Is Modi’s Call to ‘Avenge the Terror’ the Last Nail
on ‘Gandhian Ahimsa’?
It
was a journalist from a national newspaper, “Don’t you think Modi’s saying we
will enter their homes and avenge the terror, rather a cheap war talk before
the elections?”
When
I said I don’t agree she seemed disappointed, “So many intellectuals and
thought leaders have already agreed with me.”
Thanking
her that she considers me an intellectual I asked her, “Churchill had once said
to his people that we will fight them everywhere, with all our will… Every
leader in history has given speech like that when his nation has been attacked.”
“But
Churchill was talking before a war. Also his language was erudite and suave, not
so cheap.”
“Are
our forces being attacked by terrorists not a war? What about Churchill calling
us ‘sub humans’? Would you call that erudite?”
“Two
wrongs don’t make one right,” she added and asked if I still support his rhetoric.
“Today,
the whole nation is angry. He only reflects that anger of people. Gandhi would
have asked Indians to turn the other cheek. Our Prime Minister is not a leader built
in that mold.”
“Do
we need a leader who talks like that? Most of us feel a leader should show
restraint in his speech more so when we are both nuclear powers.” She added and
hung up.
It
is for the first time when India has a Prime Minister who perhaps gets viscerally
angry when the nation is attacked and is not ashamed to show it. India has taken
attacks and humiliations over the years but no leader ever spoke in the kind of
language Modi does and has expressed rage telling his people to fight back except
perhaps Bose.
Nehru
turned out to be a pathetic caricature of a man when attacked by China and even
wrote a letter to Kennedy which is shameful if we see it for its language. I
don’t remember Indira Gandhi mentioning or getting viscerally angry with the
genocide in Bangladesh or India attacked by Pakistan. All so far were pacifists
in the Nehruvian mold unable to hit back. Manmohan Singh’s not being angry despite
being humiliated was legendary.
Modi’s
anger, in sharp contrast to all of them, is raw and palpable and comes out like
a lion’s roar. As many feel today, he leads an angry nation saying enough is
enough and we won’t tolerate it anymore. Modi is speaking as a leader whose borders
are being violated everyday. It is perhaps for the first time in India’s history
that a leader is doing so. Having been bled with a thousand cuts, he says it is
time for us to hit back. So, is the era of defensive Indian leaders turning the
other cheek before the world finally over?
My
school going daughter asked me the other day, “Would any of the twenty two odd
leaders who have asked our Prime Miniser in a joint declaration not to
politicize the recent event, attack the terrorist bases in Pakistan?” When I asked
her what does she think she said no and that her friends feel so too and they
wonder why no leader of India spoke in that language before. She said they felt
a new sense of pride in their country like they had never felt before.
Is
there a new pride in the children of India? Does this strike have a value for
our nation? Will we see children growing up around us look up to leaders who say
the nation should pre-empt enemies even before they enter our borders? Will it also
make our children feel safe? These are hard questions for us as parents.
John
Stuart Mill once said, “War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The
decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that nothing is worth
war, is much worse. The person who has noting for which he is willing to fight,
nothing which is more important than his personal safety, is a miserable
creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by men better
than himself.” Isn’t that what has been the script of India so far and one we
need to change forever as a nation?
The
script of our country has been that of a lonely leader, surrounded by enemies, battling
and fighting external and internal forces amidst heavy odds made more so by
indifference of his people. Whether it was Prithviraj Chauhan or Shivaji or Maharana
Pratap, the script in each case was the same. Isn’t it time that we, the people
of India, understood what it means to be a mute spectator and not take a stand?
For how long will we allow ourselves to be ruled over by a doubt that when the
enemy is at the door and I have personal scores to settle with my neighbor which
is the priority to settle first?
Modi
perhaps is one of the loneliest leaders today and it is future historians who may
need to assess that. Not only is he trying to erase the script of a nation and
people mired in passivity, he has also promised to take them to a promised land
of glory. The journey to the promised land goes through many a sacrifice and
renunciation. Are we, the people of India, ready and willing to go with him or do
some of us want our goodies first?
My
daughter asked me, “When one is stressed at the end of the day, one turns to his
family to unwind. Who does he go to when facing vitriolic attacks?”
“What
are you referring to?” I asked.
“Kejriwal
said he got Indian soldiers killed to win the next election. So did some others.”
I
explained, “He considers his motherland the sole reason for living and considers
India his family. He is a different type of leader than what we have had so far
in our history.” She nodded her head and asked, “How does he feel with so many abuses
and accusations hurled against him?”
Otto
Rank, the famous psychiatrist, once said alienation and loneliness is a part of
when a large group or a nation tries to create a new self definition and change
its identity. Are we willing to change our self definition or script based on who
we are, our ‘ahimsa’ and its passivity that many today think made us slaves for
a thousand years? Are we willing to be still bound by our father of the nation’s
words who said that we should allow our enemies to slaughter us as it might bring
transformation in them? What would Gandhi have said to all the wars, if he were
alive, that India has fought in its history to defend its borders from the Chinese,
from Pakistan? To all the arms we bought? Against whom he would have launched
his fasts then?
Sometimes
it seems Modi is on a perpetual trial for every act, every word of his. Is it
because with each act of his, the deep fissures and fault lines that lay hidden
in our country are tumbling out and making us look at some of the hypocrisy we
surrounded ourselves with? Is it our trial more than his this time? Will his trial
one day remind us of the trials of history that put a nation’s conscience to
trial too for a people trying to rise above their chains?
In
the present scenario, Imran Khan has been painted as a man of peace while Modi
is pitted against him as the aggressive war mongering maniac by some of the media
and intellectuals. The strategy by the journalists and the intellectuals is a time
tested one. Paint the average Indian as an aggressor so that he backs off
feeling guilty, no matter how many cuts he has been given in the first place.
The
anguish in Modi’s voice was very palpable when he said, ‘attack me, not the
forces’. I wish the people of India try to understand this time what his feeling
was all about and ask themselves whether the pain he feels is a pain of the whole
nation too?
Rajat
Mitra
Psychologist
and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
