On Sunday night, when you and I were busy cheering for Virat Kohli, something greater, more intense was transpiring. Less than 50 kilometres from Amritsar, the city of Lahore was mourning over the dead remains of what were once children and women.
The bomb blast that consumed over 65 children, women and men saw immediate backlash and condemnation from around the world. The Internet came together to mourn the loss of innocent lives.
However, just as Lahore was trying to make sense of what had happened and how it will recover, something more horrific was taking shape in the form of us.
We were yet again successful in letting everyone know that they deserved it and we won’t think twice before celebrating the loss of innocent lives in our ‘enemy’ state.
As the world got together to mourn the loss of innocent lives, there was a section of us who thought the attack was justified. If that’s how we feel about tragedies, how much of a difference is there really between us and those fundamentalists?
With all that hate for a country, let’s take a moment to realize that we could have just as easily been one of them, one of the dead, the ‘enemy’. We had absolutely no contribution in being born in the country and religion we were born in. Right now, there are millions of people around the world who firmly believe this was a religious crime and that Pakistanis had it coming.
For every person who believes they deserved it, there’s a terrorist raising a toast to you because that’s exactly what they were aiming for. Congratulations, you have successfully been manipulated. Good job!
For decades now, the ruling classes, the religious fundamentalists and the media have been telling us who our enemies are, who we’re supposed to hate. Congratulations, for today, you and I are just proving them right.
Islamophobia is one of the bigger social evils prevalent today. The West, with all its broad spectrum and world view, is the pioneer of equating terrorism with a country or a religion.
At an unfortunate time when the entire world should be mourning, it would serve the human race better if we don’t let our political opinions get in the way of our empathy.
There’s nothing patriotic about letting our human instincts get clouded by a perpetuated ‘nationalism’.
We, Indians, have now been broadly divided into two categories: nationalists and people who should go to Pakistan. The sad state of affairs is that if someone sympathizes with the loss of innocent lives in Pakistan, we tell them that they belong there. They don’t deserve to be Indian.
Our patriotism doesn’t dictate spewing hatred on the people of one country.
Despite what has happened, there’s something to look forward to. Such attacks are great opportunities for everyone to refuse to be played, to come together in recognizing that terrorism has no religion or country. Unfortunately, there’s no scarcity of such opportunities and yet, we continue to feed on the hatred perpetuated by terrorists, every time.