चले चलो की वो मंज़िल भी नहीं आयी..!!- फैज अहमद फैज

I was talking to a Fauzi friend one day when he asked me how do you justify the Kashmiris throwing stone pellets at us when we are sacrificing our everything to protect ‘them’ and our national integrity but little did he knew that he justified it himself.

This statement is as problematic as someone saying that he believes in gender equality and allows his wife to work, or someone saying we are progressive Indians, we have Muslim friends and we invite them home. The intensity of these statements are deep- I mean who is the husband to allow a wife to work when she was born with the same rights and freedoms as he has? And why are we even segregating our friends on the grounds of their religious identity? Similarly when we say that we are there for ‘them’ we are already discriminating them on a certain basis which is psychologically imbibed in our minds.

It is important to note that the group of people who feel inherently discriminated and marginalized can never be controlled with coercion and force for no peacekeeping force in this world was ever able to achieve an emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy is important- you can’t keep a bunch of people along without a psychological connect. Maybe territorially one can, but unity is not merely territorial- it comes with the peace of mind, with the connection of hearts and more.

I think this is where we failed for long and this is where we will constantly fail if nothing is done about it. For it is the people who die and the armymen who die but what is over and above all- The Nation State, which still remains mute for the important question is not the people but the country as a whole. It is important to think about the country and its unity but no peace is attained without war is an outdated concept. It never managed to join the people together in the actual sense. Therefore let us do away with this psyche and see this world being a better place.