War and other pursuits

Published : Jan 05, 2002 00:00 IST

Can terrorism be fought and defeated through war? Can raining bombs upon a country composed of predominantly innocent people prevent handfuls of desperate and maddened people from engaging in violence?

THE more things change, as the saying goes, the more they stay the same. That could be the depressing epitaph on an eventful year. How else could one explain the extraordinary capacity just revealed in the most powerful country in the world, and now even in our own country, for the most basic and antediluvian of appetites - the lust for war?

It is difficult today to pick up a newspaper or experience the images and comments from major news channels without a deep sense not just of fear for the future, but of shame and embarrassment. We have the mainstream media bombarding us with the most hawkish and aggressive posturing from our own countrymen (yes, they are almost always men) and then eagerly repeating every equally inane and ridiculously belligerent response of the so-called "enemy". We have declarations of hate and threats of violence which are covered in so much self-righteousness and pious wrath that they threaten to go up in smoke themselves. And through sheer repetition, we the recipients of this onslaught of outrage, are - frighteningly - getting more used to the idea of war, to the notion that it is in some way necessary or inevitable.

It is well known that periods of war, or war mongering, are associated with and depend upon temporary cessations of sanity in society at large. Even so, some of the current discourse is so ludicrous as to be startling. Take, for example, the notions that terrorism can be fought and defeated through war, or that raining bombs upon a country composed of predominantly innocent people can prevent handfuls of desperate and maddened people anywhere in the world from engaging in violence upon other innocents.

Surely no one in her sane mind could really believe this, even if CNN tells us that George Bush thinks so. But such are our dark times that we in India seem not only to have fallen for that quite remarkable formula, but even adopted it for our own. And we - or at least much of our media - appear to have decided that the only means to combat private terror is by unleashing state terror of even greater and more damaging proportions, destroying our own civil liberties and putting many more lives in our subcontinent at risk.

OF course, there are many contradictions in this belligerent position. In fact, if it were not so awful it would even be funny. Think, for example, of the attitude that so much of our mainstream and largely middle class media has towards politicians and elected representatives of our people, who are routinely reviled as being the most corrupt, unmindful, irresponsible, generally useless and even most objectionable, of all Indian elites. If they are indeed such a bad bunch, then why on earth are the same media getting so excited about the same politicians being attacked in Parliament?

Think, again, of the kind of people who are most anxious for aggressive and forceful state intervention in military form. They are mostly the very same people who are libertarian in the extreme when it comes to state intervention in the economy, wanting the state to retreat from practically all areas and renege on most basic responsibilities to its own citizens in the form of ensuring minimal socio-economic rights. But then, maybe it is not such a surprise after all: throughout history, and especially under late capitalism, the number of jails and policemen has increased proportionately even as public provision of basic needs has decreased.

Think, then, of the basic contradiction of the macho warmonger in India: that finally both the decision to go to war or the decision to cool off must depend upon a nod from Uncle Sam. It is interesting that mostly this is not a source of discomfiture but a matter for pride. In a sense, that may even be a reflection of the peculiar form of jingoism that has been emerging among a section of metropolitan and non-resident Indians: a chauvinism that glories not only in an imagined heritage but in proximity to the world's big shot, in both material and political terms. This is far removed from genuine patriotism that is concerned with the welfare of most Indians, but it surely commands a lot of newspaper space and television airtime.

The most appalling contradiction of all is also the least funny. If the mainstream media were to provide any indication, the enormous economic problems of India - the huge wasteful foodgrain stocks, the problems faced by growing numbers of cultivators driven to suicide, the collapse of small industry, the desperate lack of jobs across the country - simply disappeared on September 11. And after December 13, of course, the only domestic issue of concern has been terrorism and how to control it by bashing Pakistan.

The problem is not only that this may even lead us to an unbelievably dangerous war with very uncertain outcomes. It is also that, even if we manage to avoid that depressing fate, we (aided and abetted by our media) will have diverted our minds, energies and resources from other crucial problems and squandered a real opportunity for change.

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