A war of words

It has become increasingly important to examine all sides of the coin to unravel the truth and stand with it

With dark clouds of intolerance and enmity almost always hovering over the stretch of land history remembers as the Indian subcontinent, the latest Pakistan-India cricket match turned out to be even more interesting. The fallout in the neighbouring country, however, in the form of threats to a child as young as 10 months has compelled every rational mind to think whether this hatred is a mere concoction brewed by media of both the countries or is it a genuine feeling breathing in every national’s mind and soul?

They say all riddles of indecisiveness are solved the moment you flip a coin; the desired outcome becomes known on its own almost instantly. Does this attitude of people of both the countries in times of distress reflect what we really want — an entropic state characterised by unrest and war?

First things first, national media on both sides of the border has much succeeded in propagating the anthems of nationalism over the years, but in the midst of doing so has miserably failed in disseminating the truth. Upon opening eyes to reality, one fathoms out that there always exists a third side of the story — one that Pakistani media tells, the other that Indian media narrates, and yet another that remains concealed until uncloaked.

While the two visible sides of the coin project what both countries want the world to see, the undisclosed side comprises the mirror which hides the ugly image of self. For the most part, the flipside itself acts as the third version as we wish to see only what is shown to us — while Pakistani media remains to be untainted for Pakistanis, Indians hold their media houses as the ultimate source of information. And this is where the problem arises where the urge to unmask the hidden truth is overwhelmed by such feelings as nationalism whereby we do not wish to prick the bubble and, therefore, keep living in a fool’s paradise (such as on the fifth floor of a building!). There exists, however, a very fine line between patriotism and jingoism which, in our case, has become ostensibly blurred with the passage of time.

The best method to elaborate my stance is to refer to a recently aired production ‘Dhoop Ki Deewar’ that perfectly depicted what Thomas Hardy portrayed in ‘The Man He Killed’:

Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,

And starting face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

What if the two soldiers Vishal and Junaid from India and Pakistan, respectively, had met elsewhere? What if thousands of soldiers on both sides of the Radcliffe line did not have to sacrifice themselves in the name of hate being brewed in our minds through several agents with their vested interests? Their families would have been complete and happy. We cannot think beyond the capacity that has been built in us and we cannot see except through the lens given to us as a nation. That is why none of us can imagine the pain and difficulties of the families of all the martyrs who, along with their precious lives, sacrifice the peace and ease of their kin only to be forgotten and forsaken later.

This constant clash in perceptions and the only possible point of convergence being two circles touching each other at a tangent implies that we are being fed with wrong and/or incomplete information. While different versions for the same fact are available and readily accessible to the public, it is only one version that dominates its counterparts in given spatial and temporal context. Mistaking a social fact for a brute fact is a cardinal error as is evident from all the clashes between Pakistan and India ranging from a simple cricket match to the Kashmir dispute. Hence it has become increasingly important to examine all sides of the coin — the obverse side, the flip side, and the concealed side — to unravel the truth and stand with it.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2021.

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