Mahendra Jakhar's Blog - Posts Tagged "humanrights"
KASHMIR: THE MUCH NEEDED ENEMY
In Kashmir alone thousands of army personnel have been killed in many terror attacks in past few years. In spite of various talks, discussions and special policies laid out for Kashmir there seems to be no end to violence. The attack on army personnel at Uri has come to be the worst attack on last few years where seventeen soldiers got martyred.
Every child in Kashmir today can tell you the difference from an AK-47, SLR (Self Loading Rifles), pistols, rocket launchers, sub-machine guns and hand grenades just by hearing the sounds. Those little hearts that should have been filled with dreams of the future are filled with dread and fear. Their land, Kashmir, what their ancestors called the ‘Paradise on Earth’ has become a conflict zone for both India and Pakistan. It almost seems that none of the two countries want to resolve the issue. After all it is Kashmir that gives them a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, a resolve and a promise they can make to their countrymen to fight for their most cherished and loved Kashmir. Most importantly it gives them an enemy to fight with.
In fighting with the enemy to retain the crown head of their land, any excesses in budget, or excesses in human rights violations are justifiable. The war seems to equalize everything and when you fight a big enemy, the whole nation stands up in support and claps and honours the government machinery taking decisions and the soldiers attacking the enemy.
It is of utmost importance for a country to have an enemy. It not only defines our identity but also provide us with an obstacle against which to measure our system of values and to demonstrate our own worth. Rather than a real threat highlighting the ways in which these enemies are different from us, the difference itself becomes a symbol of what we find threatening. So Pakistan is all about Muslims who have a totally different set of values, religion, traditions, and it’s so easy to identify them and stamp them as ‘Enemy’. Similar is the case for Pakistan when it comes to India. The green and saffron marks them as targets for each other.
Similar was the case between the United States and the Soviet Union. They were arch enemies but when the Soviet Union faded away, the US was in danger of losing its identity. Suddenly they had no one to fight with, compete with, to measure their worth and the whole state machinery that was used to excesses in every sense seemed paralyzed. So came in Bin Laden who saved them from the crisis of being ‘enemy-less’. With the rise of Taliban, Al-Qaeda and especially after 9/11, Bush administration found a whole new resolve to fight their newest enemy. It also worked like magic to strengthen feelings of national identity, rise in patriotic fervour as well as to boost the Bush regime. I wonder if the US never attacked Afghanistan post 9/11, the world would have been a totally different place. Peaceful.
However, it’s not always about identifying an enemy who is threatening us but also to create and demonize the enemy. There’s also the person within who behaves differently or speaks a different language and follows different customs, traditions and rituals – the foreign immigrant. This immigrant is ostracized from the society and looked upon as a threat to the whole populace till one of them retaliates or reacts. It seals the assumption – they are all enemies. The Kashmiri-Muslims all across the country will always be looked upon with distrust as if they are secret agents of the Pakistan on a recce for new attacks. These migrants turn into ideal scapegoat for a society that caught up in change, is no longer able to recognize itself.
It seems we cannot manage without an enemy. The figure of the enemy cannot be abolished from the process of civilization. The need is second nature even to a man of peace. The state creates these stereotypes to mark the enemy. They will provide all kinds of subsidies to Muslim students from Kashmir but the moment they raise their head to question something, they will be looked with suspicion and written off as ‘Gaddar’. The only solution is when we try to understand the other, it means destroying the stereotype without denying or ignoring the otherness. To prevent this, the state machinery through the years builds an image of the enemy inside the hearts of their citizens and makes sure that it remains frozen there. This is done with repeated rounds of news pouring in from faraway lands about the atrocities committed by the enemy. So you see the youth of Kashmir burning the Indian flag, stone-pelting the police and the army. The man sitting in a faraway town in Uttar Pradesh fed by the propaganda has only one thing to say, “These Kashmiris need to be flogged and shot.”
Every country understand it pretty well that a state of peace would be disastrous since only war provides the basis for the harmonious development of human societies, Its organized wastage provides a valve that regulates the effective running of society. It resolves the problem of supplies. It is a driving force. War enables a community to recognize itself as a nation, a government cannot even establish its own sphere of legitimacy without the contrasting presence of war, only war ensures the equilibrium between classes and makes it possible to locate and exploit anti-social elements. Peace produces instability and delinquency among young people, war channels all disruptive forces in the best possible way, giving them a status.
From the ecological point of view war provides a release valve for surplus lives. It’s no more about soldiers fighting and dying at the front. The current technology has made it possible with the bombardment of urban centres. Let’s not forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Another is not far off.
In order to wage war, we need an enemy to fight, the inevitability of war is linked to the inevitability of identifying and creating an enemy. Once an enemy is identified then it’s easier to turn it into a monster and turn all the resources into fighting it. After all everything is justified in fighting an enemy and saving the lives, respect and honour of our country and countrymen.
Bharat Mata ki Jai!
Every child in Kashmir today can tell you the difference from an AK-47, SLR (Self Loading Rifles), pistols, rocket launchers, sub-machine guns and hand grenades just by hearing the sounds. Those little hearts that should have been filled with dreams of the future are filled with dread and fear. Their land, Kashmir, what their ancestors called the ‘Paradise on Earth’ has become a conflict zone for both India and Pakistan. It almost seems that none of the two countries want to resolve the issue. After all it is Kashmir that gives them a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, a resolve and a promise they can make to their countrymen to fight for their most cherished and loved Kashmir. Most importantly it gives them an enemy to fight with.
In fighting with the enemy to retain the crown head of their land, any excesses in budget, or excesses in human rights violations are justifiable. The war seems to equalize everything and when you fight a big enemy, the whole nation stands up in support and claps and honours the government machinery taking decisions and the soldiers attacking the enemy.
It is of utmost importance for a country to have an enemy. It not only defines our identity but also provide us with an obstacle against which to measure our system of values and to demonstrate our own worth. Rather than a real threat highlighting the ways in which these enemies are different from us, the difference itself becomes a symbol of what we find threatening. So Pakistan is all about Muslims who have a totally different set of values, religion, traditions, and it’s so easy to identify them and stamp them as ‘Enemy’. Similar is the case for Pakistan when it comes to India. The green and saffron marks them as targets for each other.
Similar was the case between the United States and the Soviet Union. They were arch enemies but when the Soviet Union faded away, the US was in danger of losing its identity. Suddenly they had no one to fight with, compete with, to measure their worth and the whole state machinery that was used to excesses in every sense seemed paralyzed. So came in Bin Laden who saved them from the crisis of being ‘enemy-less’. With the rise of Taliban, Al-Qaeda and especially after 9/11, Bush administration found a whole new resolve to fight their newest enemy. It also worked like magic to strengthen feelings of national identity, rise in patriotic fervour as well as to boost the Bush regime. I wonder if the US never attacked Afghanistan post 9/11, the world would have been a totally different place. Peaceful.
However, it’s not always about identifying an enemy who is threatening us but also to create and demonize the enemy. There’s also the person within who behaves differently or speaks a different language and follows different customs, traditions and rituals – the foreign immigrant. This immigrant is ostracized from the society and looked upon as a threat to the whole populace till one of them retaliates or reacts. It seals the assumption – they are all enemies. The Kashmiri-Muslims all across the country will always be looked upon with distrust as if they are secret agents of the Pakistan on a recce for new attacks. These migrants turn into ideal scapegoat for a society that caught up in change, is no longer able to recognize itself.
It seems we cannot manage without an enemy. The figure of the enemy cannot be abolished from the process of civilization. The need is second nature even to a man of peace. The state creates these stereotypes to mark the enemy. They will provide all kinds of subsidies to Muslim students from Kashmir but the moment they raise their head to question something, they will be looked with suspicion and written off as ‘Gaddar’. The only solution is when we try to understand the other, it means destroying the stereotype without denying or ignoring the otherness. To prevent this, the state machinery through the years builds an image of the enemy inside the hearts of their citizens and makes sure that it remains frozen there. This is done with repeated rounds of news pouring in from faraway lands about the atrocities committed by the enemy. So you see the youth of Kashmir burning the Indian flag, stone-pelting the police and the army. The man sitting in a faraway town in Uttar Pradesh fed by the propaganda has only one thing to say, “These Kashmiris need to be flogged and shot.”
Every country understand it pretty well that a state of peace would be disastrous since only war provides the basis for the harmonious development of human societies, Its organized wastage provides a valve that regulates the effective running of society. It resolves the problem of supplies. It is a driving force. War enables a community to recognize itself as a nation, a government cannot even establish its own sphere of legitimacy without the contrasting presence of war, only war ensures the equilibrium between classes and makes it possible to locate and exploit anti-social elements. Peace produces instability and delinquency among young people, war channels all disruptive forces in the best possible way, giving them a status.
From the ecological point of view war provides a release valve for surplus lives. It’s no more about soldiers fighting and dying at the front. The current technology has made it possible with the bombardment of urban centres. Let’s not forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Another is not far off.
In order to wage war, we need an enemy to fight, the inevitability of war is linked to the inevitability of identifying and creating an enemy. Once an enemy is identified then it’s easier to turn it into a monster and turn all the resources into fighting it. After all everything is justified in fighting an enemy and saving the lives, respect and honour of our country and countrymen.
Bharat Mata ki Jai!
