Below: Paul Rubens' "Cain and Abel".
Daily Fix
An Eye for An Eye
T. SHER SINGH
As human beings, there are a number of nifty areas we have developed as evidence that we are different from the other species in the animal kingdom.
One of them is that we are good at crafting homilies and whirling them around as if they are rosary beads and by merely rubbing them an aura of piety will protect us as a result.
There is no dearth of those in India who will roll their eyes heavenwards on a moment’s notice and quote you Mohandas Gandhi’s words: “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind“, and wallow in the borrowed glow.
Well, here’s the most recent dollop of reality.
Several years ago -- in the year 1990, to be precise -- an Indian spy who had been sent across the Pakistani border with the express mission of creating murder and mayhem in the streets of Lahore with a string of home-made bombs, had the misfortune of getting caught. He was convicted for the murder of 14 innocent bystanders who were mowed down by a bomb planted by him. He was tried, found guilty and was sentenced to death.
He has been languishing in a Lahore death row since then, while the two warring nations played political football, trying to negotiate a deal for his repatriation.
Until April 26, 2013. When he was found unconscious in his cell, having ostensibly been beaten by his jail mates. He died shortly thereafter. Pakistani government authorities are suspected of being behind his “execution-style” injuries.
His body was sent back to India last week and, amidst much jingoism and proclamations of ’martyrdom’, he was cremated with state honours.
A sordid tale, no matter which side you listen to.
But wait … the saga continues.
The very land where every politician of every ilk can quote you ol’man Gandhi until he’s blue in the face, having received the proverbial bloodied eye, has decided to waste no time and -- contrary to Gandhian rhetoric -- hit back by blinding its enemy.
As if on cue, a Pakistani prisoner languishing in a jail cell in Jammu in India -- having been convicted like his Indian counterpart, also for murder and mayhem but on Indian soil -- was found similarly beaten up and is now in critical condition.
His injuries were inflicted shortly after the body of the Indian spy was flown across the border and landed on Indian soil.
In both cases, the beatings could not have happened without an express nod from the respective governments.
And so the cycle continues.
With each side blinded in one eye on this count alone, the proverbial ball is back in the Pakistani court. It is their turn now to poke the Indians in the eye.
The two countries were created a mere 66 years ago and, like all other close relatives in human history, are continually at each other’s throats in the age-old Cain-and-Abel tradition.
Just as youthful nations haven’t shown a fresh approach, older nations -- even those we’d consider modern and progressive and civilized -- are at the same game as if there is no tomorrow.
The closer the familial relationship, the more murderous is the outcome.
Jews and Muslims -- Semitic cousins! - in the Middle East.
Jews and Christians and Muslims everywhere -- Abrahamic cousins umbilically linked through the Old Testament.
You name any country and it too will have its good reasons and legal justifications for murder and mayhem.
Catholic versus Protestant, Shia versus Sunni, Hutu versus Tutsi, Sephardic versus Askenazi, Black versus White, Brahmin versus 'untouchable', male versus female …
The daily blindings continue. Each poking begets another.
The outrage on 9-11-2001, it is claimed, was in response to a litany of grievances. In response, we had Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hopping from one time period to another, one wavelength to another … we have Chechnya that begat the Boston Marathon tragedy.
What comes next?
Have we lost all ability to stop for even a moment to see what we are doing to ourselves?
Or is it that we never had it?
Or that we’re already so far gone in the quick back-and-forth, all blinded by now … so blind, that we can’t see the forest for the trees?
This article can also be read on The Huffington Post by CLICKING HERE.
May 5, 2013
Conversation about this article
1: Raj (Canada), May 05, 2013, 2:12 PM.
Let's not be delusional about the ground realities of Sikhs in Pakistan; it hasn't done any better than India. The general public and establishment in Pakistan considers Sikhs a big obstacle in their grand scheme of consolidating Muslim powers on the South Asian sub-conitent. If you go to any gurdwara in Pakistan on own your own, without accompanying any jatha, you will never be alone. Secret service personnel will be all over, you can't have free talk with any local Sikhs. They're afraid to say anything. The education chances are negligible, they're forced to study Islam as part of the general curriculum. Most of them never go to higher education. If you go to a roadside dhaba, your utensils will be separate from the Muslim population. You will still be a "Kafir". On the other side of the border, the Indian government uses poor Sikh citizens living in the border areas for spying. The harsh realities of poverty forces them to take these risky assignments. If caught, they are conveniently forgotten and rot in foreign jails. The government pays lip service and no serious attempt is made until they get killed by some set up in those foreign countries. The fact of the matter is Pakistan is notorious for keeping spies in civil jails. There have been some attempts to at least document their existence, there's no data on such cases. Some of these Indian citizens have been found in foreign lands such as the Masira jail, it's a island where the Muscat government built a jail for local convicts. Many of the Indians in these jails are Sikhs; we have become a pawn in a dangerous game between India and Pakistan. Either false patriotism or poverty has driven our brothers into these hell holes of the world.
2: Karam Singh (New York, USA), May 05, 2013, 5:13 PM.
Whatever ... but the fact is that these so-called 'spies' -- terrorists, actually -- are no more than mercenaries let loose by their respective goonda governments. They're certainly not martyrs, by any stretch of the imagination, though they also do not deserve the treatment meted out to them when they're caught. The people who deserve that treatment are the politicians and operatives who send them across the border.
3: Gurteg Singh (New York, USA), May 05, 2013, 7:30 PM.
As per the family members and the Indian Government's "version" of the story, Sarabjit Singh was not a spy but by mistake drifted into Pakistan since he was drinking and was in an inebriated state of mind. Can the Indian government then explain how a drunken man was declared a national martyr and given state funeral while hundreds of innocent Sikhs are still languishing in Indian dungeons for decades and many without any charges? Collaborator Parkash Singh Badal does not lose a single occasion in proving his loyalty to his New Delhi masters and has been over-enthusiastic in announcing a big reward for Sarabjit's family and even the Akal Takht Jathedar was in attendance during the funeral.
4: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), May 05, 2013, 9:34 PM.
A true Sikh should never be involved in this type of behaviour or with such people!
5: Dr Birinder Singh Ahluwalia (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), May 06, 2013, 11:34 AM.
It is imperative that we elect leaders who are visionary and neither blind nor intent on blinding others, who can perceive and fathom the depth of the problems staring them in the face, and find righteous and long lasting solutions confronting humanity ... and not just be reactionary. Knee-jerk responses are always misguided and faulty. We need to strive harder to elect the leaders we need so badly today.