Why?

A lingering fear of my childhood, after I was exposed to Planet of the Apes at an early age, was the erosion of known reality beyond recognition. You see, at the end of the novel the protagonist escapes the ape planet only to find out that Earth has also been taken over by apes. The original movie showed that it was all happening on Earth all along. The 2001 Tim Burton version restored the original ending.

I don't know whether it was the novel or the movie which was responsible, but I soon started having nightmares. I am away for some reason, but when I return home or to school, something has changed. Sometimes it was the language, sometimes parents or friends, and sometimes the entire cultural context. And I cannot begin to tell the torments these nightmares did to me.

Many decades later, as a middle-aged man, I contend with a different question. What do you do when, one by one, all your nightmares start coming to life? A writing career is beautiful, but it is not clearly your passport to action. It cultivates a different sort of person. Where you think your strongly worded call to attention can dislodge some of the best-laid plans. And in my early writing career, I had some luck in doing just that. But now the erosion of reality has reached a new scale, and I don't find writing entirely equipped to bring about that kind of change.

Before you complain about the abstract nature of the discussion, let me assure you that I will come to solid examples soon enough. Until then, bear with me.

We knew that below the veneer of socio-political and economic calm, there existed a deeper, more complicated, at times troubling, reality. But even so, the structural integrity of reality was intact, and we thought that if we tried hard enough, the complications of the underlying reality could be resolved. Darkness is the absence of light; to get rid of it, all you need to do is light a candle. That kind of stuff. The faith in the fundamental goodness of humans was still a given. But the past decade has witnessed the rapid disappearance of this veneer.

Take India, for example. We always knew that the country had communal, casteist, governance-related and poverty-related issues. But to students of political history like me, India was still a shining proof that democracy could work despite so many handicaps. It all changed in 2014 when the Modi government took over and started transforming the country into an ideological project. As it sought to dismantle each institution and safeguard, one by one, democracy was reduced to a label. And populist governments look for quick-fix, feel-good solutions. So, India's weaknesses were not weaknesses but a proud part of its legacy to be celebrated and rubbed in your face. Any objective criticism of this was a hostile conspiracy, not a critique. India's diplomatic muscle had grown during the Manmohan Singh government's time. Now it would be used to bolster one man's image and his less-informed worldview, both at home and abroad.

Then came the European situation. The continent that gave us the Enlightenment principles first grappled with the post-9/11 Islamophobia and then gave in to a frightening resurgence of the borderline fascistic far right.

And then the US. If, like me, you have grown up on a healthy diet of Hollywood and American culture, you must be aware that behind occasional brashness and self-involvement beats a beautiful and kind heart which wants to fix things and help others. But the post-9/11 bitterness has distilled into a culture of self-harm, which is quite atrocious. Just look at what the media did to itself even before Donald Trump first came to power. Highlighting a weakness is a journalist's job. But being on the prowl to catalogue everything offensive and to scandalise various national moments isn't.

And our beloved Muslim world. First the Taliban. Then Al-Qaeda and 9/11. The Arab Spring and the resulting civil wars. And whatever the current situation is. October 7, the Gaza war. Israel's expanding forever war. Then the Iran war, which should have concluded after the signing of the MoU between the US and Iran?

Tell me, how does it feel to know that a Houthi-launched drone was downed attempting to enter Makkah's airspace? Muslims on both sides and the holiest city of Islam? Do you need any further proof of how many nightmares have come to life?

The erosion of peace after the MoU is the most fascinating, if frightening, case study. Iran was about to get everything on a platter. Its sanctions-impoverished population could get all the wealth they could imagine. But then, out of nowhere, its hardliner establishment chose war over victory.

An incorrigible optimist, I am tired of hoping that this war will end soon. There are elements on every side who do not want this war to end. But we seldom think about the silent elements. For instance, everyone talks about America, Israel, Iran and the Gulf countries. But nobody takes note of the pain India, under Modi, suffered seeing Pakistan playing its role in the peace process. Then India's Ajit Doval meets the Iranian NSA, and Iran's position suddenly hardens. Attacks on Israel and Abraham Accords signatories stop, and Saudi Arabia starts getting attacked. Saudi Arabia, which refused to play any part in the war, played a very important role in the peace process and even dislodged the Israeli influence from Somalia and Yemen, and is now suddenly being attacked by Houthis.

The ongoing Iran war and last year's Israeli war on Iran both revealed how badly compromised and infiltrated the Iranian deep state is. Could such elements be playing into the hands of foreign interests?

What is Saudi Arabia's fault? That instead of joining the Abraham Accords or becoming another base of Adani's operations, it signed a defence agreement with India's arch-enemy Pakistan, and then the Makkah Defence Agreement with Pakistan and Turkiye? Is the main purpose to start a war between Iran and Pakistan so that Pakistan has to handle three hostile borders at once? Is it why the terror elements in Balochistan are getting a boost from New Delhi?

Truth is, a lot of these tragedies befall us because of men like Ajit Doval, who would burn the entire world down in the name of patriotism and then also burn down their own country to please their political masters. You must suffer the next level of cognitive dissonance to not notice what kind of pain you are bringing to this world, what horrible world you are building, and how it is only negatively affecting your own country. They can congratulate themselves on being competent, but competence only increases the moral burden. You were given these gifts in life, and this is what you did with them?

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" – Mark 8:36