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ShareI will not do these things, not because I am not moved and aching about what happened in Mumbai two weeks ago. Of course I am. You would be heartless and insensitive if you failed to be.
I will not do these things because I see no point in doing them. What's happened is so hideously unspeakable that it defies response. But it's happened. And instead of dwelling on it further, let's try and see why it did -- and how we can prevent it from happening again.
Two people who made the most sense to me in all the post-attack clamour came from what appear to be such dissimilar worlds that it would have been hard to say their names in a single sentence unless it was to state : "Shah Rukh Khan auditioned successfully for Arundhati Roy's In which Annie..but was later dropped."
(That tenuous coming together of two people who represent the world of popular commercial interests and unpopular stark truths would appear to be magic realism if we didn't know it to be factual.)
But it was Shah Rukh in his many post-carnage (and dare we say it) pre-Rab TV interviews who gave the most plausible reason for the Mumbai carnage: fundamentalism. "I, as a Hindu fundamentalist, need a mirror image of an Islamic fundamentalist for my existence." He said speaking hypothetically, "Without one, the other has no raison d'etre." What he was too polite or savvy to mention (or both) were Babri Masjid, Godhra. What he left unsaid was LK Advani, Narendra Modi, Hindutva.
Arundhati Roy, with her arsenal of brilliant words and facts, was more explicit: "Though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, it exists in a particular time place and political context and to refuse to see it that way will only aggravate the problem." (Outlook, December 22) And of course, Roy went on to spell out the time place and political context: ("in this nuclear subcontinent, that context is Partition...") Babri Masjid, the Gujarat genocide, (carried out under the aegis of India Shining,) Kashmir ("trapped in a nightmare that has claimed 60,000 lives,") fake encounters, injustices and human rights violations.
It would be foolhardy for any one to try and justify the terrorism that we have been witness to, not just last month but over the years. But surely they must be others like Roy and Khan who think the same way? That fundamentalism on both sides of the border has existed in a grotesque hall of mirrors and led us to the situation we are in?
Nip one in the bud, expunge it from our hearts and minds, banish its very existence from our lives and on our streets -- and there will be little oxygen for the other to survive.
Most of the Hindus and Muslims I know -- even the most devout ones -- go about their lives much like the rest of us: seeking small pleasures, craving a little love and sustenance and wanting ordinary days and nights.
(Significantly people are flocking to see SRK's Rab... a film about the ordinary love of ordinary people. And hopefully, Roy will some day write another fiercely tender book about small things.)
Let's root out fundamentalism. Let's go back to ordinary days.
Email: s_malavika@dnaindia.net
www.dnaindia.com/blogs/malavika
