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Rule By Wimps

Kargil disproved that notion, rather harshly, for most Indians.

The prime minister is back now on his podium, urging on the rest of his countrymen his belief in peace yet again. Tuesday's night-long massacre of mostly Hindus should disprove the notion that bringing the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Hurriyat to the negotiating table -- a coup of sorts, especially given their earlier intransigence over talking -- is going to end the strife in Kashmir.

Eighty-four killed in cold blood, rediff.com's homepage tells me even as I write these lines, only because a nation and a people tired of a decade of bloodshed were groping for a toehold that will pull them back from the precipice.

84 killed and the nation's affairs go on as normal.

I cannot but contrast this apathy with what happened in two leading metropolises over the last 10 days.

Last week, a city which claims to be numero uno among Indian metros -- a claim which has suffered terribly over the last decade or so -- was shut down after a man who has never held an elective post in his life was threatened with judicial action. If no life was lost it was only because a prudent metropolitan magistrate rated the public's safety higher than a politician's need to score brownie points.

And this week another city, the new kid on the metros block and which hopes to mirror Silicon Valley's splendour, was brought to a close by grieving fans of an ageing superstar who had been kidnapped by a brigand who has eluded the combined might of two states for a decade.

In both cases an entire city shut down, either voluntarily or through friendly persuasion as happens in such instances, to show their solidarity with an individual.

But when more than 80 innocent people are gunned down -- some of them pilgrims following the holy grail, some labourers from other states -- for no other reason than that they are *Indian*, how does the rest of India react?

With grief? No. In solidarity? No. In shock? No. With surprise? No. Maybe even joy? NO.

Where any emotion will be fine, India reacts to this tragedy with apathy. Not one shop has shut down in anguish, no political leader of any stature has called for a bandh to protest against this dastardly crime against humanity. Instead there are the usual reports that top security officials have rushed to the scene of attack, search operations are in full swing and, of course, the pearl: the assailants, barring none, escaped.

The prime minister, a decent man, a mahatma say some, meanwhile assures Parliament that the peace process will not be derailed by such incidents. There is a ceasefire on in Kashmir which apparently applies only to the security forces. So while the much-reviled men in khaki return to the barracks, the men who human rights organisations waste no time portraying as the victims are having a free run of the Valley, and now even Jammu. But, India has decided, the peace process will not be derailed.

A sentiment echoed by the honorable home minister whom the media wastes no time in portraying as Sardar V2. Even making allowances for hagiography, not once does history show Vallabhbhai Patel wringing his hands in despair, or helplessness.

The situation on the ground is so full of irony.

A war waged in the name of Islam does not enthuse co-practitioners of that faith elsewhere in the country, most of whom have anyway borrowed the trait of apathy from the predominant majority around them. If they weren't apathetic to their religion getting besmirched with idiotic calls of jihad, they have managed to conceal it well.

But not better than Hindus who have so mastered the art of concealing their true feelings that even a lie-detector would be confused.

And to think that the present government in New Delhi is one which came to power on stirring slogans of nationalism!

It is now clear that it was a slogan only synonymous with Pokhran II, a slogan that got them the floating, undecided Indians' votes in the last election. Till the next round of elections, then, it is an issue that can be mothballed safely.

But this is not what the cheerleaders of the BJP led the public to believe on their assorted rath yatras. Somewhere along the line, the BJP seems to have realised an important lesson: that nationalism is all right when it comes to demolishing a decrepit mosque that no one wants pulled down; facing the bullets meant for Indians, however, can be left to society's cannon-fodder, namely the poor, the weak, the young, the unarmed.

Politicians' perceptions change, depending on whether they are in power or out of it. But nothing can be more telling than the prime minister's admission -- widely unreported in the media -- in Parliament recently that 'it is easier to raise issues when you are in the Opposition, but being power has its own limitations'. The PM was, in fact, referring to the Bofors non-scandal, but he may well have been talking of his party milking nationalism dry.

So why is the Bharatiya Janata Party embarking on a course that, if it was on the Opposition benches, it would have torn apart as being destructive in the extreme?

The overture is being executed not because there is any groundswell among its population for peace, but because that's what the United States wants.

Nationalism, of the BJP's brand, has a price, and that is the stamp of approval from the United States which has given its go-ahead to the peace process. The urge to go down in history, obviously, is so strong that prime ministers are sometimes blind to the fact of their nation going down the drain.

There has been a debate on these pages about the steel in the spine, or lack of it, of Hindus. To me they don't seem to be either cowards or eunuchs, as two very immensely popular rediff.com columnists have averred. To me, they seem a terribly, terribly indifferent race. Indifferent to their faith, their country, their people, in fact everything around them.

Saisuresh Sivaswamy