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Dance of the scorpions

As the first reports of the explosion on the Karachi-Peshawar Express trickled in over the news wires, Pakistani officials started putting out the word that this was the work of the Research and Analysis Wing, the somewhat diffidently named intelligence arm of the Indian government.

Soon, Pakistanis of various stripes, from the governor of Sindh province to a horse-carriage driver in Peshawar, had the same consistent opinion to offer on the blast -- that Indian intelligence agents had somehow engineered this heinous crime.

India, for its part, called the accusations preposterous. In diplomatic parlance, that is equivalent to saying that a bunch of overly drunk cabinet ministers in Islamabad conjured up this nonsense to divert attention from their own miserable failure as leaders and their involvement in sundry crimes, none of which is ever likely to see judgement in a court of law in that civilisational wilderness. In short, a damn fool notion, with India just being the convenient scapegoat for all things wrong in Pakistan.

Neither of these claims is the least bit surprising. In what has become a fairly recognisable dance of the scorpions, various atrocities on either side of the border are routinely blamed on the foreign hand, which, in turn, labels such accusations ludicrous.

At one time or another, our government has accused the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency, of having functioning links in Bihar, UP, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bombay, Dubai, Nepal, Assam, Bangladesh, Canada, Punjab, Kashmir, and pretty much every other place one can imagine. If all those reports are true, this single Pakistani agency has more efficiently functioning departments than any of our ministries.

Most of us haven't the foggiest idea which side to believe; the posturing by both governments fades in and out periodically, and we simply brush it aside. Even the repeated and organised killings of scores of Hindus in Kashmir does not elicit major cries in India, so inured have we become.

The Coimbatore blasts, not so long ago such a focus of rage over Pak-sponsored terrorism, were soon incidental to the possibility that Jayalalitha could actually get the DMK government dismissed. The motives and reactions of various political establishments inevitably take precedence in the news over the lives of regular Rams and Khans being lost in these proxy wars.

To say that we ordinary citizens lie too far outside the pale of this drama merely reflects the obvious -- that a proxy war, by definition must be removed from the lives of all but a few. The propaganda emanating in the guise of news from the polished walls of government is equally a necessary facade under whose cover the war continues.

But we who have no place at the table where these policies are carved and furthered must still be answerable to their effects, for it is in our name that the war is waged. If the troubling questions surface from time to time, it behoves us to think of them, even as we remain unable to find the answers.

First, to the veracity of such reports. Would the government of our country put out false information to induce people to think that Pakistan in a savage and brutal state bent on destroying India? Absolutely. But that is hardly the end of it. It is also quite certain that the government of Pakistan does conduct nefarious activities with the specific purpose of undermining stability in India. And vice-versa too, lest we forget.

Maybe not all the reports are true, but most of us, I believe, accept that a sufficient number of them are true that the ones that aren't do not cast all such reports in doubt. Of course, there is a proxy war.

But should we care? A few dozen people died on that train, and it seems such a failing to say that we really do not care that they were murdered. Worse still is the realisation that we care only a little more, and even that only briefly, when our own people are bombed and maimed by Pakistani agents, as they reportedly are.

While we readily sense the sorrow in this war and the mindlessness of it all, 50 years have been insufficient to muster a closing chapter. Why are we unmoved by the real tragedies of this war, and how did it ever get this way?

Perhaps it isn't apathy that has made us this way; instead, the habits of our lives outside this stand-off have made us unable to face down the enemy with a collective will. Our governments have never responded to our rages, be they economic or social. The blights of our society -- poverty, illiteracy, bonded labour, child labour, police brutality, and several more -- persist only because our expressions of anger and disgust have never sufficiently moved our netas to act to set them straight.

This passive acceptance of our lot was bred in the lethargy of a violated franchise, first by colonial masters and next by unresponsive leaders. It is only natural that we should lack the ability to believe that this one time, in a military matter, the government will be any different.

And so we find ourselves in a familiar bind, hating the circumstances but lacking the power to alter them. Assured of our own strength, but without the authority to see it demonstrated. Even those who don't normally believe in war and confrontation must contend themselves with the knowledge that the hopes they give voice to in their living rooms are of a different world, one that does not exist on the slopes of Siachen or the streets of Kargil. On the front-line, there are only soldiers, and death.

The nuclear stand-off has only worsened this nightmare; it has further eroded the possibility of resolving the matter by conflict. For it is the premise that such matters can be resolved through negotiations that has led to this morass in the first place.

Perhaps some of our leaders have been too caught up in their own powers of persuasion to see that for all of history, war has remained the ultimate decider. Negotiation is still an infant art, war is in the human bones. But we have set that premise aside, and are yet to find an alternative.

The anecdotal evidence of recent weeks has only deepened the pall. As Pakistan lurches on the brink of financial and religious implosion, we find ourselves having engaged our neighbours so little that we can do nothing but watch.

Their money has eroded beyond recognition, their houses of government are for sale, and a political gimmick in the guise of divine promise is poised to set the new standard for a government already lacking in repute. And yet we can do little more than maintain the wariness of an estranged neighbour, worried that the fire raging on the other side of the street will jump with the wind.

By now, the popular chorus is that Pakistan, for all its shared history with our own, is not cut from the same cloth. That a nation created in the image of what we are not must inevitably slide farther back even as we seek to lift ourselves up.

With a sinking feeling we find ourselves trapped in a fate that is not of our own making, preparing for a confrontation that we would rather look away from, but unable to escape its very real consequences on our land. Unwilling to risk an escalation of engagement, yet knowing that a truce is not forthcoming. We simply wait, not knowing why.

And as we wait, the hesitation takes its toll, and we call it news. As the Peshawar over-nighter goes down in a blaze of flame, we find we have learned to turn the page.

How Readers responded to Ashwin Mahesh's earlier columns

Ashwin Mahesh