Hamara System - Indian Political System

Not a single person died yesterday. There was arson, mayhem, chaos; thousands of people were on streets, two buildings were gutted. Flames galore, police gypsies upside down, Clock tower flagged, hundreds and thousands pushing and pulling each other, rows of heads in Eid-Gah, lal-chowk choked, Hazratbal tense, hands flying and clapping, air reverberating with slogans, white caps and green flags only visible. They say, clinging to utmost “restraint” to prevent the blood spill on the eve of Eid was instructed. Does it mean if Eid is not there, blood becomes cheaper? And can’t this theory of “restraint” be espoused upon, otherwise, on the normal days, I wonder.



Not an eyebrow was lifted on the day of Sha-i-Qadr when four young men fell to the bullets, as if it was a normal event wherein a butcher had to sharpen the knife on them for making meat available to the Kashmiris on the eve of Eid. Shabi-Qadr passed, Eid passed and these four families sacrificed their sons just to add to the score, but ‘mistakenly’ on ‘Eid-ul-Fitr’ instead of ‘Eid-ul Azha’, and nothing happened, not even a feather furled, not even a nail moved. The idiot box was silent, as idiotic as ever. Cameras were out, mikes were down, and lenses were zoomed to non-issues. Notwithstanding the brazen faces on the screen that feigned ignorance as if nothing had happened. No comments, no explanations, no probes, no investigations, no magisterial enquiries, no coverage, no ‘issues’ at all. The kid of Palhalan, Pattan, was moving back to home with the chicken in his hand, after having worked ‘hard’ day long to provide somewhat of a good feast to the family on the auspicious day of Shab-i-Qadr. But, fate had something else in store for the family, no chicken, no food but the tears to drink.



Not only this episode touches the nerve of those who are ‘humans’ in the real sense, seventy individual stories of seventy odd families have a painful tale to tell, have a throbbing sore to endure for the rest of life, have an excruciatingly anguished life to live. It is ‘they’ who have to carry the grief, we just count the heads. And we name the heads, the smashed ‘heads’, the mutilated ‘heads’, skull cracked ‘heads’, the gorged out eye ‘heads’, the red ‘heads’, but the heads who are responsible for all this don’t budge, don’t roll, don’t apologise, don’t even have the sense of guilt nor the slightest of compunctions not to talk of the ‘common sense’ belief that they should hang their ‘heads’ in shame. Imagine the father of Batmaloo boy, who removed the candy from the mouth of his dead son at the time of his final ablution. The boy had left hopping and playing from his home to go to his uncle’s place living nearby, chewing the candy not knowing that half of the candy was for his live body and half for the dead.



The word ‘why’ remains unanswered to these kids. They leave this world without even knowing the intricacies that led them to lay their lives, the political reasons, the historical reasons, the economic reasons, the legal reasons, the security reasons, the insecurity reasons, the reasons that go beyond the reasons and place blinkers on the reasons of the most reasoning minds who for their selfish reasons become the most unreasoned so-called ‘intellectuals’. The blood stained white collars with the raw blood of these innocent slain bodies can’t be washed by ‘silence’, ‘wait and watch’, ‘time will heal’, ‘dust will settle’ kind of procrastinating policies. Answers to the crestfallen families may come or may not but the answers will be solicited on the day of judgement. These mutilated bodies will hold their stained collars and ask the answers to these “why’s’. The ‘why’, that left the three sisters of only brother ‘Umer’ of Soura with a wounded heart for the rest of their lives. The kid was thrashed with batons till his soul was separated from his body. The ‘why’ that made the mother of ‘Milaad’ silent and speechless for ever. She saw his son in his lap panting and struggling to gulp in the mouthful of air while a bullet pierced his sick body when he was being moved to the hospital. In a hope to treat his son in the hospital she had to land there holding him dead in her arms. The ‘why’ that left dumbfounded the mothers who saw their kids while playing in the kitchen garden being shot on heads and chests, in Anantnag, when the main gate was broken, and the men barged into their compound while chasing the crowd away. The mothers had to wash the pools of blood, the blood of their loved sons, with their own hands and they will be walking over and over on the same soil everyday in their compound, the soil which is mixed with the blood of their sons whom they gave the birth, lactated, weaned, taught to toddle and walk, dressed for schools, combed the hair while holding the face in their hand, kissed their tender cheeks and then one day suddenly some unknown, unconcerned, stone-hearted, belligerently apathetic trigger-happy finger pulled the trigger and snatched everything in a jiffy.



Not a leaf has ruffled, seventy lives gone and not even a word of remorse. How much more would satiate the thirst, the cannibals too have a principal. Once the appetite is over, they don’t kill. Big solutions, unconditional talks, pacifying stringent laws, dethroning, and change of guard are the big things to dream of. Seventy lives could not even beseech a single suspension order against any of the guilty. ‘One death’ at some ‘other place’ would have rolled the heads and crumbled the structure. But the children of smaller gods are meant for sacrifices, they don’t paint news papers red nor do they touch the hearts of news anchors. The burning of building, otherwise also in the demolition plans to widen the roads and flyovers, would fetch the bees of cameras and get the prime time slots of important channels dedicated, All the top politicians, police and administration come on line, condemn, explain and tom-tom regrets about the burning of a building, but the cries of mothers fathers and orphans don’t reach their eardrums. This policy of spiteful and malicious journalism is doing more harm in terms of alienation than even the placing of lid over the smut would do.



The game has turned one-sided, seventy lives on the score board of one team and a couple of ego injuries to the other team. Star players on one team and amateurs on the other. Media on the side of one team and emotions rife on the other. One team with the ‘economic super-power’ tag and the other at the brink of ‘starvation’. ‘Largest democracy’ one and the ‘subjugated’ other. ‘Happy-go-lucky’ approach of the one team and ‘throat scratching shouts’ of the other. ‘Fun’ for one and ‘pain’ for other. ‘Arrogant pride’ on the side of one and ‘seething anger’ on the other. ‘Merriment’ for one and the ‘sobs’ for other. The one with ‘bullets’ and the other with ‘stones’. ‘International support’ to the one and ‘God’s support’ to the other. Let us watch the game till end.