October 23, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba'an 5, 1422

IT may only be coincidental that lethal fireworks across the Line of Control defined the ambience for George Fernandez’s reinstatement as India’s Defense Minister. That, soon thereafter, some VHP hawks broke into the proscribed area of the disputed site at Ayodhya, reportedly shouting slogans of defiance, also may have been a coincidence. But it is a coincidence that reinforces the new posture of “pro-active” belligerence that seems to have acquired, all of a sudden, the resonance of a new legitimacy. These disturbing developments, and other related nuances, underscore a rising superstition, especially in the Sangh Parivar circles, of the irresistible popular appeal of aggression, of which war mongering is the most strident expression. This potentially horrendous misconception owes a great deal to the electoral windfall that Kargil is believed to have secured for the BJP.

Various postures of aggression, ranging from tough-speaking to war-mongering, enjoy unprecedented popular appeal today. A case in point is the seesaw of global pre-eminence between Osama bin Laden and President Bush. The holocaust in New York and Washington catapulted Osama to the centre-stage of global attention. For several days thereafter, President Bush remained only a shadowy presence on the periphery. But the President of the mightiest nation in history managed a comeback through a series of calibrated public appearances, utterances and, finally, by bringing terror home to the merchant of global terror. President Bush today enjoys unrivalled popularity among his people, a popularity surpassed in passion still by the intensity of the Osama cult.

There is, however, something spurious and deceptive about the current popular craving for war. Quite simply, this is a media-contrived hype that politicians should take with a pinch of salt. It was CNN that pioneered the insensitivity of turning war-bred human misery into a media gold mine. The channel sanitized war at a distance into heady media entertainment. In comparison, conventional media fares paled into insignificance. Many of us still recall the thrill of a CNN reporter in Baghdad in 1991, hugely delighted to be the first in history to spot a Tomahawk cruise missile home on to a target, weaving its way through the skyscrapers and looking for the designated target with a sinister intention.

Thanks to the dinner-table familiarity with the spectacles of war bred by the CNN, a bomb came to mean nothing more than a mere flash of light at a distance, accompanied by a noise that rumbled like distant thunder. It was something to be watched and enjoyed in the safety and comfort of one’s living room and forgotten thereafter. This potent entertainment was unsullied by empathy, as nameless victims evaporated into the limbo of collateral damages.

Nearer home, war is an ugly and vicious monster. It is not possible to keep this Frankenstein’s Monster at an arm’s length for too long. War is a terrible mistake that mocks the myth of victory. Over the theatres of war, death hovers like a hungry mega-spectre, peering at human folly through dark sockets of eyeless gratitude.

The worst in war is not merely the colossal suffering of the peoples on both sides, it is the sheer futility of their gigantic efforts and mammoth suffering. This being the truth, one at once weeps and laughs over the smugness and nonchalance with which Indians nowadays talk of taking on Pakistan once and for all. You can rest assured of one thing: their idea of war does not go beyond the visuals of the CNN. Their bravado must not be mistaken either for courage or for patriotism. Make no mistake, they will not be conscripted for deployment in Siachen.

It is not an accident that the boundary between war and sports blurs when a one-day international is played between India and Pakistan. The media that has turned war into a sport has also turned sport into war. Both are deadly deceptions, except that the latter is more horrendous in its implications than the former. As long as this spurious mytho-psychology of war- mongering remains unchallenged, political parties and their spin- doctors are sure to push our country into wars and conflicts of varying scale and intensity for calculated gains.

The time has come for us to deromanticize war. We must dare to speak the truth about war. Glorification and romanticization of war precede the outbreak of war, in every instance. But those who thus romanticize it are not the ones who have to bear the brunt of war. This is even more so in the case of those who decide to launch wars. The peace of the world will be secure if only there is a universal consensus that those who choose to initiate wars must fight them. As long as the decision-makers of war and the scapegoats of war are different social and economic segments, the pursuit of peace will continue to lack vigour and urgency.