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….