We, the people; neither free of fear nor fearless
We can be made to fear, encouraged to hate, provoked to hurt. We need to be de-addicted from fear, which is why law-enforcers have a great responsibility today
Are we a fear-free people with some of us who are frightened? Or a fearful people with some of us being unafraid? This is not about statistics. Fever can be read in a thermometer. Fear is not measurable.
This is about the way things are. As real as the bolt in our door, the lock in our cellphones, the double-blind password in our laptop. “Oh” the reader will rightly say, “those are universal fears”. So they are. But we have our own variants of that universal phenomenon called fear, our own mutants of human dread.
We are not like those in Israel, afraid of Hamas bomb-showers. Or those in Gaza afraid of Israeli bomb-rain. We are not like Ukrainians fearing the next downpour of Russian fire. We are not like the unfortunates in Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE or China who face prosecution today and execution tomorrow.
Many admirable men and women across India are fear-free and speak, write, sing without fear. Does that make us, as a people, fear-free?
If I am a Hindu in the Kashmir valley, I will dread separatist gunfire, fear plying my trade, going to office, college, school. I could be gunned down any moment by masked men on motorcycles. If I am a Muslim in Jammu, I will dread a shootout in Kashmir that has killed a Hindu for it could lead to an immediate backlash in Jammu making me hide, flee. And even if I am a Muslim in Muslim-majority Kashmir, I will be afraid of menacing separatists who want me to become a separatist as well, a fundamentalist, pro-separation even if not pro-Pakistan. With the bizarre train-terror on Pakistan’s Jaffar Express re-kindling fear of renewed terror attacks, especially along the Line of Control. That is called a real, hard, threat which must make us hugely vigilant. Not just vigilant about terror but about the possible aftermath of terror, in terms of communal conflagrations.
Riot is a community-neutral word. And it disturbs the memory of almost every religious denomination in India with fear of repetitions.
If I am a cowherd, I am afraid I will be lynched for being a beef-peddling anti-Hindu, no matter that goats are routinely sacrificed at temples in the name of gods and goddesses. If I am a cobbler and a knife grinder, a razai maker or cotton-fluffer and also a Muslim, I will practice my profession with tension and uneasiness preying on my mind. If I am not a Muslim but living in certain parts of Aligarh I could be very, very tense.
If I am a Christian in those parts of India where missionaries have been regarded as converters, I am afraid I will be asked to prove my loyalties to India that is Bharat. News about some people including some elected representatives wanting any attempted “conversion” to be awarded the death penalty no less having reached me, I will shiver as I go to sleep, shudder in nightmares.
If I am a peaceable civilian in parts of tribal India, I will be afraid of the uniformed man who has orders to be alert, watchful, and who mistakes me to be a militant, an ultra, and arrests me. I will be afraid, no less, in fact, more, of that very militant and ultra who is a fact of bitter life and who wants me to join him when I do not want to have anything to do with him.
If I were a Manipuri and tribal, I would be afraid of the tribe I am not a member of. And the non-tribal Manipuri is wary of both of us. If I am a Bangladeshi in Assam, I have reason to be afraid.
Two English words have become frightening in India in recent times. The first is immigrant. To have to prove one’s legality for the right to live in a place can be a nightmare, especially if one has a family of young and old to support. The second is goon. Landlords are afraid tenants will get goons to intimidate them; tenants are afraid landlords will do the same. Come elections and voters fear goons and goonery like the devil and pray the agents of the state will keep them at bay.
If I am Dalit and a girl in a village that has known upper caste hubris, I will be afraid of moustachioed males lurking like crocodiles in a lake do where a thirsty calf would go unblinking to its nemesis.
If I am an activist for human rights, afraid or not, I am at risk. If I am a crusader for the right to information, if I am a whistle-blower, if I am an investigative journalist, if I am pursuing mafiosi in illegal mining, in gold smuggling, in drug peddling, I am at risk even though I may be unafraid.
Water and language — beautiful things — can turn belligerent. Vehicle number plates of one state in another state can suddenly look provocative when the water disputes hot up. If I am a non-local language speaker, I better learn my local language.
To go back to the question with which I began, I will say we are neither a fear-free people nor a fearful people. We are a people that can be made to fear, encouraged to hate, provoked to hurt, and to panic, leading many to exit from India. Fear is good business for quite a few. They make us addicts of fear, victims of alarm, innocent carriers of fake documents as well.
It follows that we must get de-addicted. The problem is while there are places where those addicted to alcohol and drugs can go for help, there is no sanctuary for those addicted to fear. Which is why law-enforcers have a great and unenviable responsibility. And which is why Rabindranath Tagore’s great pre-independence song, Chitto jetha bhoyshunno (Where the mind is without fear), today holds hope for us, the brave and good people of India that is Bharat.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a former administrator, is a student of modern Indian history. The views expressed are personal
