By Sahil Sankhla:
India and Pakistan are two well-known arch-rivals in all existing fields, the rivalry being too hostile and unproductive. From live wars to live cricket matches, both the nations expectorate crimson hatred in the name of patriotism against each other.
So, what is India, what is Pakistan? Nations. What are nations? Territories. Really?
India and Pakistan are merely names of two nations. Just names! A nation, in its true spirit, is its government and citizens; their beliefs, values, aspirations, suggestions. The problem with the two nations is that the government is controlling the beliefs of the citizens, playing with their values, suppressing their aspirations and ignoring their suggestions. Both the governments talk about peace, but the reality is that they want their respective citizens to simply abhor their counterpart. As a result, people on the either side of the border despise the other side without possessing even an iota of knowledge about each other.
The idea of a nation is not to undermine the others around or far away from it but to strengthen its internal bonds with territories that might go astray but in the case of India and Pakistan or many others, the notion of patriotism is manufactured. People are made to believe that the whole country on the other side of the border is wrong and that there is no hope for humanity if we don’t fight them with everything we hold, while there are only a few antisocial elements on both sides.
In my opinion, soldiers are brainwashed to fight against each other in the name of patriotism, while they are actually fighting for their government against the other country’s government. There is no pride in dying for a selfish and extremely corrupt government whose lone aim is to create chaos and disrupt peace and harmony. I’m not talking about fighting terrorism but official wars.
It is difficult to determine who benefits from such rivalry created by the heads of the state and talks which fail often due to contention on issues like Kashmir but what does a guy sitting in Delhi abusing Pakistan over social media know about the Kashmir issue? Or Zia-ul-Haq’s efforts to capture the country anyway?
Shouldn’t we preach love until war becomes a reality instead of preaching hatred and making war a reality?
67 Kashmiri students charged with sedition for celebrating Pakistan’s victory against India shows the doltish mindset of institutions which are supposed to prepare students to become global citizens.
No wonder what the great Oscar Wilde wrote about 200 years ago is proving to be perfectly accurate today, “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”Â