the lazy shall recycle

i'm a zombie. at least for this week, i am. it's too hot in the hills this year and i can't get myself to write a decent post. so i'm going to recycle some old writings.

in the autumn of 2003, there had been a shameful episode of rioting against the biharis in assam. this had ignited a vigorous political discussion on our class page, which usually is witness to nothing more violent than jestful name-calling. i of course, added my two-bit and this two-bit almost led to my expulsion from the republic of india. ladies and gentlemen, here is that explosive piece of secession - unedited - never seen in the public domain before -

"what happened in bihar and assam must have made every thinking being like us, cringe. something like godhra, this time the war flag being language and not religion. one could blame it on the simpler things - we are prejudiced, we are territorial. yes we are a biased lot but that’s not what fuelled the riots.

the reason was not that we are prejudiced. as long as we are human, we will be. we like to slot things- everything, every person must have a name, a label… the community must have an identification tag even though with individuals, we may become friends, even fall in love. education just helps us, most of us at least, to hide it better. come on, WE do it. bongs are miserly, surdies ke barah bajte hai, maddus are smelly, biharis are in a class of their own, chinky girls are easy to bed…. sounds familiar, doesn’t it? sometimes, just in jest, sometimes earnestly. fact of life.

neither is territorialism the reason. it goes with self-interest. as long as there’s more than enough to go around, one can be expansive and generous. when survival becomes a question, then one turns xenophobic. one must protect one’s own. out with the outsider. this is as true of usa and europe as much as of assam and maharastra. that’s human. an unpleasant fact, but another fact of life.

the honest reason for the incidents is that a situation has been created where people have to scrounge and scavenge for jobs in order to make a better life. the confrontation was artificial and avoidable. that of course is theoretically speaking and good governance being the X-factor. had laloo not misruled bihar for a decade, the biharis wouldn’t have sought existence away from home (not that i’m advocating bihar for biharis and assam for assamese or maharastra for marathis. but this is another thread). and suppose assam had visionaries at helm, the assamese wouldn’t have been crazed about petty government jobs (ever heard of private enterprise? Or tilling the land?). the leaders are not guilty of playing the divide-and-rule card. i don’t think they have the brains for that. they are just playing around and misgoverning because we let them. nobody asks them uncomfortable questions.(how many of us are going to queue up the polling booth and vote in the coming elections?) they are part of the problem as much as the people who let them.

to me, the scariest fact about those few days is how easily it comes to people to rape, humiliate, kill, loot, burn. It’s as if we are a nation of rioters. violence seems to be the only outlet for angst and despair. if a yellow-skinned person slaps you, maim, kick, slap all yellow-skinned people, parade their women naked.

or vice versa.

that may not improve things in the long run, but god, does it make me feel macho or what? We are not problem-solvers. we do not seek to make things better. we only want to express our hatred and anger with brute force and stones and sticks. definitely not a civilized society, are we?

as the wise ones say, if you want to do something about it, go ahead. or else, hold your peace. at the moment, i’m wondering if we could just annihilate bihar and assam. and in the bargain, maybe uttar pradesh, and gujarat, and maharastra.

how much would a couple of nuclear warheads cost?"