Stability of instability is the only stable truth in this unfortunate part of the world. We are all the time grieved and bereaved. Sad news breaks into our homes and families every day. It slithers so shockingly. A medico father declares his son dead and wraps the shroud of undying tragedy over him. Life has really become so terrible. Death so rampant. We continue to bleed…. Endlessly.
Over the years, the discourse on killings seems to have changed. ‘Who’ killed ‘whom’ is no not as vital as ‘why’ the killing per se. Primarily to gain political power and legitimacy, killings are actually used to shock, demoralize and damage a political enemy. But the question is that does ‘killing’ really work out so? Whether a person killed is a political worker, human rights activist, journalist or any simpleton street man, the political violence here has failed to yield any panacea so far. The armed men in uniform or in the civvies have continued to enact the dance of death as and when it suits them. The common people have always become a fodder for political and ideological wars. And sometimes, the ‘killing’ is a covert bargaining pact for hushing up what can land various conflict players into tricky situation. It leads to rolling and shuffling of roles and chairs. A sinister game of modern tyranny, the so-called “terror management”—in our case more of a ‘creative management’ for the technical and human intelligence fudging techniques by those who ought to be probed for their failure to protect people rather than “investigating” what is plainly their own act of questionable negligence!
Of course, violence becomes the last resort when there is a breakdown of conventional channels of mobilization and expression. Especially, when ideological schism in politics and disgruntled apparatuses of state emerge up as single ‘entity’ or ‘splinter groups’. But as soon as political violence becomes anarchic, it bounces back and becomes a concern for both state and non-state actors, whether armed or unarmed. Their survival and credence takes a beating. In this process, civilian population is prone to become hostage to their designs, motives and orchestra.
It is vicious circle of intrigue and cruelty. A bloody tussle between combatants and non-combatants. A game of interest within different stakeholders, from police to politicians. Repressive regimes and rebels. And, actually the doomed trap for commoners.
Not only here, many places around the world are reeling under the same predicament. The civilian population is increasingly becoming the main target of political and military violence. This is in addition to ‘collateral damage’ loss where violence is not directly aimed against public.
Be it executions, assassinations, trials, incarcerations, sexploitation—the members of the public are now the soft targets of violent coercion. All this is done to scare and silence civilian populations in violation of international norms and laws relating to human rights.
In a book New and Old Wars: Organized violence in a Global Era by Mary Kaldor, it is cited that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars are civilians. Be it Vietnam war killing two million civilians; Chechen wars claiming one lac of them or Iraq war devouring 66 thousand civilians since 2003— thousands of civilians continue to die in large to small scale conflicts like Palestine, Middle-East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India through political slogans that prove to be quite fatal for the population.
The society at large is at peril. The process of annihilation is not just physical. The psychological war is unleashed concurrently. Where opportunities for political expression are curbed brutally and fear psychosis is created, those opposing every kind of status quo ‘use’ public as a tactic. No doubt, at times, public voluntarily becomes the part of tactic and turns to be one of the significant actors in the situation. Some revolutions are the upshot of such phenomenon.
Bottomline: The long and short of it is that people are getting killed. People are getting exploited. Many of us in the world are ever persecuted and ever battered. The messy machinery of power and authority is abusing the situation that remains bereaved as ever. Death has become our living companion and grief is shadowing us perpetually. There is no escape. There is no respite. It is just a tragic drama of death and pain.
However, amidst all this, what is vital is not abandoning our grieving or mourning. What is needed is to recognize and reject the drama of “terror management” right away. So that the ‘creative terror managers’ over here know that people of Kashmir are not morons anymore.