hree weeks ago, when the Pahalgam terrorist attack occurred, my first reaction was a sense of fatigue, a never-ending, desolate fatigue. At that time, desolation came from a realisation of the unending nature of terror that refuses to leave us. Mine is a generation that grew up during the times of Khalistan movement and its attacks; then Kashmir; and then many others including both what are called ‘religious terrorism’ across India.

India has lost two of its prime ministers and thousands of other citizens to terrorism. Yet, with all our troubles, we continue to build the same dreams. Economic liberalisation happened and years of prosperity for a growing section of population followed (even as others continued to be pushed to the margins). We continued to dream of peaceful times, often beginning to believe that we had got there, only to be jolted violently like in the case of that girl, dazed and bewildered, sitting next to the body of her husband, only to be reminded how messy our lives are. Our region, its history, its present, and it seems its future as well, are pathetic. This sense of fatigue comes from the bleak realisation of the situation when you watch someone half inside, half outside the door of a house on blaze. This time, the roof seems to be caving in.

That sense of persistent fatigue became worse with what unfolded in the following two weeks. A predictable sense of shock and bewilderment quickly turned into jingoistic chest thumping, using the tragedy to direct its anger against our own people. It targeted Kashmiris, who were the first ones to save and provide relief to thousands of stranded tourists, and it targeted Muslims in general. Eventually, it targeted the very survivors and victims of the carnage who didn’t lose their sanity despite immeasurable grief and called for peace.

Our prime minister and his cohort were equally predicatable. Giving a charged speech in an election-bound state, the former completely elided the question of his own culpability. Only a few weeks earlier, the entire sarkari amla (officialdom), backed by vicious supporters, had been rejoicing in how ‘normalcy’ had been brought back to Kashmir, even if forcefully, rather, more so because it was done by force. In the wake of yet another tragedy, it swept aside the question of how fragile this so-called ‘normalcy’ was. The media went on with its own hysteria. The opposition found itself cornered to ‘support’ whatever the government decided in order to quench the blood thirst of the nation. Then, predictably, the air raids and missile hits began.

A predictable sense of shock and bewilderment quickly turned into jingoistic chest thumping, using the tragedy to direct its anger against our own. It targeted Kashmiris who were the first ones to save and provide relief to thousands of stranded tourists.

If only, this were for the first time! In the last nine years, we have seen the same cycle repeated at least three times, from Uri and Pathankot to now Pahalgam. It is the same spate of attacks. The only difference is that this time the civilian tourists have been attacked to add bucket loads of fuel to the cauldron of communal fire. It is the same set of symbolic responses backed with by same set of hysterical media. Only, every time we make it a little more screen worthy. All this while, movies were supposedly imitating real lives. There were scores of them to keep a hysterical nation on a high. From Uri and Kashmir Files to Article 370 and recently released Airforce, there were scores of them. This time, the cynical politics has set a template for the charged nation. It calls for Operation Sindoor and gives a readymade title to all the Akshay Kumars and Sunny Deols of this world, drooling at the prospect of more house-full stuff in times when Bollywood is facing existential threats. The hysterical nation is applauding. They are now busy doing a verbal autopsy of yet another masterstroke by our clever prime minister and marveling at how he manages to come up with something every time there is a terrorist strike and converts that into a true ‘Aapada me awsar’ – seeing an opportunity in the crisis.

But every time we inch a little further to the brink of self-annihilation. Amidst all this, the regime sits smugly, ever confident that it can continue to reap rich dividends. The question is how many more times will this ‘I scratch your back, you scratch my back’ be repeated? Won’t we ever get collectively tired, the way I feel personally today: exhausted? A few on the margins, who have some sanity left in them, ask, why are you tying yourself into a knot where you fall prey to the discourse of response set by another weak state? Why can’t we remember how after an even more heinous act of violence in 2008 then prime minister Manmohan Singh went for a diplomatic offensive that made the other side hugely weaker and made it harder even for tits supporters to own it. But then those options are toiled through the silent prodding of the night and not telecast live on television.

I know that writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbarism as WG Sebald wrote; more so after Gaza, but I can’t help but cite these lines from my favourite poet Srikant Verma from his famous Mgadh series:

Friends, you have seen

  Kashi

where corpses come and go by the same road

and this is all you did –

made way and asked,

Whose corpse is this?

Whoever it was

whoever it was not

what difference did itmake?

The author has been in the development sector for more than a decade. He currently works with an international non-governmental organisation based in Delhi. He may be reached at: avinashcold@gmail.com