The Deaths That Matter
The cold-blooded slaughter of twenty-six tourists in a Kashmir meadow set off a volcano of anger, hatred and vengeance.
Especially the latter.
“From the soil of Bihar”, our Prime Minister thundered, “I want to send a message to the entire world—India will identify, trace, and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”
An entire nation united behind this call, unleashing an Indian Ocean of blood-lust that threatened, not just the terrorists who executed the holiday-makers, and their backers, but all of Pakistan, all of Islam. When Operation Sindoor was launched, WhatsApp Warriors convinced themselves that India would retake POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).
“Iss baar to ghus ke maar diya”, one triumphant WhatsApp message proclaimed when our forces shelled a mosque in Bahawalpur, based on intelligence reports that it was a base for Pakistani terrorists.
No rage against the lack of intelligence that armed terrorists were descending from the forests into a meadow where innocent Indians were taking zipline rides and rolling down grassy slopes in Zorb balls, having been told that All Is Well in Kashmir. No rage that it took forty-five minutes for the first security responders to reach the meadow. No rage that the police pickets at Baisaran meadow have been disbanded.
No concern that attacks invite counter-attacks. No mourning for the death of a gurudwara worker in Poonch, killed by a bomb from Pakistan while he was reciting the Sikh scriptures during the Sehaj Path. Or for a teacher in the same neighbourhood, killed while teaching children in class.
Mourning is now the subject of manipulation by the State. Subjects are told whom they must mourn: Pakistan draped its national flag over the coffin* of a US-sanctioned terrorist, Hafiz Abdur Rauf.
“If you're going to be giving terrorists state funerals, what does that make of your system?", our High Commissioner in London demanded of Pakistan. A valid question, but a rhetorical one, since state-sponsored terrorism in Pakistan has hardly been a state secret.
But few Indians asked why the Indian flag was draped over the casket of Ravi Sisodia, accused in the “Dadri lynching” of Muhammad Akhlaq in October 2015. A rumor had been spread that the elderly gentleman, father of a serving airforce man, had beef* in his refrigerator. A mob charged into his house, and “ghus ke maar diya”, beaten to death.
But we should mourn Ravi Sisodia. we were told, drape him in the national flag, violate the Flag Code of India, for his valiant behaviour in joining a mob that killed a frail old man in defence of the imagined culinary code of our nation. Ravi Sisodia, who probably died from a severe attack of chikunguniya.
And under no circumstances must we mourn the millions who died from Covid, from the lack of oxygen and health services, whose bodies were sent floating down the Ganga, in the absence of firewood and the means to purchase it. In 2021* alone, the surge in deaths was “about 20 lakh, nearly six times the official COVID death tally of 3.3 lakh in that year.”
Two million in one year, four million for the pandemic, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated. Don’t let them be publicly mourned. Bury the data for years together. And when it must be released, for data will out, do it when the nation is mourning for twenty-six. Do it when the nation’s mourning for twenty-six innocent souls has been fanned into rage, and vengeance, and bloodlust against the ‘Other’.
What would we ever do with the ‘Other’?
Pakistan flag:
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/india-pakistan-live-look-whos-behind-him-indian-envoys-photo-proof-of-pak-sponsored-terror-8368696
Indian flag:
https://www.livelaw.in/casket-of-dadri-lynching-accused-draped-with-indian-flag-violation-of-flag-code
Mohammed Akhlaq’s fridge did not hold beef, it was determined.
Covid Deaths:
Tribalism is so dangerous. Many have forgotten Gandhi's thoughts and messages
Really well said !