The recent Violence and killing in Kashmir, the Violence that has erupted in Bangladesh has been creating a lot of churn and turmoil inside of me. There are attacks on Minorities, under various banners. Even as I watched hundreds of people, men, women, children dying, being maimed. I feel a thick bile rising inside my throat. It does not matter. People are killing people. I don’t watch news, but this has been somehow coming up. It’s as if my own body is on fire.
I personally know of friends in Kashmir and Bangladesh. And I have not been able to reach them. My god mother, , lives in Dhakka. I was telling this to a friend and he asked me in a genuine concerned voice, “Is she a Minority”.
I had to stop to think about this question. Is She a Minority – not is she IN a Minority. I did not realise it has become an Identity not just a statistic.
It she a minority, Am I a minority?
My mind went through a whirlwind…
To Answer this question I have to also identify with a “Context” – did he mean, religion wise, nationality wise, gender wise, specie wise – on what Axis did the Majority-Minority move?
And somehow the unsaid part of that question was, If she is then the Violence is a given. It is a kind of a Given somehow.. How come? I want to shout. But I just ask..why. Because this has been happening for hundreds of years. And somehow It made me angry and sad.
Just because it has been happening does not make it right. Or we would not have medicines, technology and millions of other things we have, to make life “comfortable”, better than how it was before. So why does this have to continue
My blood boils. And Heart burns, And hot tears run down.
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire
In one news report someone said they were very angry and offended that someone said something about their religion and therefore they did what they did..
Where does this end?? Does it?? Will it?? and then..where did it start, where does it start..I have many such questions inside of me
Some months ago, in my singing class, Radhika my teacher, decided to teach me a Nazm by Faiz Ahmed faiz, a revolutionary poet, “Bol ke lab azaad hai tere..” It was a poem written and sung during the time of freedom struggle. Faiz, also wrote on apartheid prevalent in South Africa and human rights violations in Palestine.
We were in the middle of the Israel Palestine war at that time and I was churning. I did not know anything about this poet, or any of this. But as soon as I sang, I had such a strong swell of pain that I broke down. And I sobbed uncontrollably. She held silence and she let me be.
The words of the poem say, “Speak Out – Your words are Free”. And I remember asking a stunned Radhika in anguish that was physical almost – Is it TRUE. Are our words free, are we free, even in our own country, in our own society, in our own homes? We are a “democracy” but are our words free? My mind said ‘Yes’ but my body and heart said NO.
We don’t need proof of this. And so we look the other way – shake our heads and move away – tsk tsk What can we do….
But the pain and grief prevails. I don’t think we can walk away from the Violence. It pervades not just our country and borders but also our homes and our psyches.
When boundaries are abused and lines are crossed.Violence happens.
As long as we continue to believe “Violence happens only out there – to those people – we are fooling ourselves.
Violence happens. Out there because it happens inhere.
In seemingly innocent ways. In interactions when views are not allowed to express. When voices get drowned by louder voices, by abusive words, by gas lighting, by not taking yes and no at face value, bY denying basic fundamental “rights”, by lies that are disguised, by information that is conveniently withheld, by issues that are categorically ignored, by uncalled for comparisons, by unjust accusations, by unfairness. Violence just keep happening and under the pretext of “Peace” keeps getting shoved under the carpet, sometimes of our minds and awareness.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” – Isaac Asimov, Foundation
We would rather not see it, because it is so painful. I am realizing it’s painful not because we don’t know- But because we do. We, atleast our bodies have always known. It is painful because sometimes our own people are doing it, and sometimes we are doing it.
And we know it and DON’T want know. We rather pretend.
When our voices rise our consciousness has already dropped.
Violence is not big or small. Wars are not right or wrong.
All this is too close to home.
My grandma was a Social activist. And I have seen many a conversation where it became clear to me that we have two ways of making decisions – Out of Conviction or out of Convenience. The decisions made with Convenience, were short lived and easier to implement – But the decision with Convictions they hurt in the short term but in the long term they always made sense – the difference was “Courage”
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
Years ago, I felt helpless, like I do now, I got trained in Deep Democracy.
Deep Democracy is a psycho-social-political paradigm and methodology. The term Deep Democracy was developed by Arny Mindell. Mindell, a physicist and Jungian Analyst had researched and written extensively on how awareness creates reality and how we perceive it on different levels, creating different frameworks of reality.
It is an attitude and process that focuses on the awareness of voices that are both central and marginal.
Unlike “classical” democracy, which focuses on majority rule, Deep Democracy suggests that all voices, states of awareness, and frameworks of reality are important.
Deep Democracy is a process of relationship, not a state-oriented still picture, or a set of policies.
Democracy—commonly defined as the free and equal right of every person to participate in a system of government, often practiced by electing representatives of the people—is generally said to have originated in Ancient Greece when the demos organized against their leaders’ abuse of power.
But democracy is more than a body of laws and procedures related to the sharing of power.
President Carter said that, “Democracy is like the experience of life itself—always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested for adversity” (Carter, 1978).
One of the Tenets of DD is the “Terrorist or Resistance Line”. When voices are not heard they don’t disappear, they keep going down into the unconscious and keep accumulation, and in someday, an innocuous “offence” over something triggers an avalanche or Violence. It is never a simple cause and effect.
It postulates, if we are able to see the “Signs” early on we can still do something.
The Resistance line shows up in the following way
It starts off as
- Sarcastic Jokes
- Excuses
- Gossips
- Communication breakdown
- Disruption
- Go – Slow
- Strike
- War
- Withdrawal
We have seen these. In our own lives. Nothings starts off as a War, it starts off as somebody not being listened to. Even as children. When voices are shut, an entire life is locked away. It starts at home. Parents don’t realise how much violence gets created over dinner table, in their house, when we shush, ridicule, shout or shut the child up. We shut a Man or Woman up for their life often. Or worse create “adults” who shut others off or perpetuate what was done to them.
And one day we see “Communal Violence” . If we see, really close the faces of the people on the streets with torches, I often wonder, which hate is this an expression for – what fires are already burning inside them?
“War is what happens when language fails.”
― Margaret Atwood
So, where did it start? But What can we do? I have often heard many of my friends ask, I can understand the overwhelm.
Perhaps here is what we can do. We don’t have to look that far. We have in our everyday life, violence going on. If we just look at our own intimate 4 relationships and check against the Nine point on the Resistance line we will know whether or not Violence is happening and at what levels has it reached
Perhaps we need to Let our voices break the silence. Maybe our words are free, our heart are not. And we each have a freedom fight of our own. Till we don’t fight the battles inside the outside war will continue. It is then the only act of compassion. To speak up to own our own Violence, to call out the bluff when we see it.
We are not fragments – we are fractal. What happens to one will happens to all. So we are killing and we are dying. And maybe it is time to start an Inner Revolution. Maybe we take Faiz’s advice and Speak up – Where it matters.
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