What happened to my country!

News channels have found the headlines for the next few weeks. Cameramen, reporters and other journalistic professionals have let out a collective sigh, confident and comforted in the knowledge that their jobs have nothing to fear, at least in the next few weeks. Policemen have died in their line of duty; the Common Man has died, well, because he always does. India has been attacked again.

 

I was in Bangalore a few years ago, when Bangalore was the land of pubs and discos, with probably the second best night life in India. I remember being in NASA till 2, 3 in the night, coming out and riding home, with nary a trouble from the law enforcers or the law breakers. I remember the time when Biharis, UPites and anyone and everyone else could go to Mumbai, Bangalore or any part of the country to pursue whatever dreams he had dreamt the other night, or the other day. I don’t remember the time when Kashmir was untroubled, when the Naxalites did not exist or when the AK47 was an unknown entity. But I do know that the time did exist.

 

Some maps have changed, showing her to be headless, having acceded parts of Kashmir to Pakistan and China, but one has to agree that the country is the same. Sure, we have added a few states, subtracted a few, converted a few UTs into states, changed PMs, created new national level political parties, modernized our armies, stopped farming and started servicing, but we are the same country. The population has grown, the Brain Drain has reversed, then started again, we have built a navy, supercomputers and advanced avionocs, but the country is the same.

 

I know that you are probably plussed at the number of times I have said that the country is the same, but this is not a concentrated effort to bore you. It is a feeble and despairing attempt at convincing me that the country has not changed. I have always believed in the lenient, all absorbent India that allowed short durations of incursions and raids, in the long run absorbing the aggressors into the mainstream of her own, giving them a unique yet distinct identification, and a small, cramped yet comfortable and accommodating place in between the millions who have similarly come to be called Indians.

 

And it does seem so difficult to imagine that this is the same country.

 

The first doubts came to my mind when, on a beautiful, pleasant Bangalorean evening, my leisurely stroll on Brigade Road was disrupted, not by another lot of sight seeing, window shopping bunch, but a group of Kannadigas carrying black paint and using it to deface the hoardings that did not carry names in the Kanadd language. Then came the time when bomb blasts became a daily occurance not only in Kashmir, but in Bombay, Bangalore and Delhi. Not too long down the line were the days when policemen became targets, not saviours, and then moved on to becoming exploiters. The day dawned when people let small crimes go unreported, because the effort and money involved in reporting it had become more than the actual crime itself.

A country that had lived on celebrations, devotion and love turned to hate.

Hatred. Of the Fidayeen for the Kafirs, of poor for the rich, of the Mumbaikaras for the Biharis, of the Kar Sevaks for the torch bearers, of the natives for the aliens, and the mother of them all, the hatred of one religion for another.

Hatred that has started affecting the way we live, the way we think and the way we exist. Daughters are being advised to stay away from malls, markets and other crowded places, people are being asked to stay indoors, defying the very social nature of all humans. The average office and school going Indian and his wife know what the AK 47 looks like, the first reaction to every gas cylinder explosion or of a tyre burst is “Bomb!”. The reaction to someone trying to set up a car factory is a violent protest, the reaction to someone taking jobs in your state is a violent campaign, the reaction to someone taking part in one too many crimes is an encounter. Quite a far cry from the ‘Satyagraha’ of yore. The country that was an extremely fit description to “Make Love, not War”, somehow morphed into a hate generating nation, its citizens baying for blood for any reason that hurt even a bit.

I am yet to understand the cause that brings out such forces and feelings for another man, merely because of the birth or the place where one has been living. Agreed, I have not have had any of my people killed abducted or harmed in any way, nor have I been made homeless or jobless.

But the question remains. I hope we figure it out. Because that is the only hope we have.