assault rifle without a threat perception and buy ammunition on the same lines as one buys groceries.

The carnage in New Town, CT changed the perception of all of this. The image of a 20 year old mentally unstable kid getting access to an assault rifle and then going on to use that in an elementary school to mow down 20 kids (aged 5- 8) and 8 teachers was shocking enough to awake the nations conscience. Everyone asked the question, how far we can defend individual freedom at cost of such impending risks. Consequently, the President of the United States came up with proposed “gun control law” that would stop sale of assault rifles to individuals and issue firearms only upon strict background checks. The response was obvious; the killing of 20 kids of such innocent age is enough to shake the collective conscience of any nation, let alone the oldest democracy. It also moved me to see the President attend the memorial services of these kids and bemoan at the loss of so many futures / so many kids whose potentials could not be achieved because of the senseless act of violence. The whole thing moved me emotionally and am sure in each house that CNN beamed these pictures, people said a silent prayer and vowed –NEVER AGAIN. I do hope something good comes out of this so that no parent will have to lose a child / teenager to mindless violence.

While all this show of empathy is appreciated and understandable, I do not understand how the people of the world’s oldest democracy can be numb to the carnage wrought by American drone attacks on cities in Pakistan and Afghanistan on a daily basis. Being an Indian, no one knows the impacts of terror better than us. We face existential threat far greater than the Americans can understand. We are hit by mindless terrorism very often, sometimes so often that our Government is perceived as ‘weak’ in the fight against terror. Even then, the worst we demand is an all-out war against Pakistan to teach them a lesson or two on civility i.e. in the heat of the moment. Facing terrorism makes you understand the value of life and we Indians would never authorize our Government to send drones to bomb cities of any country – where it is impossible to ensure that targets are found solitary and precisely. Every time a drone attack is authorized, on an average 10-15 people are ‘taken out’ along with the intended target. These numbers are conservative because in many cases, dead bodies are not found or blown up beyond recognition. In almost all cases, children ages 7-18 years are among the ones that are killed or severely maimed by a drone attack. Consequently, if these attacks go on for another few years, we would have a whole generation of Pakistani and Afghan kids who are living with a physical disability or living with a scar of having lost a loved one to these “imprecise” and may I say ill-informed drone attacks. While the law provides countries with means of providing harshest punitive action on individuals/ groups who ‘wage a war’ or attempt to wage one against any sovereign, trespassing into borders of sovereign nations using technicality of unmanned drones to strike to kill individuals on basis of intelligence reports is a measure no one should support. It’s a shame that a country known for its “rule of law” has to resort to quasi illegal means to take out targets based on lurking suspicion. What is worse is that young children are almost always caught in the crossfire and dismissed as “collateral damage” or “budding child terrorists”.

In a recent BBC program covering the impact of drone attacks, during an interview a doctor serving in Peshawar government hospital [NWFP] informed the host of a disturbing statistic. Every month, thousands of children mostly aged 7-18 are admitted to the hospital who have to undergo amputations or have suffered irrecoverable damage to body parts apart from losing family members to this violence which has continued for past 10 years. One can’t help but contrast this to the moving memorial service paid to victims of the New town massacre. The children of any country are the same – innocent / aspiring and full of potential. Only difference being in one case a nation mourns the death of its children and in other case, they are so brutalized that they are numb to all aspects of humanity. In many cases, they don’t even have anyone to shed a tear on their loss. It’s a shame that we discriminate between children, while one understands the US mourning the death of its young citizens, the ones they killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan were as innocent if not more as the ones who died in New town on December 14^th 2012.

So long….

Yet another died! – Why are in such a hurry to ‘move on’

The header can be misleading – to an extent but the thought behind it is what matters. I am not for a moment going to talk about the spiritual aspect – giving sermons on value of life et.al. I am making a comment on the cold nature in which we perceive fellow human beings. India is known as the motherland of religion and culture. Almost every religion owes its birth or growth to India. The mixture of various religions has also meant that this land for long has been known for spirituality and meditation. So much so, that Indians – even to this day state spirituality and culture as a major export of India to the world outside. It would come as a huge shock to all involved that Indians are shockingly low on respect for human life. Maybe it is because there are 1.2 billion of us and we figure a few lost here and there isn’t going to matter much to the count. The point is not about the numbers, it’s the simple pain and anguish that ought to be caused at the loss of life – basic respect to LIFE.

I would begin to state the main reason that got me thinking about this topic was the recent visit to Jallianwalah Bagh by the visiting dignitary from the UK, who wrote in the visitors’ book of the memorial about the horrors of the events which took place 94 years ago and how it was never to be forgotten. The event referred to here was the cold blooded killing of an assembly at this place 94 years ago (April-13-1919) by General Dyer. It was a major jolt to reputation of the British Raj and contributed in a big way to anger the freedom movement in India. Though General Dyer faced the consequences of his action immediately and was forced to retire and sent back to England, it also brought about dramatic change in the way the armed forces of Britain handled India. The point I am making is that an occupying force was shocked and devastated by the indiscretion of an officer while wielding the arms that it forced them to re-think the entire policy and also suggest minor punitive action on the concerned officer. Today, (94 years hence) the visiting dignitary sort of apologized on behalf of the UK for the massacre. I wonder how many of us, Indians know or remember what happened in Jallianwalah Bagh on April 13 1919. I bet everyone in Punjab lives and breathes it, but the knowledge about it in rest of India is shockingly low. We have ‘moved on’. It takes a visiting dignitary from a foreign country to remind us to “never forget” such incident. Maybe the thought behind it is, ‘Don’t forget’, not because who inflicted wounds on whom, but because humanity died!

We Indians will from time to time realize that we are shockingly found wanting standing up for human right. Even when we do, we do it for wrong sets of narrow political reasons and not because we feel that we have to stand by it because that was the India our founding fathers envisaged. Maybe we have spent so much time killing each other to get ahead, that our collective conscience is numbed or maybe we have faced so many attacks on us that loss has become a way of life. I was in New York City’s ground zero (where the twin towers stood) a couple years ago on 9/11 and I could see the tears, the candles and the solemn atmosphere all around as if to remind that the memories of those who died there on that fateful day more than a decade ago continue to live in the minds of fellow New Yorkers (supposedly the busiest people in the world). I could not hear anyone suggesting ‘we have moved on let’s not talk about the attacks, let’s talk about economy or challenges we face in employment’. They all genuinely believed that the occasion demanded we set aside our problems for a few minutes and say our silent prayers towards the lives which were abruptly ended on that fateful day. Mere presence on that spot was enough to move anyone into a silent prayer whether we belonged to NYC or remember having seen the attacks first hand. For all the human rights violations done by their Government in other countries, the sentiments shown by citizen towards the plight of fellow citizen was moving to say the least. I enquired and found that every year the practice is followed and every year the number of people present generally grows. Even the President is forced to pay visit and pay homage to honor the memory.

Contrast that with anything we experience in India. Over the past 65 years, we have seen 5 wars, a decade long insurgency in Punjab and Kashmir, a gas tragedy in Bhopal killing and maiming hundreds, one anti- Sikh genocide in Delhi, manufactured riots in Bombay and rest of India after Babri demolition, repeated bomb blasts in Bombay, anti-Muslim riots of Gujarat and several small riots across various cities. Many of these were caused by external aggressors or infiltrated terrorists, but in majority of the cases, it was Indians causing casualty to fellow Indians. How many times have we stood to pay homage to the people who lost life and make an earnest effort that as a country we make sure the justice is delivered to a fellow Indian who lost someone dear in these dastardly acts. Instead, we make political capital out of these events and our leaders ask us to “move on” and think about bread butter issues. This constant moving on has made us a numb nation. The numbness is so chronic that we never feel anything anymore, we have developed this “resilience” – a made up word used to depict the lack of humanity in us. It is this resilience that makes us say – “Muslims deserved this retaliation” or “When a large tree falls, the ground beneath sakes” or “We have given them money to compensate, what more do they need” or “Look at my economic plan, forget the riots” or “Why are you politically hounding my leader”. We hear these heartless comments day in / day out from the people who are supposed to lead us and yet we continue to elect the same set of people. We have become so insensitive to loss of human life that the only time we care is if someone in our family is affected. India does not stand up for human rights violation in Myanmar or Syria or Egypt or Libya or Sri Lanka or Af-Pak region. In fact India does not stand up for human rights violation within India itself. In each case, there is some strategic goal that India aims to achieve in lieu of looking the other way when human rights are violated. The result, today, routine human rights violators like the US and UK gets a chance to look better than India on international forum. India today, stands for nothing- everything about India is negotiable and maybe that’s why Indians are treated so shabbily everywhere we travel, after all people who don’t respect rights of other humans have no right to claim some for themselves.

So long….