Did we ask our children?

Did we ask our children if they wanted to be bombed or be maimed?

Before hatred possessed us, and we set our sights and aimed,
We took them for granted, when we built our arsenal under their homes,
And transformed them into rubble, parroting our thoughts in moralistic tones,
Tones so loud, it subdued their howling, their piercing screams,
We brandished our weapons, our armour, taking pride in our killing teams,
All that mattered was how we justified our struggle and our war,
Each child, that died, did not matter, like the offspring of a despicable whore,
Why that drama of carrying infants in our arms and rushing for their care?
When our brothers fomented terror, usurped land, did we say, “Don’t you dare!”
Our blood-thirsty minds saw them as nothing but as inconsequential fools,
“Collateral damage”, “Be warned, we had said” and they became our tools,
In a conflict with no end in sight and neither a sense of fulfilment,
All because we thought our children could do nothing for peace and contentment.

(A lament written in memory of the children who were killed and maimed in the July/August 2014 Israeli-Hamas War)

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya

Nothing can heal the way forgiveness can

Whenever anger or the now-rare feeling of retribution emerges in my mind, after I hear the news of a brutal crime being committed; my memory and better sense take over and remind me of Gladys Staines – the wife of a Christian missionary in India whose husband and two boys were burnt alive while they slept inside their vehicle. What comes to mind is not that incident, but her wisdom to forgive. Very difficult, so utopian, but a powerful act that is widely misunderstood as a sign of weakness or not understood at all.

In the spate of the vitriol that was being spewed by politicians and their coterie in the 2014 General Elections in India, a well-known politician -- who continuously presents himself to be a fount of wisdom and knowledge -- criticised the daughter of an assassinated prime minister of India for visiting her father’s accused killer in jail. He was referring to a visit she had made some time ago, arising from the desire to come face-to-face with the accused and seen, at that time by many, as a step towards forgiveness.

How easy it is for me to say “wisdom to forgive”, how easy it is to think such lofty thoughts, but so difficult to practice, the reader would think.

I have contemplated a lot on forgiveness, tried to read as much as I could about what enlightened masters have had to say about it, and some years ago, more importantly, I have forgiven a perceived wrongdoing which affected my family most adversely. Yes, I forgave the wrongdoer with great difficulty, but I forgave. Similarly, as in any ordinary life which is rarely faultless, I know I too have been forgiven by others, near and far, numerous times.

But I admit, to forgive is not easy and the willingness to forgive can also depend on the severity of the act. I suppose that it would be easier to forgive a less severe act than a most violent one.

However, the penalty for any wrongdoings are, according to the law of life, for the guilty to bear. There is no escaping. Time eventually catches up and pays. In a spiritual context it is part of “the law of karma” or is encapsulated in the words, “what ye sow, ye shall reap” or simply reflected in the saying “what goes around, comes around.”

On an evening walk some time ago, I passed by a house under construction. One of the workers was hammering a nail into a makeshift door perhaps to be used for their temporary living quarters. As he struck the nail, I wondered how it would feel if a hand accidentally came between the nail and the door. Within seconds my mind thought of the suffering of Jesus the Christ and the two men along with him, when they were crucified according to the laws of those times. In his lifetime, Jesus the Christ had performed many miracles but he chose not to perform one to save himself; nor did he use his powers to bring wrath to those who tortured him. Instead, as his life neared its end on the cross, the divinity of his wisdom made him utter those now-most-famous words, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus’ enlightened mind saw the life-enhancing and healing power of forgiveness compared to hate and retribution.

Forgiveness works both ways. It is not enough for the repentant to repent and seek forgiveness but it is also very important for the repentant to forgive oneself to enable genuine repentance. For a person filled with guilt, it is equally important to heal, through acts of altruism which have a great impact in the process of one’s reformation.

The character of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables and the Illustrated Classics’ adaptation that I read as a child, showed me how we could undo our mistakes by repenting maturely and engaging in powerful acts of kindness. Four scenes have remained vividly imprinted in my mind from what I read and re-read several times.

Jean Valjean being caught stealing silverware from his host’s house, a Bishop; the Bishop forgiving him and saying that he should have asked if he wanted the silverware; Valjean furrowing beneath a fallen horse carriage and lifting it partially with his body to rescue a person trapped below it; the suicide of Inspector Javert who is unable to come to terms with how he persecuted Valjean; and Valjean dying a fulfilled man with his adopted daughter and her husband by his death bed.

In their book The wisdom of forgiveness, written by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Victor Chan, His Holiness says, “In my own case, in Tibet, all the destruction, death, all happened. Painful experiences. But revenge….this creates more unhappiness. So, think wider perspective: revenge no good, so forgive. Forgiveness does not mean you just forget about the past. No, you remember the past. Should be aware that these past sufferings happened because of narrow-mindedness on both sides. So now, time passed. We feel more wise, more developed. I think that’s the only way.”

Noted writer and commentator on religion, Karen Armstrong, in her book Twelve steps to a compassionate life says, “During the Vietnam war, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, performed the meditation on the Immeasurables for the soldiers of this country – but he also contemplated the plight of the American troops, who, he knew, were suffering too, and made himself desire their safety and well-being. Once you realise that your enemy is also suffering, you look into his eyes and see a mirror image of your own distress. In this way, you realise that he too deserves compassion.”

In the recent course of working on this article, two thought-provoking incidents were reported by the world’s media, which brought to attention not just the fact that there are people all over the world who exercise the power of forgiveness, but more importantly, and before that, they exercise the will to forgive.

Minutes before a public hanging in an Iranian town, a mother pardoned her son’s killer in the presence of the convict’s own grieving mother, by removing the noose around his neck but slapping him. This act was captured pictorially and those photographs were widely circulated.

Earlier and in the same month that the Iranian mother’s act of forgiveness was reported; Rwanda remembered the genocide that took place there 20 years ago due to the ethnic violence between the Hutus and the Tutsis. At that time, media reported on how Alice Mukarurinda, whose daughter was killed and whose own arm was hacked in the attacks; had coincidentally met her attacker, Emmanuel Ndayisaba, after many years and during his efforts with other genocide killers to seek forgiveness from victims. Not only did she forgive him after two weeks of thinking and discussing it with her husband, but she now works with Emmanuel as a part of a group building simple brick houses for survivors of the genocide.

Quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in her book, Armstrong says, ‘Only goodness can drive out evil and only love can overcome hate.’  She continues saying, “Loving our enemies means that we have to accept ‘the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury on us’; King was convinced that this was ‘an absolute necessity for our survival…the key to the solution of the problems of our world’.”

The patterns of life in terms of incidents that beg forgiveness remain the same: as it was at the time of Jesus the Christ and now. Life is not faultless. Faults, horrible acts, violence, occur as life progresses in time.

But it is the power of forgiveness which continues to stand the test of time for its life-enhancing quality and its ability to heal like nothing else can.

Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2014

 

A growing divisiveness in India’s polity

One of the most major impediments which has not allowed India’s polity to reach greater levels of maturity and purpose, since sixty-seven years of Independence, is the growing divisiveness within.

And its rising proportions are becoming unashamedly visible in our public spaces, inside our organisations and, more importantly and sadly, among all political parties, old and new.

The slander and abuse thrown from one politician to the other during the nation’s 2014 General Elections to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha (House of People) have been visible to all, thanks to television. The flames of intolerance and opinionated views are telecast every day and suffered by right-minded and sensitive citizens across the country.

Debates have become shouting matches in Parliament and actions have become plucking and hurling of microphones in our legislative assemblies. Agreeing to disagree has become ranting caught in real-time debates on prime time news, where the anchors are either not qualified to play referees, or display helplessness to secretly keep the ruckus going in order to retain viewership, or are caught unawares by well-prepared, vitriolic personalities.

In a programme on television channel NDTV, which debated the meaning of nationalism, senior politician Jaswant Singh said, ‘…we have become so much smaller in mind, that we just simply cannot accommodate a different viewpoint. How can we construct the nation?’

While participating in a televised debate on how disruption of both houses of Parliament had become rampant, a senior professional-turned politician from the leading opposition party blatantly said that his party engaged in such protests to rouse the anger of the people of India against the ruling coalition.

If this is the dangerous emotion that a well-educated politician, in a position of great responsibility, supports to incite, then imagine what the not-so-well educated ones have been doing so far—especially those who come under the scanner of criminalisation of Indian politics.

The rioting that took place in August 2013 in the Muzaffarnagar district of the State of Uttar Pradesh, is reported to have worsened due to hate speeches given by politicians belonging to few political parties. Most of those suspected were caught on camera while making such speeches and this is scathing evidence of the potent impact of any act of divisiveness.

Some celebrate the division of a State, like in the case of Andhra Pradesh, while others decry it; but our approach towards creating a separate entity from an existing State appears more divisive than one espousing the logic of division.

New political parties being formed and new alliances forged with intertwining and almost-common agendas seem to be making it even more difficult to decide on which party or coalition to support for an already-confused electorate. Yet many functionaries of political parties engage in vitriolic behaviour to give a distinction to their organisations.

We talk of intrusions on our borders, of terrorism, of anti-social and anti-national forces within our country, but those who are doing more damage are roaming free and mingling with everyone on the streets, in institutions and reputed organisations—like tinderboxes ready to ignite the flames of intolerance the moment something divergent is heard or learnt and unknowingly or knowingly identifying themselves with divisive forces.

Is this what our freedom fighters fought for and why our soldiers keep vigilant at night so that we can sleep soundly? Do we want our young minds to absorb and mimic the divisiveness they are witnessing as they step into the world? Is this what we wish to offer on a platter to those wicked forces which want to spill the blood of our citizens and bring chaos to our much-loved, but challenged democracy?

Divisiveness, it seems, is an intimate part of Indian history and this trait perhaps remains entrenched in our psyche. If this is true, then it strongly necessitates for us to guard against falling prey to this trait in ourselves and in others.

Indian history is replete with examples of how divisiveness among rulers and the ruled led to the conquest and subjugation of parts of the Indian sub-continent. Our history also points out instances where divisiveness led to intrusions of plundering hordes and the ruin of a land which was once known as the “Golden Sparrow”.

Have we not learnt enough from our history and our past mistakes?

The trait of divisiveness could also lead to other negative behavioural patterns. Though not directly in this context, in his book Ignited Minds, renowned scientist and former president of India Dr. Abdul Kalam quotes Sir C.V. Raman from a talk that he gave to young graduates in 1969 as saying, ‘We have, I think developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India is the destruction of that defeatist spirit. We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit which can recognise that we, as inheritors of a proud civilisation, are entitled to our rightful place on this planet’. Dr. Kalam in his own words in the same book says, ‘The greatest danger to our sense of unity and our sense of purpose comes from those ideologists who seek to divide the people’.

Writing on another negative behavioural pattern arising from the trait of divisiveness, author Gurcharan Das says in his book India Unbound, ‘Poor teamwork is pervasive in India. Take any institution, scratch its surface and one finds factionalism. Whether it is a company, a university, a hospital, a village panchayat, or a municipal board, it is beset with dissension, and it affects national competitiveness. What is the cause of our divisiveness?’

A key reason why divisiveness has penetrated many aspects of our polity and continues to rise unabatedly is because a large part of our leadership has been clinging to the notion that the end justifies the means. Those adhering to this notion will not stop at anything to achieve something. And it is no secret that many times that something desired is out of greed—greed for power, greed for authority or greed for money, or for all of these. If there was another vital thing that the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, wished to teach our polity, apart from the powerful concept of ahimsa or non-violence, it was that the ends do not justify the means and that the means are as important if not more important than the ends. In fact, his adherence to non-violence showed his sensitivity to the means. Many would dismiss this as being idealistic or not possible at all times. However, not just Gandhi, but other great leaders of the world who emulated him, proved that this thought and focus forms the bedrock of right action.

It would help leaders in India’s polity to vigorously keep the following in mind: Lead by example without becoming self-righteous, be totally intolerant to any form of divisiveness even if it is from within or from the top, be a part of a movement to transform India into a meritocratic society, continuously question the means being used towards the end and flesh out the negatives that the means could give rise to or cause, and cultivate respect in oneself and others for the perpetuation of a peaceful and mature co-existence than one based on divide and rule.

Nearly every important area in the country that we look at today is in a crisis—the economy, the political landscape, national security, energy security, gender equality, equality among citizens and security at our borders. 

Whether one is in a position of power or an ordinary citizen, it is time that we focussed our attention on the rising tide of divisiveness in the country and do whatever possible to stop it.


                                                   Copyright © Tarun Dalaya, 2014