If you think war is an unacceptable word, think about our war of words, a war of nerves, tug of war, or even all being fair in love and war, and you will agree that we are forever in some or the other war zone. Always. Big businesses in a turf war, political parties on the warpath during elections, adverts waging war on sensibilities, individuals at war with policies, flame wars on the social media, and writers forever declaring their personal war on procrastination are so much a part of the warpaint so intrinsically woven with our moments of peace. Aren’t we perpetually at war with procrastination, creativity blocks, conflicting ideas, and even unauthorized occupation by prejudices? War helps us deal with them. But then, yes, waging war to trouble humanity must be condemned. War is both a demon and an inspired uprising.
On September 1, 1939, when Hitler began his invasion of Poland, he justified it with a single word: Lebensraum (living space). He believed that with the population of Germany going up, the country needed more territory. China does this often and I am sure their leaders have an appropriate word in Chinese to prove to their citizen that it was essential to occupy Tibet or as they lay their claim on Aksai Chin (Aksayqin in Pinyin). The intended aggression of Russia on Ukraine may be cloaked in rhetoric with their communism vs democracy logic but is simply another synonym for a war on humanity. The world has not forgotten the incidents that led to the creation of Bangladesh where a genocidal warzone stretched between Urdu replacing Bangla as the official language of communication what was East Pakistan during that period. We are aware of the terrorism-imbued proxy war catalyzed by political instability in Pakistan. These and so many other wars that are and were, bloody conflict is ‘what happens when language fails,’ as Margaret Atwood puts it. Warring Generals justify their actions as causes worth dying for, and the world must necessarily intervene to remind them that John Steinbeck had once defined war as ‘a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.’ Even Sun Tzu writes that ‘the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’
Wars are not always about blazing guns and whizzing missiles. The current hijab vs uniform war waging in India has made even our esteemed judges huddle into their own form war of legal ideation. The truth is that concepts of freedom are perpetually at war with prevailing social, cultural, religious, and other norms. This kind of war is there in every country and precedents have shown that amendments happen as was obvious during apartheid in South Africa, slavery in America, and the independence of British, French, and other colonies. The paradox of amendments is that even they create new and unique forms of resistance over time and become the epicenter for yet another war. This is because warring regiments of both norms and thoughts evolve at a similar pace. Nothing to be afraid of because if this kind of war is absent, the march of humanity into a better future gets endangered. War on regressive ideas is acceptable but only when killing people is carefully kept out of such agendas.
The most ferocious wars that are being waged today are on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. The newest one doing rounds these days is an update that mentions the term ‘non-minority’ having replaced the word ‘Hindu’ in the Maharashtra Board Exam forms and a fact-check page on the web quotes Shakuntala Kale, chairperson of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education: ‘The purpose of the column is in line with requirements of the Central and state minorities department. Hence, the column lists minorities which are notified by the state government. For students who do not belong to those (categories), there is an option of non-minority.’ This simply tells us that most wars of words that encircle religious and cultural beliefs are initiated either because of ignorance or some strong political incentive. It is easy to go on and on about the way almost everyone in the world gets into heated exchanges of thoughtless spilling of virtual blood.
Does this mean that we are free to go ahead and fight our wars if that is what our information defines as correct? No, it is way more productive to not listen to political, religious, and cultural Czars thriving on the proliferation of misinformation. As far as I am concerned, my war is with my own inadequacies and reading more with an open mind is the weapon of my choice.
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Arvind Passey
24 February 2022
