Peaceful Boycott or Hateful messaging!

I woke up to the noise of laughter in the next cubicle. Groggily I took out my phone and looked at the time. It was 10 AM! Oh my god! I had drifted off to sleep yet again! Ever since the office location had shifted, I had to reach the office early to beat the traffic and leave early. Sleep had now become a precious commodity and I wasn't getting enough of it. Involuntarily I unlocked the phone and checked my whatsapp messages. And there were a couple of messages in my High School group. After swiping the screen a little I noticed a message requesting people not to buy goods from a certain popular sports goods store. I clicked on the images associated with the message. There was a close up shot of a hockey bat. On the bat was written in bold letters "Made in Pakistan". The message added further that we as responsible citizens should stop terror funding by not buying from the said sports goods store.

Almost immediately, I saw a friend who is living in Sydney had replied "Aw come on Mate! . Surely buying something from there is not gonna cause any problem. India and Pakistan should both improve and have a healthy competition in business. They should be like Roger Federer and Rafeal Nadal" he went on to say. I noticed that his message had been hailed as a great message by peaceniks and those who dream of having peaceful ties with Pakistan. What was worrisome, was that one person from a certain religious group had also liked this message.

The friend who had originally posted the message argued that "It is easy to sit in an AC room in Sydney and comment on India and Pakistan having healthy ties! He said that as a nation, the very foundation of that country was hatred towards India. He said he wouldn't like to see his money flowing into a terrorist's pocket and hence could be used against the nation itself.

I agreed with my friend and I decided to give my friend who compared Pakistan to either Nadal or Federer a piece of my mind.
I reproduce here, facsimile my conversations from whatsapp.

I wrote :

"you'd be surprised at different sources of terror funding..Say the guy who manufactures these goods makes a generous donation to Jaish e Mohammed? Pakistan was born due to a bigoted ideology, which puts religion before state. They are brainwashed to hate India..And are fighting tooth and nail with a grim resolution to conquer our great country..If their
1971 war crimes against minorities in Bangladesh is anything to go by, leave alone Rafa or Federer...They can't even behave like Neanderthals ( retarded ones at that!)"

The discussions around this topic seemed to have cooled down like dying embers of a fire, only to be rekindled the next day. Another friend typed something, that showed that his thoughts were confused at best. He felt such messages ought not to be sent around and encouraged. There are enough groups already spreading hatred he said. When we are born, we are without any prejudices he wrote. But as we lose the innocence our minds are filled with judgmental thoughts and hate he continued.

To me this seemed a classic case of escaping reality by resorting to spirituality. While it is true that one must not harbor ill will towards others. But if there are people who harbor ill will towards me, my family and my nation, whose morbid thoughts are centered around ways to bleed my country, ignoring them would mean skirting my duty. It would indicate that I bear ill will perhaps towards myself, my family or my country. It could also be a sense of denial as reality is often painful and is not as fanciful as we imagine it to be. It could also be the pacifism taught by Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi. But is this pacifism at the cost of self preservation really justified. Isn't it selfish and not self less to forget that there are soldiers guarding our borders and risking their lives at this very moment as I am typing away these words in an Air Conditioned room with no fear or stress. What right do I have to ignore their sacrifices. What right do I have to put my nation, my family at risk, because I want to appear politically correct to my friends on Face Book and twitter. No one is going to award me a Noble peace prize. Is the approval of friends and unknown people worth more than the lives of our soldiers, and our nation? I think not many people contemplate on this?

Is it a false notion of spirituality? Is it ignorance? Or is it a combination of the above? Heaven only knows. My friend who originally posted a message asking for boycott on Pakistani goods said he did not buy this argument and rightly so. I supported him by adding

"Boycotting something that is against one's principle is not hate...There are people who boycott meat,egg and diary. Vegans are not motivated by hate. This is also similar. One should read one's history and not repeat the same mistake."

As I woke up the next day to find a few more messages around this topic. The friend who had compared Pakistan to Rafa or Federer, was still disturbed by so many people deriding his opinion (Again it was his opinion that he was derided). Decided to fire a few more salvos. In doing so, he couldn't have made a bigger mistake.

My friend posted a couple of photos of pages from a scholarly book he was reading. He then posted the picture of a fat paperback book with the title "India : The early period". To my horror, the author turned out to be Romila Thapar. Coupled with this were a few lines from "The art of war".

I immediately reiterated "Why are you reading the views of a Marxist historian my friend? They have hid real history from us!"

I then went on to explain, maybe not so succinctly. Maybe my friend did not get me. But now, on contemplating the matter, I wanted to express the following thoughts.

The writings of people like Romila Thapar are stale Marxist ideology peddled as Indian history. You see the problem with Marxists is, they tend to regurgitate the communist manifesto  in every arena. The view of Marxists or any other rabid ideology like Nazism is that they offer not just a political solution on how to lead a country. They offer solutions to everything. Their world is like a narrow Garbage can. They eat communist garbage rejected by saner societies. They then have an upset stomach. They seek for fresh avenues where they can barf their unrealistic ideas. To succeed, they should first make the people feel inferior and offer them a better world. How else would people buy their crap. So they go about telling people that their civilization was primitive. In case of India, they say India before the invaders was primitive. They distort the Varna system and try to retrofit it in the eyes of the class distinction that Marxism aims to fight! They cannot portray invaders in bad light, as some of the descendants of the invaders follow an equally separatist ideology. It may not make sense to incur their wrath. Hence we see the state of affairs in India, where people do not respect their nation, their rich culture and heritage. And I am not merely beating my chest because I am nationalistic. Seen from an objective lens, India is like the cradle of civilizations. The ancient Vedic seer Vyasa who was brighter than a thousand sons proclaimed "Ekam Sat! Vipraaha Bahuda Vadanthi" (There is but one truth! The wise,speak in different terms!). This thought has led to a pluralistic society where people following different sects, religions have co-existed. There were theists, there were atheists, there were monastics, there were the hedonists. They all co-existed. People resolved differences of opinion through debates.

The case of Pakistan is no different. During the 1930s and at the heights of India's struggle for Independence from the British, revolutionary thinkers like Iqbal and Sir Syed were favorable for a two nation theory. They felt the nation needed to be divided based on religious lines. Their thoughts gained momentum and Mohammed Ali Jinnah capitalized on it. Though Iqbal and Sir Syed wanted the followers of Islam to be more modern in their outlook. Iqbal wanted Ijtihad (Innovation) in their outlook towards their holy book. He wanted them to interpret it personally and not be restricted by the Ullema's interpretation. Sir Syed also wanted people to think broadly. Maulana Azad, that great freedom fighter of India said, every religion has Din (core essence) and rituals. He reiterated that the Din is common in all religions. Hence people should be allowed to follow whatever prophet/God that they wished to follow. There should be no compulsion in the case of region. However the Maulana was scoffed at by one Sialkoti who admonished him to no end. The same was the case with Iqbal and Sir Syed. The ire of the Ullema was such that they were forced to either retract their statements or make statements that pleased the Ullema. The ullema I believe has hijacked the religion. They are preventing people from evolving the rituals and retaining the core essence.

A friend asked me why was there a stress on religion in the discussions above. Why adherents of a certain religion were singled out from others and blamed for the fault of some tyrannical invaders thousands of years ago.

I stressed that the issue is not with religion. I said I am against the ideology which can murder enlightened Sufis like Mansur Al Hallaj and Shams of Tabrezi at the drop of a hat. We (Indians) have always believed in a pluralistic society. However the idea behind creation of a Pakistan is not merely religion. It is the belief of certain people that their religion and way of life is better than others. It is the confused admixture of religion and state. There are multiple forces at work. Unfortunately, in a place like Pakistan liberals are sidelined and are a minority. The lavish lifestyle of Pakistani army and the terrorist bosses is paid for by taxes paid by common people and aid coming from foreign nations. While some in the Pakistani army want war with India because they can justify the hefty defense budgets which ultimately goes to feed their insatiable hunger for illicit food,drink and anything immoral. Some are brainwashed and firmly believe that India is their enemy. They are taught to hate India in their text books. The nation seems to be perpetually at war with India. So much so, that to seek China's aid, they are selling China their women! Sad plight indeed.

Now the question that comes to your mind, my reader is this. Does shopping for sports goods, that are manufactured in Pakistan because they are less expensive seem harmless. How can you be assured that the money that goes to the manufacturer, does not in turn reach the hands of a blood thirsty man who day and night bears ill will towards India? I know the common people of Pakistan are just like us. But the people in charge and the ones who let them be in charge are not like that. Would you out of pity, release a king cobra from within a cage? Let us say you are with your family. Do you want to make friends with the King cobra? Anyway, let me know your thoughts :)