Insaniyat ka janaaza

Akhbaar ke kuch panne padte hue mein kahin kho sa gaya,

thodi nazar ghumai to kashmir ki waadion sa kuch pratit hua

woh waadiyan jinhe ye kaala dhuaan apne mein jakad sa raha tha,

Uski sundarta pe kuch kalik se poth raha tha....

Kyun un waadiyon ka drishya yun bhayanak sa hai,

Kyun aaj ye hawa thami si hai,

Ye pedon ke phool kuch bejaan se hain,

Kyun aaj woh parinde apne ghosle mein yun chupe se baithe hain,

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Suraj to aaya hai, bus roshni yahan nai aa saki hai,

Chand bhi ja chukka hai, bus andhera yahan reh gaya hai,

Yeh din mein andhera kuch sawaal puch raha hai,

Kya insaan ne raat ke andhakaar ko chura liya hai,

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Kuch aage badha, to kuch atpata sa dikha

Ek school ki imaarat jahan bache nahi the,

Kuch dukaane jahan dukanwaale nahi the,

Aur ye signal ki hari batti, par koi jaane waale nahi the,

Ye ghane ped ki chaaon, par koi wahan baitha nahi tha,

Ye sadak pe khadi kuch gaadian, jo bejaan si thi,

Ye mandir aur woh masjid ka bhagwaan kuch akela sa tha

Kahan gaya ye insaan, kahan chupa hai, kahan ruka hai?

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Mein sochta raha ki yahaan hua kya hoga,

Kya fir se insaan ne apni nafrat ka pradarshan kiya hoga,

Kya Kashmir mein hui barbaadi ko woh bhul gaya hoga,

Kya sab kuch bhula kar who phir se khoon ki nadiyaan bahaane nikla hoga,

Aur agar nikla hoga to yahan dikhta kyun nai woh,

Kya sab kuch khatam kar khud ko kahin dafan kar chukka hai,

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

Khud ko hi is wehshat ka shikaar bana chukka hai,

15000 logon ko ghayal kar chukka hai,

1000 ki aankon mein pallet mar 300 ko andha kar chukka hai,

Ae Insaan, kya tere andar ka insaan mar chukka hai?

4500 ko pallet se ghayal aur 4664 ko goli se ghayal kar chukka hai,

8000 logon ko jail mein daal chukka hai

Is ke ghar ki beti aur uske maa baap ko yun kaise bhul chukka hai?

Ae insaan, kya tere andar ka insaan mar chukka hai?

Is khoobsurat si zindagi ko kyun beshakal se bana raha hai,

Kyun khud ko yun har lamha jala raha hai,

Kyun har lamha khudi ko apni nazron mein gira raha hai,

Saanse to chal rahi hai, tu kyun ruk chuk hai?

Wakt to nahi ruka, bedhadak chala ja raha hai…

 

The Obligation to Condemn

The latest new wave to have hit the nation with full force is that of ‘the obligation to condemn’. It is a multifaceted, multilayered and complex phenomenon, to say the least. Let us make an attempt to understand this phenomenon. I may be wrong with the facts here, but as far as my knowledge goes, it all began with the owner of a certain private TV channel making a statement that the serials of the neighboring nation shown on his channel are being withdrawn off air, one of the reasons being that the actors of that neighboring nation had been requested to publicly condemn the Uri attacks, but had not acceded to the request. Now, the channel in question is a private channel and what has to be shown or not shown on the channel is for its owner to decide. One may agree or disagree with his decision, all the same, it remains his decision. This statement of his has led to a volley of other reactions and counter-reactions and a flurry of activity in the public domain. Breaking through all this hysteria and getting to the concrete points of discussion, it is a fact that the actors in question have not openly condemned the Uri attacks, in fact have not issued any statement whatsoever. Why would anyone think that they are not well within their rights to do so? Why is there a feeling that they are under an obligation to say something publicly? Is it because they are public personalities? If so, is it mandatory for public personalities to react to everything publicly? Are they not entitled to any private space, any views that they may not like to publicly share? If they are not, then this statement should be valid for all the public personalities around the globe, and for every issue that happens. The day they choose to enter into public domain, they should be expected to publicly state their opinions on anything and everything that might happen in the world around them, especially in their nations, and if they don’t do so, they should be socially boycotted. However, if the above expectation is not reasonable, then the actors in the extant case also are under no obligation to state any of their opinions (if they have any) publicly. Now, let us come to the question of desirableness. Would it have been desirable for them to condemn the attacks publicly? This is a subjective question and everyone is entitled to their own judgments on this. However, in my view, (and I am stating this explicitly here because somehow this is missing from the entire discourse), they have done the most practically reasonable thing to do for their sake and for the sake of their families, by not issuing any public statements. The consequences of any such act would have to be borne by them solely, and none of the people clamoring for their public condemnation today would have come to their rescue in the face of adversity. Next, is it acceptable to ban these actors from India on the basis of their not issuing any statement? Banning anyone or anything, in any case, in my view, is totally unacceptable. However, dealing with this specific case, all those who are in deep angst over the decision of these actors to not issue public condemnation are well within their rights to personally boycott them. At the same time, there is no justification, whatsoever, for forcing a public ban on something or someone, for the sole reason that certain people on the soil of the land these actors belong to committed a dastardly act that these actors had nothing to do with, their only ‘crime’ being, not holding a press conference to condemn the dastardly act and its perpetrators. In that case, each and every individual is equally condemnable because our neighbor country does not have a copyright on terror. There have been umpteen cases of internal terror strikes in our nation itself, most of us would have felt saddened by them but not felt the requirement to ‘publicly’ condemn them, maximum of our public personalities falling in this category. Why, then, not a public outcry and demands of banning all these people? May be because, in such a scenario, the world would become a collection of uncountable individuals, all existing in silos, socially boycotted by all the rest. Another fantastical assertion that has been made is that art is by its very nature political, and artists cannot shy away from their responsibilities, they are not normal human beings but by the very fact that they are artists, have stupendous responsibilities on their shoulders. Then why such a disappointment with ‘artists’ only now? Why not when uncountable times uncountable artists choose silence over public speech. Why not organize a boycott at every such instance? Because all artists are individual human beings first, and well within their rights to speak or not to speak, they are well within their rights to choose their profession and they are well within their rights to define their goals in their lives. It is not a crime to choose a profession of acting solely for making money and entertaining people rather than do it for the purpose of bringing a change in society, or for social activism, or for making political statements, whatever that may mean. The next argument being made by the boycotters is, why is it that only the army people should sacrifice their lives? Why can’t film producers sacrifice some of their earnings for the sake of their nation? Why can’t we the people sacrifice our interest in anything that has to do with our neighboring state? For the sole reason that the enemy is not any particular state here, the enemy is the terror that is perpetrated, in whatever name or form, on whichever soil. What is the end result that is expected after such a boycott of a whole nation altogether? That terror will be banished from the face of this earth? Or that our nation will become free from it? Really? Is this even a distant possibility? Terror is not going to vanish from the face of this earth by the use of some magical wand, it is not going to vanish by boycotting nations and it is not going to happen by killing and maiming people. It is going to rear its ugly head again and again in different names and forms, be it in the name of caste, class, gender, race, nation, state and so on and so forth. Is there any way out of this terror? Not visibly, not in the near or distant future. It sounds nothing more than a utopian dream, if at all we are allowed to see any such dream.

Before signing off, I would like to do one more thing. I would like to place myself at the top of the list of people worth condemning, because I did-not condemn publicly the centuries of atrocities committed by the people of my caste on the people of certain other caste, I did not condemn publicly the terror that, at times, the people of my religion perpetrate on the people of certain other religion, I did not condemn publicly the terror that the people of certain other class and status might be facing day in and day out because of certain actions of the people of my class and status, I did not condemn publicly the mass destruction and loot being perpetrated on this nature by the people of my species. There may be a thousand other things that I did not publicly condemn, so let me today volunteer to be the first person in the list of people who should be treated as social outcastes.