Patriotism and Pacifism in Times of War
by Nivedita Menon


War brings super-profits to arms-dealers. And to patriots. Overnight,
individuals quick to seize the opportunity have publicised their own
names on hoardings in Delhi, urging our boys to die anonymous deaths in
the icy wastes of Kargil - dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-quatil mein hai,
they declaim. Kill a thousand, the enemy is warned, we have thousands
more where these came from. Thousands of young men for whom the army
means a livelihood, a way of looking after desperately poor families.
When Sam Manekshaw made a public statement to this effect a couple of
years ago, all his tested and proved patriotic valour was set at nought,
and everyone from retired army generals to politicians were baying for
his blood. Strip him of his titles was the mildest demand from men who
were greater patriots than poor Sam could ever be. Greater patriots
they,  than the mother of the soldier killed at Kargil, who, dry-eyed,
said to reporters when his body was brought home to his village in
Kerala, "All the boys dying there are my sons, Indian and Pakistani.
What is the use of this war?" Someone must have explained to her the use
of it.

 Of course I donĒt deny that soldiers are patriotic and self-sacrificing
when they are on the job. They have to be, they are the professional
patriots, they do it for the rest of us, who can prove our patriotism by
putting up signed billboards.  Or by mouseclicking on websites. That
great patriotic cyberpublic who when asked in a newspaper poll whether
they believed George Fernandes was right in saying the Pakistani
government and ISI had nothing to do with the infiltration, it was the
army which was responsible, chorused overwhelmingly that they did not
agree. In their informed opinion, the Defence Minister was wrong. This
same body of citizens of  India.com, a virtual country in which the vast
majority of Indians do not reside, experienced no dilemma at all in
believing the same Defence Minister when he claimed after India's bomb,
that China was building secret helipads in Arunachal Pradesh.  That was
taken as gospel truth, a claim which George subsequently admitted was
mistaken. Or take the boys of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, who
organized a function in Delhi University to give their blood for Bharat
Mata. Solemnly they cut their thumbs and applied tilak to the cardboard
forehead of a cardboard figure. Cardboard patriotism. Enjoy!

 Do I care at all that young men are being killed in terrible ways out
there in inhospitable, uninhabitable terrain? That the bland phrase
hand-to hand-combat means intimate, terrifying face-to-face death? It is
because we do care that hundreds of thousands of us protested at IndiaĒs
bomb, protested from the very next day, in towns and cities all over the
country, anonymous people, students and housewives, professionals and
workers, academics and journalists. We protested because our patriotism
lies in a longing for peace, for a world in which we do not have to send
our young boys to kill and be killed, and because we knew that the bomb
would destabilize the region and create a series of  confrontations. We
were derided by the strategic experts who said the bomb meant peace.
They said having the bomb meant both parties would be more circumspect.
It gives us no joy at all in being proved right. But we were. And I
believe we are right now, those of us who say that this particular
episode cannot be seen in isolation, that Kashmir is an issue which has
to be resolved, and diplomatically, not by irresponsible war-mongers
flexing their muscles and sending other people's sons to their deaths.
That it clearly cannot be handled bilaterally any more, but that we do
not want G8 to come barging in. (How drearily unsurprising  - the very
media which trumpeted its anti-imperialism in welcoming the bomb is
bursting  with pleasure and pride now that the US has held Pakistan
responsible for the present situation. Uncle Sam has patted us on the
head with his own bloodied hands. So that's all right then.) The Kashmir
issue is internationalised already. The question is do we now bow to the
pressure of the world police? Or can we move towards forging  new links
in the Third World? Through Asian, particularly South Asian
intervention, and through the mediation of world leaders of stature like
Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat.

 Every day someone's son is killed in Kargil. Does his death really mean
nothing to us if the flag covering his body is their green and not our
tricolour? But "they" tortured "our" men. That is truly horrifying, and
the pain of the families unimaginable. But are we still talking of war
here? And of armies? For wars are fought to win. The point of a war is
that whoever it is fought against is the enemy, and that's why the logic
of the Geneva Convention is baffling -  when at war, remember to say
please and thank you, and above all, sorry.  Sorry was the word most
used by the USA in the course of their recent bombardment of Yugoslavia
- we did not bomb a civilian target, no we did, sorry. We did not bomb
the Chinese Embassy, no we did, by mistake, sorry.  In war, you win, or
you lose - there are no awards for fine sportsmen. (There are none even
in sports, for that matter.)  So the IPKF camps in Sri Lanka were more
feared than the Tamil insurgents or the Sri Lankan military. And our
army routinely tortures and rapes our own people whether in the
North-Eastern states or Kashmir. And our army trains infiltrators to go
into neighbouring states. That precisely is the business of the army -
what do you think it's there for? If these things don't bother you, then
why now suddenly invoke courtesy and codes of conduct? These things do
and have bothered many of us, who also lay claim to being citizens -
patriotic citizens - of this land. And we simply donĒt see the logic of
borders which must be defended to the last man. For we have a doubtless
quirky belief that people are the nation, not borders, not big dams, not
nuclear might. Strange, but there you are.  And here we are. To stay.
Until identical twin mushroom clouds send us all - patriots and
pacifists alike -  to a nuclear heaven.
 
(1st July 1999)

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