Wasted Years, Wasted Lives

The West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee has been lamenting lately of late regarding the “wasted years” of the state – primarily in the sixties and early seventies when Left sponsored militancy was at its highest and the resulting anarchy and chaos led to a massive flight of capital from the state. This flight of capital toppled West Bengal from its position as the premier industrial state of India, a position that it has never since regained.

Today as it teeters, on the edge it would seem of another round of the “wasted years”, this time led by Mamata Bannerjee and her band, it would be worth lamenting the many, many wasted years, in several parts of the country that have damaged and shattered so many lives in this country. Think J & K, think the North East, think Orissa, think Bihar, think the many states affected by Maoism, Naxalism, call it what you will, and calculate the total. It is staggering and to any body who lives in this country or loves it, the details are pretty heart breaking.

In Jammu and Kashmir, according to the trade body, ASSOCHAM, the current agitation involving the land for the Amarnath Yatra (one has to qualify in the J & K context because they have had so many agitations) has led to an economic loss of close to Rs 1500 crores and growing. And this of course is only a business perspective. It does not count the innumerable human lives snuffed out because of the chronic insurgency going back to 1989. Although in human tragedies, numbers will never tell the full story but still to tell it… More than a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting since 1989 for Kashmir's independence or its merger with Pakistan and in the process more than 68,000 people have been killed in the fighting.

Similarly Kashmiri Pandits have suffered crimes amounting to ethnic cleansing from the Valley and roughly 12000 were killed since insurgency began in Kashmir, and 300,000 have been displaced, though some sources claim that more than four to five thousand Kashmiri Pandits were killed. Some sources claim that nearly 500,000 internally displaced families of Kashmiri Hindu live in the National capital region,

Similarly, although we don’t often notice the North East on our radar,” Terrorist attacks are claiming more civilian lives in India's northeast than in Jammu and Kashmir. The region is also witnessing more insurgency-linked violence. According to latest central home ministry figures, there were 1,489 incidents of violent incidents in the northeast in 2007 compared to about 1,000 in Jammu and Kashmir. Civilian casualties in the northeast during the same period stood at 498 as against 158 civilian in Jammu and Kashmir”

The North Eastern states have as many as 30 armed insurgent organizations with demands ranging from secession to autonomy and right to self determination. Besides, the region is an ethnic minefield, as it comprises of around 160 Scheduled Tribes6, besides an estimated 400 other tribal or sub-tribal communities and groups and it is impossible for any one to meet their often conflicting demands related to their ethnic or tribal identities.

I suppose that the balance will never tilt one way or the other- is economic prosperity more important or preserving your language or culture or tribal identity is. Chambers of commerce and upwardly mobile professionals make take out their calculators and compute business and economic losses but for others, ethnic, tribal or religious pride takes precedence over every thing else, even if looks foolish. Meanwhile, while governments struggle over the issue of whether to preserve national boundaries or respect ethnic or linguistic or caste ones, thousands of lives and years will waste away into oblivion.

The Human DNA

As the violence in Jammu and Kashmir escalates beyond what bounces of our television screens, the vibrations are also cascading across our borders. Pakistan has of course reacted harshly to the “excessive use of force” to control the civil unrest there and in a typical knee jerk response, the Indian government has condemned the comments from the Pakistani Foreign Minister as an interference in India’s internal affairs.

Of course there is this much to be said in that all countries in the sub continent are from the same genetic make up very literally and all can be blackened with the same brush. A lot can be perhaps said about Pakistan or any other country around making pious statements about human rights considering the overall record of every one here. But still the question begs to be asked – when do political boundaries blur and our human identity begins asserting itself?

When do we feel free and are given the freedom to express a genuine agony and anguish at the violence, broken and bereaved families that every unplanned funeral brings in its wake? This is not about fishing in troubled waters or scoring political brownie points at all. But I wonder - does it become treason to mourn the loss and grief of another because they live across a border that is not even a century old when cultural and ethnic bonds go back a thousand years or more?

When a lament from a neighboring country at the violence that is prevailing here and is flashing globally across television channels and internet news sites is understood to be interference, then the question arises for Indians as to what should they do. People with ethnic backgrounds and languages spoken in India live in all countries that surround us – Bengalis – even Bengali Hindus (for those whom this distinction matters) in Bangladesh, Tamils in Sri Lanka being the most prominent but by no means the only ones.

It seems easier to reach out across borders when natural disasters strike – like tsunamis or earthquakes or cyclones; but some how there is an insurmountable barrier when it comes to even making statements of empathy and condolence when the tragedy is manmade.  Even a word can impute a motive when at least at the level of the common man or woman, none is intended,

Most of us are it the political establishment or those who are part of civil society will find it well nigh difficult to look the other way in the guise of non interference in the internal affairs of another country. If Tamils were to be in the midst of widely publicized media footage be subjected to violence or the Bengalis were, it would be politically inexpedient to sit back and do nothing.

If non interference in the affairs of others is the norm, then nobody in the international community should be speaking into what is happening in Zimbabwe, or Sudan, and India itself should not have moved resolutions in the United Nations when South Africa was still practicing racism. But it is good at times, indeed necessary for people to speak up, take note and make a point in the international communities and forums so that what would otherwise have gone unnoticed and remained hidden in shadows

Of course there is such a thing as undue interest in the affairs of another country; as perhaps best exemplified by the US invasion of Iraq. But there is also such a thing as too little of an interest in the affairs of the world. After all, it is only those who live in glass houses who are scared of stones and so they do not throw any. The world’s largest democracy should not be fighting shy of facing criticism when there are plenty within the country’s own borders who are concerned. Let us own up to the fact there is a common human DNA that makes us all speak up.

Death of the Chowkidar

When I was in school and lived in Delhi, we often slept on the terrace on the hot, stuffy summer nights. The nights were cool and pleasant and it was still possible on most times to see a sky full of stars. I would drift off to sleep trying to identify the few stars and constellations I knew. The silence of the night would be interrupted by the occasional burst of a car engine and the barking of stray dogs and the rhythmic tap –tap –tap of the chowkidar’s stick along with a shrill puff on his whistle.

Those were idyllic days when crime was little and mostly restricted to petty burglary and nothing more. I never actually saw the chowkidar more than once a month when he came along to collect his wages. He was a genial looking man from the hills, generically referred to as Bahadur and his kindly face inspired no fear or terror but a kind of gentle assurance of protection. The tap-tap –tap of the chowkidar’s stick was a sure antidote against the occasional nightmare and a child’s fears. With my parents by my side at home and the chowkidar blowing his reassuring whistle through the night, a child had nothing to fear.

After school, I left Delhi and came back after a long while; it seemed that an era had passed. Of course, politically, the country had changed a lot. The roots of terrorism were every where – Kashmir was boiling , and so was Assam , closer to Delhi , Khalistani terrorists were rising and had garrisoned off the hallowed Golden Temple and shortly when after Operation Blue Star , Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by her own body guards, it seemed that the age of trust was over. When the anti Sikh riots happened, the social fabric of trust vanished not just for the elite living in Lutyen’s bungalows but also for the common man. Some where along the way, the chowkidar, the kindly, courteous man, who protected every one, harmed no one and knew every man, woman and child on his beat was gone. His time and role was over.

In place of the mild mannered chowkidar who often served for years if not a life time , now you have the rough, brawny, and uncouth and in your face “security guard” who inspires much terror and little confidence. Indistinctive and impersonal in their often ill fitting uniforms, they swagger around their beat often around a spiked gate erected artificially over a neighborhood designed in gentler times to be always accessible and open.

These guards know no one and care for no one except for their monotonous security drill but they are mushrooming everywhere. ATMs, housing societies, office complexes they all have dispensed with the chowkidar or his morphed cousin in the offices, the Durwan and have hired security guards. The chowkidar greeted every one with a warm smile and a salaam but the security guard greets you with a shabby notebook and a cheap ballpoint pen where to get to your best friend’s house, you have to supply every conceivable personal detail that he requires.

Are we getting better security for all these guards? May be, may be not. The crime statistics don’t tell an encouraging story. But even though the guards may be necessary in today’s day and age and the whistle blowing watch man of yore has been replaced by siren blowing police patrol jeeps and the stiff and starched guards of firms like Group 4, provide a kind of machine like politeness, I will still miss the endearing smile and care of the chowkidar whose heart was bigger than his stick and whose bark was louder than his bite. He belonged to a time when innocence, kindness and caring were the norm and the gentle tap of his stick signified a benign presence guarding us all. The chowkidar is dead but may his memory endure forever.