For Our Children: Powerful Editorial in Pakistani Daily // 'Samjho kuch ghalat hai': Prasoon Joshi's tribute to Peshawar victims

By Dilip -
NB: Plain speaking is indeed powerful. We can thank the writer of the editorial. Can we Indians also speak plainly? Prime Minister Narendra Modi has condemned the "senseless act of unspeakable brutality" in Peshawar. He himself presided over acts of senseless brutality in 2002, for which he would be liable under international criminal law (India has not ratified the Rome statute setting up the International Criminal Court). There have been serious allegations of RSS involvement in the Samjhauta Express blast of Feb 18, 2007, in which 68 passengers died. There were 25 children among the dead. Many suspects have been arrested, but does anyone believe that the guilty will be punished? 

 Even now the ideologues of Hindu Rashtra are celebrating the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.  Mr Modi and his political family have played havoc with the rule of law in India - is it not complete hypocrisy to talk about  a "senseless act of unspeakable brutality" in Peshawar? Nor should the political leaders of the previous regime be allowed to forget what their fellow Congressmen did in 1984. It is not just the Pakistani establishment and leading lights of civil society, but their counterparts in India as well, who need to face their own complicity in violence and extremism. Anything less is the same old mindless self-delusion that we have indulged in for decades. Let us hope that this carnage of children will stir our consciences and awaken all of us to our basic humanity. 

 Agar iske baad bhi sar utha kar khada ho sakta hai insaan
Toh samjho kuch ghalat hai

 Speak the truth
Stop the killing

For Our Children (The Nation)
16 December 2014 is one of the worst days Pakistan has had to live through since its inception. This national tragedy, which has caused unimaginable grief and pain across the landscape, will not and must not be forgotten anytime soon. Muhammad Khorasani of Jamat-ul-Ahrar, also known as Omer Khorasani, of the Jamat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan led by Mullah Fazlullah, has accepted responsibility for the attack on the school. In his statement given to the media, the militant commander termed the attack as retaliation for the ongoing military operation in FATA.

Some say that at a time like this, it is not wise and appropriate to blame the government or state institutions. Such a tragedy calls for unity, and criticism doesn't help to achieve that purpose. But no consensus can be built, no wrong can be corrected, no problem can be solved by deciding against speaking the truth. And the truth is this: Not just terrorists, but everyone, from the wider population to the civil and military leadership is responsible for the barbarity our children were subjected to.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, your government has contributed absolutely nothing towards building a narrative against extremism. Operation Zarb-e-Azb started without your permission, and it continues absent meaningful political ownership. You have refused to act against seminaries funded through Saudi money, which are poisoning the minds of our youth and turning them into zealots. Instead of putting them behind bars, the Punjab government protects sectarian elements as they return the favour by not attacking you and taking out rallies in your support.

Chairman Imran Khan, you are the most mainstream and consistent Taliban sympathiser in the country. Despite the murder of 132 children in the capital of the province where your party is in power, you couldn't muster the courage to name the Taliban. You have done a great disservice to this nation by repeatedly justifying the murder of your fellow countrymen and pushing a toxic narrative based on factual inaccuracies and ignorance.

Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, despite all that has happened, despite the many sacrifices of the brave soldiers who have died fighting terrorists, you refuse to employ a blanket policy against non-state actors. While the military conducts operations against bad Taliban in FATA, it continues to protect sectarian elements in Quetta, the Afghan Taliban and other 'jihadi' organisations such as Jamat-ud-Dawa. The country is reaping what it has sown over decades.

Citizens, you seek comfort in conspiracy theories to avoid facing the ugly truth. What will it take for you to unite against extremism unequivocally and without provisos? The idea is not to berate or discourage, but to offer a reality check and prompt change of policy for the sake of our children, for the sake of our country's future. Only the truth will set us free.

 http://www.ndtv.com/article/opinion/for-our-children-powerful-editorial-in-pak-daily-635977?pfrom=home-lateststories

'Samjho kuch ghalat hai': Prasoon Joshi's tribute to Peshawar victims

 Jub bachpan tumhari goud mein aaney se katrane lage
Jub maa ki kokh se jhankti zindagi bahar aaney se ghabrane lage
Samjho kuch ghalat hai

Jub talwarein phoolon par zor aazmane lagein
Jub masoom ankhon mein khauf nazar aane lage
Samjho kuch ghalat hai

Jub oos ki boondon ko hatheliyon pe nahin hathiyaron ki nok par theherna ho
Jub nanhe nanhe talwon ko aag se guzarna ho
Samjho kuch ghalat hai

Jub kilkariyan sahem jayein
Jub totli boliyan khamosh ho jayein
Samjho kuch ghalat hai

Khuch nahin bahut kuch ghalat hai
Kyonki zor se barish honi chahiye thi
Poori duniya mein
Har jagah tapakne chahiye the aansoo
Rona chahiye tha upar wale ko
Aasman se
Phoot phoot kar 

Sharm se jhukni chahiye thein insaani sabhyata ki gardanein
Shok nahin soch ka waqt hai
Matam nahin sawalon ka waqt hai

Agar iske baad bhi sar utha kar khada ho sakta hai insaan
Toh samjho kuch ghalat hai

See also:

 Hafiz Saeed on TV Threatens Terror Attacks Against India
Hafiz Saeed, one of the world's most-wanted men, blamed India for the massacre of children at a Pakistan school and vowed revenge.  Not a single politician in Pakistan condemned the remarks of the man behind the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008, in which 166 people were killed. 

 Our denial killed children in Peshawar
The children that survived the ghastly attack will never be the same again; their innocence, their childhood gone. It takes years for trauma victims to recover. Some don't recover even after that. The question on every mind is, when the grieving is over, will the nation unite against the spectre of terrorism? If the past is any guide, the sad answer would be no. Pakistan is given a lot of credit for being a resilient nation. I think most of that is down to the state of denial we choose to live in. There are always a myriad conspiracy theories circulating within our society. For reasons unknown, we choose to believe them. We find the distant, often most improbable explanations for simple acts of violence plaguing our nation. Our workplaces, public places, government offices, security installations, hospitals, places of worship and now schools all have come under attack. After every gruesome incident, TTP or one of its uncountable affiliates takes responsibility; often releases video clips with the assailant’s taped speeches before attack, and yet we refuse to believe it. That state of denial, in essence, is the terrorist's biggest weapon and his ultimate victory...

Shekhar Gupta - National Interest: Secularism is dead!


Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the PUDR stat
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227
Read more

Albert Camus's lecture 'The Human Crisis', New York, March 1946. 'No cause justifies the murder of innocents'

By Dilip -
The morning after a great historical crisis, you feel as sad and sick as after a heavy night. But there is no aspirin for historical hangovers .. The world is no longer divided into the just or unjust, but into masters and slaves. He who is right is he who enslaves.  Albert Camus     La crise de l'homme : THE HUMAN CRISIS   (Text read by Viggo Mortensen on March 28 2016)   Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements... since I don't feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth. I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn't matter. What mattered was that I'd be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested that I might
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certainty which a c
Read more

Etel Adnan - To Be In A Time Of War

By Dilip -
NB: Etel Adnan, writer, poet, artist and musician was born in 1925 and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Her mother was a Greek from Smyrna, her father, a high ranking Ottoman officer born in Damascus. This prose poem is the final chapter of her book  In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country .  Read more about her here  - DS To Be In A Time Of War To say nothing, do nothing, mark time, to bend, to straighten up, to blame oneself, to stand, to go toward the window, to change one’s mind in the process, to return to one’s chair, to stand again, to go to the bathroom, to close the door, to then open the door, to go to the kitchen, to not eat nor drink, to return to the table, to be bored, to take a few steps on the rug, to come close to the chimney, to look at it, to find it dull, to turn left until the main door, to come back to the room, to hesitate, to go on, just a bit, a trifle, to stop, to pull the right side of the curtain, then the other side, to stare at
Read more

After the Truth Shower

By Dilip -
Dear Readers Thank you for reading my blog for the past eleven years. (This is a link to the new one) During this time it has had nearly 1.7 million hits; and I have posted over 9500 posts covering a variety of themes. From July 11 to 19, 2022, my blog was withdrawn by the Blogger administration on account of what its machinery suspected to be 'Impersonation'. It took over a week and the efforts of several well-wishers to get it back online I thank them all for their kindness and goodwill  My blog has always been - and remains - non-commercial. I have used it for academic purposes; and to foster a culture of debate and informed commentary in civil society. Because it contains a large amount of material gathered and collated for over a decade, I cannot afford to lose its contents. I hope it will remain undisturbed now and function as an archive. However, I have decided to use a new blog on WordPress as a platform for my newest comments and posts The new blog is titled After the
Read more

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

By Dilip -
Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait  Rudyard Kipling , To the City of Bombay "Few people who have criticized England from the inside have said bitterer things about her than this gutter patriot" : George Orwell IT WAS a pity that Mr. Eliot should be so much on the defensive in the long essay with which he prefaces this selection of Kipling's poetry, but it was not to be avoided, because before one can even speak about Kipling one has to clear away a legend that has been created by two sets of people who have not read his works. Kipling is in the peculiar position of having been a byword for fifty years. During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there. Mr. Eliot never satisfactorily explains this fact, because in answering the shal
Read more