Yes, there's a war somewhere, but life goes on...

The day it started, we gasped in horror. What, is this actually happening? We followed the news, drone by drone, bomb by bomb, paying attention as if the war depended on it. Schoolchildren killed. Outrage. Global grief—yes, that is still possible. Leaders killed. Anger. Third party cities attacked—third parties are not neutral. This thing is spreading. Worry. Dismay at how my country is handling this. Yours. Ours. Sea-lanes imperilled, then effectively closed.

Our cooking gas supply is going to be disrupted. Do we have enough gas in the cylinder? Our neighbours had their replacement cylinder delivered as usual. Switch to induction. Shopshopshop. There is no problem. If you book at 1145, you will get your replacement at 130. It’s the magic muhurtam for gas.

A hospital named after one of our own. A university. A research institution. Smithereens now.

Never mind but will petrol prices go up? I had planned to go on a road-trip next week but what if I cannot get petrol on the way? I heard that everything depends on petrol imports—not just motor fuel and cooking gas but pharmaceuticals and plastics and all sorts of things. Electricity. Oh god, no electricity, no motor, no water. No lift!

They are also bombing a neighbour now. Oh, that country is like a lingering itch. They bomb them like a chorus in their campaigns. It’s a wonder anyone is still left there. Including those terrorists they always say they are chasing. But wars have a long, long life. Unlike civilians they kill. Unlike homes they destroy.

There is no problem. The government says so. The government is talking to everyone on the phone everyday. There is no problem. We are the most important country in the world. Everyone listens to our wise counsel. But then, why is that country, our alter ego, our nemesis, our enemy, being called to mediate? What matters is to be more important than they are, always.

More bombs. More sabre-rattling. More speeches. More challenges. More death. So much more death. Destruction of things it took ages to build. Homes people scrimped and saved for. Bridges and roads and power plants governments took loans for. The bridal dress grandmothers and aunts embroidered. Bookshelves groaning with a lifetime’s collection, so many still unread. And still they fought, and still the wonder grew that they could hold their own as smartly and bravely as they do. (Sorry, Oliver Goldsmith!).

It’s getting really hot now. So sultry. We are planning to go to the hills. With climate change, we really need to regulate working hours for those who do manual labour in the sun. Also, between induction stoves and air-conditioners, electricity bills will be so high. Rising temperatures are a public health problem. No one will come to work. No one is coming to work because they have no gas to cook their food and eat. People are going back to their villages because they cannot cook and eat. At least there, they can use traditional fuels. It’s like COVID-19 all over again. That’s what the government is saying. Forebear, like you did during COVID-19. Why did these countries have to go to war?

“The guns spell money’s ultimate reason.” Stephen Spender got this right. Those who benefit from war are innumerable. Those who think it makes them more important. Indispensable. Those who think it enhances their power. Those who sell those lies. Those who grow in the shadow of the liars. Those who make the things people fight with, and those are innumerable, from the bullets to the aircraft to the software that powers the drones. Those who have secrets to hide behind the wanton killing of children in school and people on the run and scientists in a lab and fruit-sellers in a marker.

What are going to do in the summer holidays? Some writing. Catch that blockbuster I missed. Visit my native place (I hope it’s not inconvenient for them because of the gas situation. I already bought my tickets in January.). Read some novels. Prepare for next year. Get my house painted. Get the terrace water-proofed.

They heard the sound of planes or drones. They were too afraid to look. The windows were sealed shut anyway. The lights were out. Or, they would be out if there was power supply. Bottles of jam and jars of sweet biscuits and dry fruit were running low as tensions ran high. They did not have long to speculate. One minute they were huddling together in the middle room of their home. In the next, a bomb had hit their terrace, torn through the roof and detonated in the centre of their huddle.

10 kilos rice. 2 kilos toor dal. 2 kilos moong dal. 1 kilo each chana and urad. 500 gms tamarind—if you buy too much, there are insects in it. This humidity is like that. 1 litre cooking oil. 500 gms ghee. Get some ketchup, please. And we are out of mustard seeds, turmeric, cinnamon. Get a couple of packets of batter. And good to have frozen parathas, just in case.

Flour and sugar. Sometimes milk powder. The children have not tasted fresh milk in months. The little ones have forgotten the taste. In twenty years, they will be mocked—those who survive this—for obesity and diabetes prevalence, forgetting who made it impossible to get eggs and greens and other nutrition. Those people, they will discuss in fine dining establishments that serve the cuisines of the decimated, have no idea about nutrition.

4 weeks. 6 weeks. 8 weeks. 12 months. Time passes quietly and swiftly when you stop paying attention to the callous, vicious destruction of people’s lives. Even when villains and heroes are visible, there is too much to do in our own days to think much about them. Hard to sustain anger or concern or even a passing interest when the drama of everyday life asks so much of us. Stop already with the bad news and the endless outrage. It’s irritating. It’s a downer. It’s embarrassing that you won’t stop. You can’t do anything. I can’t do anything. Change the channel. Deal with the problems at hand.

And yet, if no one looks, no one asks, no one is angry, no one cares, then those who start wars to indulge their need to be cruel simply get away with it. The juggernaut started in one place, moved to another, then another. It is a marvel that anyone has the will or capacity to stop it. Should one join the juggernaut or to reinforce the barricades in its path? Those who can dither, confident of their innate righteousness. They have stopped counting the lives that are lost. They have stopped noticing the war. This is just what happens in the world.

 

Dialogue is an all-weather bridge

I am mirroring here a post that has been brewing since May 20205 and that I just posted on another blog.

***

Impossible divide, imperative dialogue

This piece originated in online conversations with friends on both sides of the India-Pakistan border in May 2025. It took me months to write it—because it was personal, because it was challenging, because of the demands of everyday life. It is still not everything I would want it to be. Embracing its imperfections, I am posting it today as a reflection and a prayer for peace on International Day of Peace.

***

Months after hostilities were paused/ ceased, India and Pakistan remain tiptoed on a cliff’s edge. There is no peace.

There is no peace despite decades of official and non-official, public and back-channel, attempts to talk. Every single time we have got the most well-meaning Indians and Pakistanis into a room, over a few days of discussion, familiar lines appear between us. For Pakistanis, this line reads “Kashmir” and for Indians, it reads “terrorism.”

The Kashmir line

Pakistan’s initial national imagining was based on a vision that included Kashmir and the ideology behind this was the “Two Nation Theory”—an understanding of social relations in the region that saw Hindus and Muslims as two nations rather than religious communities. As each nation seeks statehood so that their peoples might be sovereign and self-governing, so must Hindus and Muslims. The Indian freedom movement—dominated by (upper class, upper caste) Hindus—was seen as essentially seeking a Hindu state, and the corollary was that Muslims—that is, Muslim-majority regions—must have their own. (This was a view shared by the Dravidian movement, incidentally, which has since found a way to live with and within the Indian state.)

For Indians, Muslim-majority Kashmir was made out to exemplify the refutation of the “Two Nation Theory.” If the Muslims of Kashmir were voting regularly and settling in other parts of India, they were said to be voting with their feet to be a part of the secular Indian state—meeting plebiscitary conditions. The flaw with this logic was of course, that successive elections in Kashmir were allegedly rigged and elected governments were overthrown by the central government through constitutional interventions. This is often listed as the cause for the insurgent movements in Kashmir since 1989. Furthermore, the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 removed any semblance of regional autonomy, forcing the integration of a special status accession into the Indian/Hindu mainstream. 

Many now recognise that there are three points of view that should be represented at any Kashmiri peace table—Indian, Pakistani and most essentially, Kashmiri— but this is still far from a mainstream position. In Pakistan, the assumption is that the Pakistani and Kashmiri positions are the same, and in India, it is that the Kashmiri position must be subsumed within an Indian one. For Pakistan, there is only one negotiation on Kashmir, and that is a bilateral, inter-state negotiation. For India, there is only one negotiation and that is an internal negotiation which, depending on your politics, is either a multi-stakeholder dialogue or an internal security problem. What Kashmiris think is rarely considered, and if it is brought up, the question becomes: who will legitimately speak for (which) Kashmiris.

In almost eight decades, we have not built a road between these perspectives on “Kashmir.”

The terrorism line

For Indians, Kashmir is not the main issue between India and Pakistan. The main issue is “cross-border terrorism.” In the Home Ministry’s annual report to Parliament, four types of internal security threats are described, each as confined to one geographic region. One of these is “cross-border terrorism in Kashmir.”

For decades, the government of India has squarely accused the Pakistani government, specifically the Army and intelligence services, of fuelling, funding, training and supporting logistically, militant operations in Kashmir. In a political culture where foreign policy is securitised, information is relatively scarce and any discussions are opaque. Furthermore, the public is inclined to believe the government. After the 2008 Mumbai attack which played out live on television screens, this inclination has taken further root. The government of that time chose the diplomatic route, presenting dossiers of evidence to the Pakistani side. In multiple attacks since then, it has become easier for the Indian public to believe in the Pakistani ‘hand.’ In April-May 2025, it was not just hawkish politicians who were speaking about Pakistani support for cross-border infiltration and violent activity by militants, it was also those otherwise critical of Indian government policy and actions.

Like their Indian counterparts, Pakistani leaders make belligerent statements from time to time, primarily intended for a domestic audience, and these statements reinforce the Indian public’s faith in Indian government statements. The Indian government contends that as long as Pakistan supports cross-border terror, it is not possible to hold any talks. (In any case, in the Indian view, Pakistan has no locus standi on the question of Kashmir which it insists is an internal problem.)

Pakistanis point out, rightly, that they have also been victims of terrorist attacks, asking, “How can you accuse us of supporting terrorists when they are also attacking us?” This is correct. It is true that since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistanis have experienced countless small and large attacks by armed groups. Pakistan has also lost its leaders to violence by militant groups. In addition, people in their border areas have been caught in the cross-fire of others’ wars with drone attacks in civilian areas. It is true that the Pakistani public has been a victim, as much as the Indian public has.

However, the Indian accusation pertains not to the people of Pakistan but to the Pakistani military. Even if the civilian rulers of Pakistan are unaware and unable to stop them, this accusation makes them complicit. Given that neither ordinary Pakistanis nor ordinary Indians are privy to “proof” and we both live in a time of obfuscation and disinformation, we are left to choose, purely emotionally, what we want to believe. Or, at best, with several questions and no hope of finding definitive answers.

I struggle with this question of terrorism for many reasons. Even a lifetime of scepticism about government claims leaves me wondering about these accusations. Can there be smoke without fire, one wonders? The accusations of interference through support for insurgents are made on both sides—Pakistanis supporting Kashmiri groups (or now, supporting groups that are affiliated to transnational networks but operating in Kashmir and elsewhere in India) and Indians supporting Baloch groups.

All states survive through the use not just of force within and without, but a host of covert activities—espionage, surveillance, political interference—that each considers its legitimate right to security. Transparency is inimical to the success of these activities so we know but we never have proof. Those who challenge the idea that such activities are essential are dismissed as naïve and those who demand accountability for them are branded treacherous. Citizens learn to survive through silence and therefore, tacit consent for such undertakings. Thickening smoke and smouldering fire obscure thinking.

Can we cross these lines to sit and talk?

For peace activists, this is a very challenging situation.

Talking—via official and unofficial talks, through confidence-building dialogue—is an expression of faith. You cannot speak with someone you demonise (and until you speak with them, you will demonise them!). Statements by Pakistani civilian and military leaders (such as this one and this one) that anticipate and affirm a long-term “enmity” with India reinforce Indian accusations. But the rhetoric of Indian leaders too, is now intemperate—sometimes in the tone of streetside gang war–and my friends on the other side of the border must have exactly the same questions.

Every time the two governments descend into the cesspit of mutual vilification, it is harder for ordinary people to make the simple point that they would like to hear the other side’s story. In informal gatherings—such as university campuses outside the region or third-party convenings on other matters—Indians and Pakistanis may bond over a host of questions and they may even have one-on-one conversations that cross these lines. However, the official vilification works as a taboo, imposing a cost on those who will publicly push it aside and ask for talks. For most, the prospect of being accused of betraying our countries simply by asking questions or seeking to learn is an impossible cost to bear.

Working on peace means you cannot work on partial truths. Even if Pakistani agencies are supporting violent activities across the border in India, that is one part of the truth. There is also the Indian state’s culpability in creating conditions that facilitate such activity, most notably through rigged elections and interference in the functioning of governments. Making Kashmir a symbol of something in the idea of India has made Kashmiris mere instruments of geopolitics. Dialogue depends on listening to and acknowledging all these truths which must coexist in our heads and collective conscience, even as they coexist in reality.

But the absence of transparency in the security sector means that on both sides, we are dependent on a state that says “Trust us” but we really can’t. Whose information will we then trust? Who is telling us the truth? What is truth and what is the truth in this situation and what is each person’s truth? Whose truth matters more? Dialogue for peace involves finding a way through all this, but that is easier said than done.

The murky adage, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” lends to violence a romantic and hopeful glow it does not deserve. When Indians raise the question of cross-border terrorism, the answer cannot be, “But they are fighting for freedom, do you not see that?” It has to be, “This method is wrong and whoever is endorsing and supporting it, is wrong too.” Yes, a non-violent fight against a militarised state seems hopeless, but attacks like Pahalgam (and the Indian Parliament attack in 2001, Sarojini Nagar bombing in 2005 and the 26/11 Mumbai attack, to list a few) just diminish the legitimacy of whatever cause is being espoused. The suspicion that they are being backed by a state makes the cause too seem spurious. I would even say it obfuscates the original cause almost entirely.

When I raise the issue of arbitrary violence, regardless of the perpetrator, such violence is wrong. It cannot be perceived as correct in one circumstance and as wrong in another. When the Indian state absolves the lynching of minority citizens by ignoring it and focusing attention on irrelevant detail (“were they really eating beef?” or “what is the real meaning of this social media post?”), it is also wrong. When the state enables violence against the citizens of another country, it is wrong. The wrongness of violence is the one thing that is crystal clear and unchanging.

Dialogue despite the dividing lines

To reach this clarity, it is important that we are able to sit and listen fully and openly to each other’s accusations. We need to be able to sit and listen to each other without flinching and jumping up defensively. It is not necessary to counter each statement with contestation (“you are wrong”) or contingency (“but…”). Just as we place our weapons outside the door of the negotiating room, we must place all our issues—offensive, bleeding, spurious, inflammatory, as they may seem to us—on the table. That airing is a prerequisite for peace.

This is why dialogue, at multiple levels, is important. We cannot stop talking, no matter what. And if symbolically, official dialogue stops, it is imperative that other tracks continue to communicate. The maintenance of bridges becomes even more critical in bad weather.

Two kinds of behaviour further challenge the process of dialogue. The first is the pressure to perform. There are invisible models of how to be—what a true peace-lover would say, or the correct line for a “progressive,” or expressions of genuine patriotism—that lurk within and without us, making it hard for us to open our hearts and minds to learn and reflect and grow. Conformity and performance are easy and we make it hard for each other to remain true to the messiness of inner transformation which is the hallmark of peace-making. The work of peace is the work of inner transformation leading to outer change. It is the work of the satyagrahi—a person whose integrity and values are strong, who is not easily swayed by emotion or passion and who has the discipline to do what is right.

The second is the insistence on perfect consonance. When the expectation in a room is that everyone will agree to exactly the same things, dialogue is doomed. It used to be the habit that when one bought or stitched clothes for a growing child, one added room for alterations that would accommodate their growth. Similarly, peace processes, both official and non-official, must build in rooms for disagreement and dissent so that one departure, one edit suggestion or one question cannot derail the broader work. Language matters but semantics must not sideline what we need to say to each other. We must embrace the idea that talking peace takes time and this is because we need to be willing to pause, listen, reflect and either shift our “text” or find a space for the difference of opinion without stopping the process altogether. We are building peace, not a house of cards.

I want to talk peace. All summer, I struggled with this practical, political question–how can we bring Kashmir and cross-border terrorism into one dialogue, where raising one question is not to deny the validity of the other concern. I want a cessation of the violence that only hurts the innocent. I dream of a time when militarised borders will not divide peoples who share so much. I wonder what it means to celebrate our nation-state collectives, if we are not free from this legacy of carefully nurtured mutual enmity, so that we can actually nurture our own talents and enjoy the rewards of our daily labour, without fear or want. To be free, truly free, we must open our hearts and minds and speak freely with each other. We must be at peace.

Finding Words for Peace in a Season of War

 And so it has happened.

***

The terrorist attack targeting tourists in Pahalgam lifted the curtain on an eager chorus ready with war cries. Night after night in television studios and on location, they told us about the perfidy of the other side and whipped themselves into a vengeful frenzy, hoping that we would join them. They shouted so every household in the nation could hear them.

Beyond them, an enigmatic government escalated diplomatic measures, such as suspending the Indus Waters Treaty and cancelling visas, and spoke about giving the armed forces operational freedom.

***

Those of us that have spent our lives talking about peace and working towards it, one small task at a time, have watched in horror. We have preached to the choir of our friends and associates—because that is the extent of our reach. We have sat with our words because we have nowhere to put them. Our voices reach no one. We have reflected on how much agency and voice we have lost in the last decade or so. The sense of futility has equalled the horror felt as war-mongering voices have become louder.

***

On April 30, 2025, I wrote on Facebook:

Terror, or indeed any violence, by any actor, state or non-state, is wrong and its consequences are always tragic. The tragedy begins with its immediate victims, lingers in the vengeful anger we feed as we perform outrage and finally, decimates our own humanity--our ability to feel for others and our ability to think.

We can close the door on this by pausing. Feel deeply, but do not equate grief and solidarity with vengeance. Perform grief with care--for those directly hurt, for those indirectly affected. Perform care with thoughtfulness--that considers consequences, that considers who will pay the cost of what you demand, that considers the means more important than the ends.

Responding to violence with violence is always wrong. It always feels like it's now too late for pause, for patience or for dialogue, but it never is. When the chorus mounts, peace seems to be the talk of the weak and witless. But it is when the crisis is most acute that it is time to breathe. It is time to maintain balance. Rising vengefulness is a sign that one is becoming the other, or more truthfully, a sign that one IS the other.

At a time when I feel less confident in my agency as a citizen, I am writing this because my silence would be my failure.

It is Akshaya Tritiyai and I wish you peace. May peace abound--in our thoughts, in our lives and in the world!

***

Today, Indian cities will carry out civil defence drills with air raid sirens and sheltering. For people my age and older, this is reminiscent immediately of 1971.

We shifted school buildings, had two drills a day, ducked under tables, had blackout paper on our windows.

One evening, my father stepped out just before the air raid signal went out. He was on the road when there was a fly-by of Pakistani aircraft. We ran from our flat to our neighbours’ flat to shelter together with them—my great-grandmother, my cousin, my mother, my 1-year-old sister and I. My paternal grandmother came to stay in the middle of the fortnight long war and told us stories to keep us occupied during the blackout.

But nothing ever removed for me the memory of loss. I went to a school where students and teachers alike came from military households. Twice or thrice a day, we would hear announcements about fathers and husbands who had fallen. Those moments of silence remain with me today. They keep me here, writing, so there is no silence about war.

***

These disjointed pieces of writing are what I can manage today, like stuffing paper into the cracks in a crumbling wall, hoping to keep the wind and water out. Not doing even this is worse than its pointlessness.

***

When civilians glorify the military and the sacrifices of those who serve, they also do them a disservice. There is always glory in doing what you have assumed as your duty and there is satisfaction in doing what you think is right. However, when those of us who do not serve, stop at vacuous praise and romanticising militarism, we also abdicate our duty as the people they defend. It is their job to defend and protect. It is our job to protect them by practising restraint, by resisting the temptation to join a vengeful chorus, by holding our leaders accountable for trying every measure and by making sure, their blood is not shed in order to satisfy our egos. The military’s job is to protect us and it is our job to protect them from our own vengeful bloodlust or our leaders’ egotistical vision. Military options should be the last option. The very last option.

In security decision-making, there is little transparency and therefore, there is no accountability. Are we sure that every other option has been exercised?

Most important, have we insisted that every other option has been tried?

***

The problem with terrorism is that it tempts you to insist that only a violent response will satisfy. The truth is we have no patience for the alternative—which short-term may be to press on diplomatically and long-term to understand the appeal it holds. We are also defenceless against those who will goad us into demanding violent reprisal. That chorus is so loud that it sounds like a universal demand. For governments, a violent response is an easy simulation of action—someone else carries it out and pays and you get to say you did this. But nothing really changes.

The fog of war distorts our knowledge about what is going on. Who struck whom? Did they actually hit their targets? Did they hit something else? Were they felled or did they make it back? Very quickly we do not know. And we do not ask because asking is not allowed in times of war (and let’s face it, now also in times of no-war).

The fog of war also obfuscates our real reasons and agendas. Everywhere.

The real impact of this surreal time is on people. Soldiers who die. Families on the border. Families of soldiers. What looks glorious and glamorous at a safe distance is actually a lifetime of grief (mixed with pride for military families), displacement, disruption, disability and a struggle for those at the epicentre.

I am not belittling this sacrifice. I am questioning why we let it happen if there is even a chance it could be avoided.

***

Even when there is no war, life in the border areas is war-like. Over the years, we have seen and read countless reports of schoolchildren playing cricket and landing on mines. We have heard about the military presence in small towns, taking over schools or subjecting people to searches. And yes, there is always a justification for all this.

But really, honestly, truly, is there?

***

I live two lives that are apparently incompatible.

I am a peacenik, peace activist (whatever activist means), pacifist, peace educator—one of those people—you pick your word. In a small measure, this is because even in everyday life, I hate shouting and confrontation. Everyone should just get along and leave me alone. In a large measure, this is because I cannot separate violence and conflict and war from their dehumanising and cruel consequences. This is what is foremost in my eyes. This is who I have always been.

I am also a security studies scholar. This means my professional credibility depends on being and sounding like a peer group of (mostly) men--some of them my friends--who sit in suits, know everything (and everyone) and having spoken of all they know, are convinced of the rationale for war. Decisive action, forceful responses, cool reasoning, realist thinking—all of which add up to understanding and justifying the exercise of coercive power. It takes a generous and confident display of testosterone-driven aggression. 

I came to this field because I wanted to be a more effective advocate for peace. I respect my colleagues for how much they know and for their integrity in speaking their minds. But their conclusions have never become my truth.

***

There is a gender dimension to war. It should be obvious but I will state the obvious here.

Those who were shot in Pahalgam were men. Those who shot them were men. Those who shouted in the TV studios were mostly men. Those who sat in those televised but secret official meetings were mostly men. Those whose op-eds got media space were mostly men spelling out the arguments for a ‘forceful response’ and the very few voices I read calling for restraint were mostly those of women. Those who led the diplomatic effort and pronounced it successful (but still not successful enough to prevent war) were mostly men. Those soldiers who will die in the fighting between the two countries will mostly be men.

Those who were bereaved in Pahalgam were women. Those who are displaced or left behind by war are mostly women and children. Those who are rarely seen as experts or asked about what they think are these women who must live and rebuild their lives after men have decided.

Those who are invisible in all of this are sexual minorities and non-binary persons. They don’t even exist and therefore, need neither consideration nor voice nor protection.

***

On another note, in every ‘ordinary person’ interview on TV, that person has asked for peace and normalcy. Returning to the studio, this has strangely transformed into a rationale for calling for war. Anchors have pranced about exultantly and triumphantly telling us about how we have diminished our neighbour and frightened them and created anxiety.

***

It is in times of crisis that one must stop and breathe and wait. This is the advice one gets for one’s personal life. Don’t make big decisions in times of trauma. This should apply even more to nation-states because the stakes are so much higher. But it does not.

***

Air strikes have already happened and spin has already obfuscated fact. This writing is too little, too late and I know that hardly anyone will read it. But write, I must. When we are all dust and ashes, and perhaps, atomic waste, somewhere in the universe, someone will know—she did what she knew. 

On Citizens, Squirrels, Democracy and Peace

2023 is almost over and ‘best of…’ lists and articles about new year’s resolutions are everywhere. The impulse is to comment on the speedy flight of time but what a year this has been and how much more unbearable had it floated by at the pace of childhood summers.

This moment has seemed even more apocalyptic since December 2019’s advent of the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic; the global democratic deficit; pushback on equality; shrinking freedom and rights; obscene, expanding socio-economic inequality; ever-more frequent climate change disasters and shameless, heartless violence and war together make this moment hell on earth. It is easy to believe that we do indeed live in the last era of the yuga cycle that is traditionally characterized by moral turpitude and decline.

I speak, write and teach about citizenship and agency. I tell people that they are citizens. They must take responsibility. They must act in whichever ways they can. In my international relations class, my not-so-secret agenda is global citizenship—be cosmopolitan, care about others, our lives are interconnected.

At the end of 2023, my spirit feels like stale poha—beaten, lifeless and beyond rescue.

How can I preach pro-active citizenship when I myself am at a loss? I do not think anything I do makes a difference. Who reads what I write? (To be fair, that gives me a little room to write more honestly!) There may be other things, more things, bigger things I should do but I cannot escape my day to do them (and the teaching of the Gita stays with me—do your own duty first). The world around me is a political nightmare and I too self-censor because, like many, many others, I have to choose my risks.

Many years ago, I wrote an article about getting through hard political times. But these times feel so much direr.

My own daily constraints contribute to my dispirited despair. I read at random because I cannot sequester myself to read deeply any more. I write all the time but bits and pieces of no consequence—organisational content, social media posts, administrative email, class materials—not even many personal letters any more. I cannot write academically, faking a neutral standpoint, nor journalistically, as if I do not take the mess in the world personally. Writing in a blog and not writing are the same. Who reads? And who reads older women (of colour) writing from peripheral locations anyway? (Maybe some do, but since we will never be worthy of a citation or a share, we will never find out!) Moreover, it turns out that because I am not a great fundraiser, I am not very good at social sector work and in these years, will preside over the slow demise of something I birthed and nurtured.

I am so deeply grateful for teaching. It seems to be the one somewhat useful public sphere work I can still do.

But is that all? Is that all, the citizenship preacher in me despairs?

I wanted to write this because writing is the rat-mining of my brain. I can feel my way to the openings and possibilities I do not know exist. In that spirit, I make myself a list to explore. (Will any of this matter? I cannot tell. But if I do not try, I will have failed in my duty to myself and to the world around.)

So, what am I capable of doing?

·         I can learn. I can read more, more, more—widely and deeply—and process that information in useful ways.

·         I can communicate; this may be my core skill. I can write—it’s not my job to think about who will read—to make some of what I learn accessible to others. I can explore the new media and tools for communication that are out there and learn to use them for the common good. (No, no, not another podcast!)

·         I can teach, with all my heart. Teaching usefully brings together my ability to learn and my ability to communicate and it enables others to realise their own citizenship. I am now privileged to teach in formal classrooms but there are lots of other places where teaching and learning happen as well, including everyday conversations.

·         I can work with, join, amplify or support other individuals, organisations or networks working for change. I am not alone and it is important to remember that.

·         I can find, clear, create and hold space for others to talk, to share and to connect with each other.

I read that in 2024, half the world will go to the polls to elect their governments. Going by the last few years, we cannot take for granted that either  the process or the outcome will be democratic or good for democracy. We cannot take for granted any more that most people support ideals like “social justice” or “gender equality” or “unity in diversity”—and as I write this, the words seem ridiculously outdated. We cannot assume that today’s wars, conflicts or genocides will stop because those who have the power do not have the will to stop them and those who would stop them (like me) have neither power nor voice.

As this year ends, I feel like I am living a nightmare. I am being chased and running hard but never moving. Exam questions are being distributed but I have forgotten the exam or forgotten how to write. I need the toilet but there are none or there are no walls around the commode. I am outside, night has fallen, public transport has vanished and only the ghouls, dead and alive, remain, and I cannot walk home fast enough. My hands hold a long-awaited letter whose text disappears as I read and I cannot read past the salutation sentences. I am trapped, desperate, helpless, angry and grieving more than I thought possible.

As my country sets aside life-and-death concerns to debate RSVPs to a temple’s consecration, I take heart from a story in that very deity’s life. I can be the squirrel who diligently, tirelessly ferries one pebble at a time to construct a sea-bridge. My lifetime’s little efforts may not matter in themselves but my failure to contribute them will matter to me. More than a resolution for 2024, this is an imperative.  

Because the stories we tell define us

The title of this post is taken from the title of Nayomi Munaweera's introductory piece in the third volume of the Write to Reconcile series.

***

Last month, I stopped by the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka's office and my eyes fell on a stack of brightly coloured books, intriguingly titled 'Write to Reconcile.'

It was the last of three volumes produced by a creative writing project conceptualised and led by Shyam Selvadurai along with Nayomi Munaweera, Ameena Husain, Amrita Pieris and Shiromi Pieris. The project was housed at NPC, which is how the books came to be there. 

Young writers applied to be part of the project, which brought them together to listen to speakers and took them around the island on field visits. They posted story ideas and stories, which were discussed in two online fora. One story by each writer was selected for inclusion in these volumes. The point was for the writers to deepen their understanding of the war experience, especially from perspectives outside of their own. Three batches of writers were convened, each making up one of the volumes.

Stories in the first volume focus on the war experience. They are set in Colombo and Jaffna, for the most part. In the second volume, the stories are largely set in the Eastern Province, where the population has been ethnically mixed for a long time. The last volume allows us to see the present post-war moment from the outside-in. A professional editor or literature professor might find the writing quality uneven, but it is hard not to be moved by the stories, and the intensity of feeling that most of them capture. 

It took me six weeks to steal the time between this pressing task and that urgent demand to finish reading the three volumes of 20-25 stories each. While it is hard for me now to look back and pick favourites from which to quote, I will never forget the voices and images with which they have left me. 

A family fleeing their home as the war crept in on them, leaving behind a patriarch who would not budge. An encounter with a soldier at a well in a desolate village. The towering statue of Shiva over a beach where two friends played, who were to be separated because of inter-ethnic quarrels around the temple. Sisters weeping for brothers. Sisters volunteering to fight to spare brothers. Brothers living in the shadow of war heroes. Lost homes, surviving only in memory. Memories so unreal they become fiction. People across the island, across ethnicities, search for and wait for their loved ones to return. Most moving, these images are created by people who have not lived the experiences for the most part. Such empathy, so creatively expressed! 

Let me dip in at random and share some words from here and there:

Nayomi Munaweera, writing about her family home: "The year the war ended, the Tamil Family who had occupied our house for about three decades left it and the house was ours again. In a casual conversation with a cousin I discovered that the Tamil family was from Jaffna. They had been forced out from their own ancestral lands and houses by war. They had taken our house because their own had been taken by the Tigers. Their misfortune had become ours." (Volume 1, page 11)

Shan Dissanayake describes a father sheltering in one trench with his daughter, wondering where his wife is and whether she has survived the bombing: "Siva's thoughts turned to his wife and now he couldn't refrain from softly sobbing. Was she one of those bodies in that other trench? The thought was unbearable... He felt his daughter move in his arms. They had to get away before it was their trench's turn." (Volume 1, page 52)

Shailendree Wickrama Adittiya: "The days grew more silent. Not the silence during the war when lights were switched off early and people spoke cautiously to each other, not knowing whom to trust. This new silence was of the kind where one small movement could shatter the peace." (Volume 1, page 91)

In Nifraz Rifaz's story in the first volume, a young Muslim man who polishes jewelry for a living, is picked up by three men in a van, because he writes a letter for his English class assignment. The letter is addressed to Prabhakaran. For this, he is brutalised, even before they read the whole letter, which ends: "Mr. Prabhakaran, is this war that we are fighting really worthwhile? One day when we die it's just the grave that will shelter us. And it's just a very small space. Isn't it?" (page 117)

In Vindhya Buthpitiya's story, a father and daughter bring home the ashes of her mother, into a Jaffna that her sister died to liberate. "Homeland rings hollow in my ears, like the carcass of this house. An overwhelming sadness washes over the anger I cultivated in these years of exile and I allow myself to cry. I think of Juderaj's spirited sermons abruptly rendered meaningless in the face of everything we have surrendered and everyone we have sacrificed." (Volume 1, page 199)

There are poems in these volumes too. Kandiah Shrikarunaakaran describes life during the fighting years and the long processions of the displaced leaving their homes. 

"Electricity cut off,
life now aligned with the sun's cycle,
we turned pre-historic.
Kuppi lamp with scant kerosene
resisted the night feebly,
every spit of light weak
against the howling wind.
These lamps flickered and dangled
marking our scramble backwards in history." (Volume 2, page 57)

"Lorries, buses, carts, disoriented crowds,
jammed, unmoving, rooted,
no one sure where to go,
which way to travel to safety.
Salty water brimming the road on either side,
failed to quench our thirst.
Impatient, sleepless, sunburnt,
our tears of anguish turned
the salty water saltier." (Volume 2, page 59)

Deborah Xavier writes about two people haunted by one incident in 1983: A bus load of people heads out in search of shelter amid the riots. They include a pregnant woman and a woman with a baby. The bus is stopped, and attacked by armed thugs. One of them throws the baby to the ground and kills the mother. (Volume 2, pages 159-167)

There are stories of hope too. In Easwarajanani Karunailingam's story, a Sinhalese ex-soldier moves to Kilinochchi in order to help rebuild the town, and ends up adopting an orphaned Tamil child. The story describes the distress of the resettlement process. (Volume 2, pages 198-207)

The war hero in Ruhini Katugaha's story tells his little brother, a doctor, "Ethnicity is what we choose to put on ... not something we get from our father's surname. The war is never going to be over little brother, if we think like that. When we are done with this war, we'll find something else to fight over and then something else." (Volume 2, page 262)

Krishanth Manokaran describes the homecoming of a grandfather and granddaughter. There is joy and love but also the memory of unnecessary death. "Krishnan had taken his motorbike to drive Sugi to the market and gunfire had broken out on the A9. Who fired first they didn't know. The army blamed the boys. The boys blamed the army. What solace did that give to a father?" (Volume 3, page 27)

In Adilah Ismail's story, a court clerk's memories of her own rape at the hands of a soldier are triggered by the hearing of a gang rape case. We also meet the judge, stepping out for a cigarette break and reflecting on what it would mean to find the accused guilty--would his evening walks "contain a frisson of fear and a wariness of strangers"? (Volume 3, page 105)

Volume 3 includes a story that imagines life in a free Eelam, with trade blockades from Sri Lanka causing acute food shortages. People run blackmarket stores and as the one he is visiting is raided, the protagonist hides: "Calming his breathing his mind did a strange thing to him then' he was once again back on that beach in Mullivaikal. He could hear the screams of injured thousands ringing in his ears. He remembered how the salt of the Nandikadal lagoon bit into the raw wounds across his legs and arms. He did not feel regret then or now, only a bone-deep weariness that this life of his had been lived with so much struggle." (A.A., page 167)

The quotations I have selected are merely an indicator of the riches in these three volumes. The books have been printed as part of the project but they are not widely distributed, I think, and that is a pity. I would hope that a publisher would at least publish a selection that could be available in stores, not just in Sri Lanka but across the region. 

Understanding the human impact of conflict is not just important in places where there has been conflict but also in places where are readier every day to escalate the level of violence in ordinary interactions. We are touchy and we are quick to anger. We do not learn history so in any case, we know none to remember. We raise statues for those who teach compassion but show no mercy for the infractions and imperfections of others, even when they are imagined. These heartbreaking stories must be widely shared so that we all learn how fragile our lives are, how precious our dreams (and this world) and how vital to our survival are values like cooperation, reconciliation and forgiveness. 

You can access the anthologies here:

Write to Reconcile Volume I

Write to Reconcile Volume II

Write to Reconcile Volume III

***

I want to close with a poem I loved, although it is really not about the war. I think it would resonate with anyone who has used boxes of paints or crayons with European names--prussian blue, for instance. How am I supposed to know what that means? (From Volume 3, pages 94-95)

Crayola Eyeseby Sukhee Ramawickrama

From childhood,
my Crayola-trained American eyes
recognise
Cherry Red
Royal Purple
Robin's-Egg Blue
Peachy Pink.

But here there is
Train Ticket Lavender,
Thambili Orange,
Milk-Tea Brown
which is creamier than
Spicy Pahe Brown.

Paddy Field Green is a favorite,
as is Floor Polish Red.
Poya Day White
 a shade crisper than
Jasmine White.

Indian Ocean Turquoise
endless, shimmering.
But nothing is brighter
than Little-Boy-School-Shorts Blue.

How can I begin to understand,
How can I allow myself to write,
When I am just starting
to truly see colour? 

Mea culpa: I too have eaten dinner with Pakistanis

For over a week now, my conscience has been pushing me to write this mea culpa, for I too, have eaten dinner with Pakistanis. Yes, those same Pakistanis that Indian social media insists can never be innocent or trustworthy. Alas, I too am anti-national.

I have not just had dinner with Pakistanis, I have had breakfast, lunch, mid-morning coffee, afternoon tea, anytimeisteatime chai and late night green tea with them. And also, ice cream. I won't apologise, but I do confess.

The first Pakistanis I got to know, although they then were too far away to share any meal, were my Pakistani brother and his family. I did not eat with them until 1985, but I did send the occasional rakhi across the border. In 1985, I visited my brother on his American campus, and stayed with his cousin sister who, as a very hospitable South Asian, fed me. I also ate with him and his many Pakistani friends--dal chaval and pizza, as I recall. But all that was in the US, so it may not count.

In the meanwhile, my uncle visited Ajmer Sharif and came to Bombay just to meet my parents. I was not there but I believe he did not eat anything at our home. This is a terrible thing in South Asian culture, as you know. He did not eat. But many years later, when I visited their home, I ate many meals--lunch, tea, dinner--all specially planned for the visiting vegetarian daughter. A treasured memory remains sitting at the dining table, enjoying delicious apples from Pakistani Kashmir. The apples were sweeter for the affection with which they were chosen for me.

Long before that, my only other South Asian classmate in my MA International Relations course was a Pakistani woman about ten years older than me. She and her husband were both lecturers in Political Science in Pakistan and had come to study in the US. They were shocked (him, especially) that my parents had sent me alone to the US at 20, and adopted me. I ate at their home regularly--yes, usually dinner--when my classmate would cook sabzi separately for me, and feed me dal, subzi and roti early with her two little kids. In her eyes, I think I was not much older! They would make sure I ate--and what did they have that they shared so generously, she was a student and he had a campus job, and they had a relative staying with them too--and then one of them would walk me to the bus stop and make sure I got back to my dorm. They were family. But I am told now, they could not be trusted. So maybe there was arsenic in the delicious firni I ate in their house that I miraculously survived?

You might say, these are 'ordinary' people but it is the security-diplomatic gang one should be leery of. Perhaps. Perhaps.

You see, I have eaten dinner with them as well. Many of the people whose op-eds you read and that you watch on hydra-headed TV discussions are people who were in non-official track, confidence-building programmes with me in the early 1990s. We stayed together for weeks, and ate together, and talked all night, and much more... and confidence was built. And friendships that will last a lifetime. Friendships between people who shared similar experiences, across borders, with sometimes contradictory perspectives--but friendships, anyway.

And the women peace activists I work with now, who have gone from strangers to friends to sisters, who know what sorts of bangles I like and that I want to have a blog about fabric and embroidery someday using photographs of their clothes. The alliances made when eyes meet over shared hurt--one complains, the other consoles, without words. And yes, I am so sorry, many meals have been shared with these terrific women--and a regional buffet of munchies fuels our meetings, where chilgoza meets murukku.

And many other meals all over the world with friends and professional colleagues from the Pakistani side of the border.

I forgot to tell you about the Pakistani fellow-intern from Karachi whose 1971 memories were a mirror-image of mine. But I don't think we ate dinner together, so it doesn't matter.

I meant to write a detailed, chapter and verse confession, but I realise there have been too many meals in over half a century to list here. Also, too many deep and too many silly conversations. Too many books and too many mixed tapes. Too much tea and too much laughter. Tears too, when I first moved to a city where I (still) have few friends, but I could call Islamabad on my cell-phone and share my transition travails with close friends. Too much silliness over international calls made just to get instructions on how to receive faxes on a home printer. Too much water under this friendship bridge.

Mea culpa, even though I do not understand how warmth, love and friendship can ever be anti-national.

Do you think that sharing salt and bread build mutual obligations that keep us from hurting each other? Isn't that a good thing? Isn't that why breaking bread together is a part of spiritual practice? Not eating together preserves the walls between us; Indians have used that as a way of maintaining caste difference over thousands of years.

Do you think that hearing each other's stories reminds us of how similar our struggles are, making it hard to demonise each other? Isn't that a good thing? Is it not a good thing that we get to know each other's frailties from a place of care than of enmity? That we can protect each other?

Isn't communication--over dinner or tea--especially important when you disagree? And a good friendship is not one in which you agree all the time or that you follow slavishly, but where there is enough honesty not to fake all that and enough respect to give each other space to be quite different--but not so much that a helping hand cannot reach.

All my life, I have thought these were good things, and that building the personal ties that keep us from mutually destructive policies was a fabulous idea. I still do. Mea culpa, for that too.

Let me close by sharing with you something a Bangladeshi diplomat said to me during an interview in 1985. I was being clever and asking how he defined South Asia. His brilliant reply: "South Asia stops when you go to someone's house, and the food no longer tastes like home." My South Asian home has many rooms, each quite self-sufficient and separate, but our dining tables merge under the force of that common civilisational instinct to stuff people's stomachs to the point of stupor--and food across the region tastes of spices and condiments we have traded across millennia. Wherever I move, across this table, whoever I break bread with, I am still eating at home and that is how it feels.

But have it your way--so, mea culpa.

Dhauli

Dhauli.

A lone king, standing on a hill, surveying the bloodied fields below him, reflects on the price people have paid for his grand ambitions. Too much. Dramatically, he speaks into a bubble, renouncing war with the words, "All men are my children, and just as I desire for my children that they should obtain welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, the same do I desire for all men."

Step out of the Amar Chitra Katha, and drive a short distance from Bhubaneswar and you stand before these words. Dhauli is where Asoka's 1st Separate Rock Edict is carved.

The edict is now protected by a glass case but it's still thrilling to peer through the glass and imagine someone read these words out to a stunned, benumbed public.

The Archaeological Survey of India has manicured a little patch of garden around the otherwise harsh rock and as you climb the ledge above the edict, the view is pastoral, even bucolic. Lush fields. Coconut trees. Some signs of human habitation. A far cry from the comic-book illustration of bloodied bodies strewn here and there. The earthquake and tsunami that have struck Japan even as I was traveling to Dhauli have probably left those scenes in their wake.

I try really hard to imagine that moment, that epiphany. But even the faint memory of these words does not actually move me as much as I want to be moved. Perhaps it's the effect of the kitschy looking Peace Park that looms over the rock edict at the top of that hill. Perhaps it comes from the complete lack of interest and enthusiasm of the driver who really doesn't care that war was renounced here. Perhaps it's the boys-on-a-binge tourism that I see, pausing at the edict lackadaisically before proceeding to the Kitsch Park (which I must confess, I couldn't bring myself to visit--it may be quite nice after all!)

[ <-This is the elephant carved on top of the rock where the edict is carved.]

The second separate Rock Edict at Tosali is where Asoka had carved: "All men are my children and just as I desire for my children that they should obtain welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, the same do I desire for all men. If the unconquered peoples on my borders ask what is my will, they should be made to understand that this is my will with regard to them --the king desires that they should have no trouble on his account, should trust in him, and should have in their dealings with him only happiness and no sorrow. They should understand that the king will forgive them as far as they can be forgiven, and that through him they should follow Dhamma and gain this world and the next.


For this purpose I instruct you, that having done so I may discharge my debt to them, by making known to you my will, my resolve and my firm promise. By these actions, my work will advance, and they will be reassured and will realize that the king is like a father, and that he feels for them as for himself, for they are like his own children to him."