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Why we shouldn't lose focus from Gurmehar's anti India-Pakistan war plea

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Ashok Swain
Ashok SwainMar 06, 2017 | 12:37

Why we shouldn't lose focus from Gurmehar's anti India-Pakistan war plea

A college student, Gurmehar Kaur, daughter of Kargil martyr Captain Mandeep Singh, has been in the news for over a week now after she joined a social media campaign #StudentsAgainstABVP.

Since then, a war has been waged against this 20-year-old by India’s ultra-nationalists forces and right-wing social media trolls. A year-old video in which she is seen advocating peace with Pakistan, particularly her statement that “Pakistan did not kill my Dad, war killed him”, is being used to paint her as "anti-national". 

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Not only sportspersons and a Bollywood actor, but India’s junior home minister and BJP’s new King of Controversies Kiren Rijiju has taken part in "public shaming" her. This emboldened right-wing social media trolls to abuse and threaten Gurmehar to such an extent that she decided to leave the campus temporarily to go home and take a break from social media.

It is true that pseudo-patriotic forces have been able to silence a young and powerful voice in support of academic freedom for the time being. But, on the other hand, by digging up Gurmehar’s anti-war video of last year and facilitating its wide circulation, they have self-inflicted serious harm to their own cause.

India is fascinatingly puzzled how a girl whose father has been killed in war does not scream for revenge but pleads for peace.

Peace movements are not new to India, but the character substantially differs from the west. Indian peace movements are generally rooted into a fight for oppressed groups in the country's segmented society and sometimes against large "development" projects or nuclearisation.

However, India, the land of Gandhi, has not yet witnessed a powerful peace movement against India’s own wars. Over the decades, though a number of small groups have tried to build peace with Pakistan, they have never been able to make any particular impact.

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Peace activists are usually branded as the "Wagah candle brigade" and often sneered at by politicians and commentators as woolly-headed cocktail circuit idealists. One of the main reasons for this has been that, unlike the west, India has not yet witnessed Army veterans and their families leading or taking part in anti-war activism.

In a recently published and widely discussed book, Fighting for Peace: Veterans and Military Families in the Anti-Iraq War Movement, Lisa Letiz has convincingly argued that, for former soldiers and military families, the relationship between the military and peace activism is not as dichotomous as we may imagine.

They can get powerful identities through the tactic of highlighting memories of their sacrifices and elicit emotional support from the wider public and increase support for the anti-war movement. The anti-war movement on the other hand makes use of "military" activists by making use of their sacrifice-based identities to demonstrate the scourge of violent conflict and to undermine pro-war rhetoric.

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There are many stories of successful anti-war activism by military family members in the west. Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a US army soldier Casey, led an anti-war vigil near the ranch of George W Bush in Crawford, Texas, and became the rallying point for peace activism in the country.

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Family members of British soldiers killed in Iraq even went on to set up a political party to electorally harm government ministers and contested against PM Tony Blair and his armed forces minister.

Sheila Fynes has taken the whole Canadian military establishment to task for several years now for the suicide of her Afghan veteran son, Stuart Langridge.

But India is yet to witness this trend of veterans and their families taking part in anti-war activism in the country. It is not that in India a large number of military personnel have not sacrificed their lives for the country and their families have not suffered.

Independent India in the last 70 years has fought four wars with Pakistan, one with China and one in Sri Lanka (in the name of peacemaking). Not only that, the country is continuously engaged in a low-intensity conflict with Pakistan. In 2016 alone, 23 Indian soldiers lost their lives due to ceasefire violations along the LoC in Kashmir. 

Moreover, India’s armed forces have been fighting violent internal conflicts in the North East and also in Maoist areas for decades now. In the last 10 years, India has not fought a single war officially, but has lost 2,625 security forces in various proxy wars.

However, all those who have themselves and/or their families have suffered the worst in these violent conflicts are yet to get a powerful voice to counter pseudo-patriotic war-mongering narratives.

In spite of huge sufferings from the scourge of war and curse of violent conflicts, India is yet to witness powerful anti-war activism. Unlike the west, the military families have not come out openly expressing their support for peace.

Anti-war activists in India had no Cindy Sheehan to rally around. Gurmehar, the daughter of a war hero, with her remarkable sacrifice and powerful voice brings new hope for the emergence of a potent peace movement, which India needs badly at this time.

In recent months, the Narendra Modi regime has been engaged in open parade of patriotism in the country and war hysteria is being artificially generated for political dividends. The patriotic fervour has reached a crescendo after the regime’s repeated overt politicisation of the Army’s reported "surgical strikes" inside Pakistan.

Given internal instability in the Pakistani side, the way Modi and his party colleagues have stirred up ultra-nationalist passion in the country, the two old adversaries could even go through another war against each other anytime.

A war between India and Pakistan will be the first ever direct war between two nuclear-armed states and holds a devastating prospect.

Hyper-patriotism in India has become the language of Hindutva forces. Besides being socially divisive and politically devious, the super-surcharged patriotic emotion is becoming developmentally destructive for the country.

Instead of focusing on provision of basic needs and services, the Modi regime is using the patriotism bogey to justify higher spending on buying foreign arms.

Unfortunately, there is a not a single powerful and credible voice in the country to talk against this mindless preparation for war. Most of the Indian media has become intoxicated with pseudo-patriotism and at the same time, opposition parties are fearful of taking on the regime over its war-histrionics as they can be swiftly branded by it as anti-national.

At this critical juncture, India needs a powerful peace movement, which will have popular acceptance and moral superiority to face the ultra-nationalist regime’s hyperbole. The support from war veterans and their close families will be an immense asset for anti-war activism by providing it the much needed credibility to raise their voice powerfully.

Though right-wing groups have viciously targeted Gurmehar for her anti-war voice, it is heartening to witness the almost unequivocal support and sympathy she has received from the ex-servicemen association and large number of war veterans.

This has raised the hope that Gurmehar’s plea for peace with Pakistan is likely to encourage other veterans and their family members to join the organised opposition against the Modi regime’s mindless pursuit of war for narrow political gain.

Last updated: March 06, 2017 | 12:37
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