No Nuclear Heads, Please

War Clouds Gather.

Hannah Arendt famously wrote on the significance of common sense. She argued that often we believe, in the Humanities, that common sense does not aid us in our rational pursuit of scientific truth. Yet, common sense is what keeps people alive, allows them to hope, and returns them to  a sense of order. Why must we believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, that human beings will live in co-existence, that they will be ready to hear one another out? The will to live is the most important thing we have, and it is the legacy we leave for our children. The devastation brought by war are so huge, we see it all around us. Those who are wired into television and the net, respond to the crises of impending war, by continuously following the barrage of news reports, the continuous hectoring, and the ways in which the State responds to a crises.

We need to believe that the relations between two countries will represent the will of the people to live, and not to die. To succumb to the threats of terrorists who attack both our countries, Indian and Pakistan, simultaneously, would be to set up a huge morass of destruction. It is to fall into the hands of the enemy itself. The enemy lies secretly waiting to bring life to a halt. The nation state becomes its chamber maid, clearing up after its mindless terror tactics. The socialization of young people through theological motifs of the  imminent end of the world is its hidden weapon. It does so, which ever religion pushes its cards forwards, by feeding young people the rhetoric of death as cleansing. It is a Malthusian exercise, which believes that the poor are indeed excess,  that they are human masses, who can be rendered extinct in active or passive ways.

War as vengeance is part of this rhetoric, which ceaselessly works to collect people together as an ideological machine, well oiled and constantly moving into war zones. Once war is declared between two countries, it takes years to counter the physical suffering it brings forth. The number of people who die from cancer, from poverty, from neglect is the consequence of the daily costs of development. Unless we are able to count our losses in demographic terms, which involve understanding the fate of the Dalits in our country, we cannot proceed to present ourselves as Developed. The material symbols of development show that the functional aristocracies of post modern societies are well placed, and the scientists and technologists control the landscape of representation. Yet, while putting space ships in orbit, what have we done to alleviate the suffering of the poor? Our continuing and unabated indexes of poverty are an embarrassment to us.

To move into the realm of issuing orders that define victory, a free rein to the Army, crossing the LOC,  constitutes breaking the rules of democratic governance and comes as a real shock to the Nation. Neglect of the poor leads to more deaths in any country, than threats of war.

 Capitalism believes in war as a necessary axiom of its own ideology. The working class must remain enslaved in the factories of production, agriculture must submit to chemical infusions of excessive degree, technology must take the onus of mass production, 19^th century  type genocides of the peasantry, through starvation, or as voluntary cannon fodder must proceed. Not surprisingly, the drug and medical industry treats the harm caused in war and by environmental damage for its own monetary profits, as an intended consequence of iatrogeny.

There is no  quick solution to climate change, which some Prime Ministers and Presidents do not even accept as a life style induced conflagration of the ozone. We can only slow down the degree by which gassing of peaceful populations by consent of industrialists and politicians takes place. How did Punjab for instance allow gmt crops to be planted, and the stalks to be burnt by the farmers? Was it common sense to allow the city of Delhi to be submerged in dense smog for four months? How do we benefit from the decisions made by the government which includes using petroleum carbon to be used as a fuel in Delhi? Does more instant electricity for malls in Delhi make up for the damage the air quality does to the lungs and blood circulation of newly born infants?

All these questions are surely  worthy of debates in parliament. Hierarchical federal politics, like hierarchical pluralism is a problem in itself.  We cannot run into war without debate, without legal ramifications. Indians always remained aware that their country was blessed by a certain luminousness,  in which ideas prevailed, that wisdom could come from anywhere. Adi Sankara had to respond to the Chandal, he had to reconfigure his own opinions. We, as a people, have always reacted to urgent crises in myriad ways.

Once war is declared, our freedoms will be taken away from us, our daily routines will be marked by the dirge of listening to the lists of dead every day, announced over radio and tv. We will be rationed for food, standing in queues, listening to the confounding rhetoric of an  ‘eye for an eye’ theology, quite misplaced in today’s creative global citizens and human rights forums, where people of different countries work side by side.

Prof Susan Visvanathan is the author of  The Children of Nature – The Life and Legacy of Ramana Maharshi  published by Roli  Lotus imprint, 2010