In the madness that has gripped Haryana and amid the din over the nationalist versus antinationalist character of one of India's most reputed universities, a simple sentiment expressed by a young soldier fighting militants far away in Pampore pierced through the heart.
"Kisiko reservation chahiye to kisiko azadi bhai. Humein kuch nahin chahiye bhai, bas apni razai (Some want reservation; some want independence, brother. I do not want anything brother, just my quilt)," wrote Pawan Kumar, the 23-year-old captain from 10 Para, on his Facebook page. Peaceful sleep in a warm bed, that's all he wished for - and what more does a man need? As it would happen, this was Kumar's last post. He was killed in the encounter.
Coincidentally, this young man whose parents are both schoolteachers and who always wanted to join the army, was born on Army Day, January 15. Coincidentally, he was also a Jat from Jind - a lad from the same Haryana that is on fire today. And, coincidentally, like every cadet who passes out of the National Defence Academy after three years of rigorous training, he too had a degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru University - the very same that we are determined to prove fosters a militant mindset.
Should these coincidences have made us pause and think? Perhaps, yes, in an ideal world. But it is not an ideal world we inhabit. We can argue that he wasn't really from JNU because he did not study on the campus and, therefore, he remained a nationalist.
So, the madness continued. JNU turned into a fortress, lawyers took law into their hands, the police watched silently, and, from what we now hear, even egged on the assaulters. In Haryana, buses were burnt, rail tracks were torn out, water supply to Delhi was cut off and, the latest, in the name of the protest for reservation, women travelling on the Delhi-Haryana highway were pulled out of their vehicles and allegedly raped in the fields.
While all this was on, the people we would have expected to fix it all, or at least work towards fixing it all, said some baffling things. "So! dry day starts from today? No water supply at my home this morning. No hope to get water in Munak Canal. Tough days ahead for Delhi," tweeted Manish Sisodia, Delhi's deputy chief minister. No hope? That came from a man whose party was voted into power, twice in Delhi, purely on hope - of better politics, better governance and better life.
Then, the senior-most police officer of India's vibrant capital turned on its head the very premise on which our legal system rests - "innocent until proven guilty". "If they [JNU students who have since surrendered] are innocent, they should present evidence of their innocence," declared Delhi Police Chief B S Bassi, who, incidentally, retires in a few days from now.
From Tamil Nadu, another nationalist, Bharatiya Janata Party's H Raja, sent a message to fellow politician, D Raja of the Communist Part of India. If the Left leader, he said, is to prove his patriotism, he should get his comrades to shoot his daughter for participating in the JNU protests. So now, the planned and deliberate murder of a young woman in a free country that owes its genesis to the power of non-violence would be a nationalist thing to do?
From Jammu and Kashmir, meanwhile, the soldier who wished for a peaceful night's sleep in a warm bed was finally homeward bound. But the roads to home were choked by his brother Jats. The army pleaded: let him be sent off with the honour he deserves. But the highways remained blocked, inaccessible. No one listened. But then, "people generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for," as the incisive Harper Lee, who died last week, wrote in her masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.
As mayhem reigned on the ground, a helicopter flew the soldier, asleep in a coffin, to his schoolteacher parents. The state continued to burn.
Hopefully, though, sanity will prevail soon and Haryana will find peace again. For JNU also, hopefully, this too shall pass. And then we can find something else to fight over. We always do. And so it will go on.
You, dear soldier, don't fret about it anymore. Sleep in peace.
"Kisiko reservation chahiye to kisiko azadi bhai. Humein kuch nahin chahiye bhai, bas apni razai (Some want reservation; some want independence, brother. I do not want anything brother, just my quilt)," wrote Pawan Kumar, the 23-year-old captain from 10 Para, on his Facebook page. Peaceful sleep in a warm bed, that's all he wished for - and what more does a man need? As it would happen, this was Kumar's last post. He was killed in the encounter.
Coincidentally, this young man whose parents are both schoolteachers and who always wanted to join the army, was born on Army Day, January 15. Coincidentally, he was also a Jat from Jind - a lad from the same Haryana that is on fire today. And, coincidentally, like every cadet who passes out of the National Defence Academy after three years of rigorous training, he too had a degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru University - the very same that we are determined to prove fosters a militant mindset.
Should these coincidences have made us pause and think? Perhaps, yes, in an ideal world. But it is not an ideal world we inhabit. We can argue that he wasn't really from JNU because he did not study on the campus and, therefore, he remained a nationalist.
So, the madness continued. JNU turned into a fortress, lawyers took law into their hands, the police watched silently, and, from what we now hear, even egged on the assaulters. In Haryana, buses were burnt, rail tracks were torn out, water supply to Delhi was cut off and, the latest, in the name of the protest for reservation, women travelling on the Delhi-Haryana highway were pulled out of their vehicles and allegedly raped in the fields.
While all this was on, the people we would have expected to fix it all, or at least work towards fixing it all, said some baffling things. "So! dry day starts from today? No water supply at my home this morning. No hope to get water in Munak Canal. Tough days ahead for Delhi," tweeted Manish Sisodia, Delhi's deputy chief minister. No hope? That came from a man whose party was voted into power, twice in Delhi, purely on hope - of better politics, better governance and better life.
Then, the senior-most police officer of India's vibrant capital turned on its head the very premise on which our legal system rests - "innocent until proven guilty". "If they [JNU students who have since surrendered] are innocent, they should present evidence of their innocence," declared Delhi Police Chief B S Bassi, who, incidentally, retires in a few days from now.
From Tamil Nadu, another nationalist, Bharatiya Janata Party's H Raja, sent a message to fellow politician, D Raja of the Communist Part of India. If the Left leader, he said, is to prove his patriotism, he should get his comrades to shoot his daughter for participating in the JNU protests. So now, the planned and deliberate murder of a young woman in a free country that owes its genesis to the power of non-violence would be a nationalist thing to do?
From Jammu and Kashmir, meanwhile, the soldier who wished for a peaceful night's sleep in a warm bed was finally homeward bound. But the roads to home were choked by his brother Jats. The army pleaded: let him be sent off with the honour he deserves. But the highways remained blocked, inaccessible. No one listened. But then, "people generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for," as the incisive Harper Lee, who died last week, wrote in her masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.
As mayhem reigned on the ground, a helicopter flew the soldier, asleep in a coffin, to his schoolteacher parents. The state continued to burn.
Hopefully, though, sanity will prevail soon and Haryana will find peace again. For JNU also, hopefully, this too shall pass. And then we can find something else to fight over. We always do. And so it will go on.
You, dear soldier, don't fret about it anymore. Sleep in peace.
veenu.sandhu@bsmail.in