Imtiyaz Ahmad Shah
The world in which we live has been subjected to ceaseless and destructive warfare for centuries. There is no composure and stability, and if there is, by chance, a consensus in an area, it is finally disrupted by those who are the ‘war criminals’. The concept of war was forged by humans with their covetous designs and power. The first ‘hunter-gatherers’ turned out to be the warlords and tyrants of the time. This world has known improbable crusades, vandalism, shipwrecks, holocausts, genocides, and so on, and the oppressor or the oppressed are human.
We, humans, are collectively responsible for all absurd things which are taking place in the present world. The war, whether provoked or unprovoked, disturb the peace and prosperity of the nation. As nations spend centuries giving rise to expansions in all fields but end up regretting and grieving due to war, loss of property, loss of human lives, and so on. We have caught a glimpse of visuals of war in movies, through biographies and news reports, and we can sum up the whole scenario with this spontaneous blank verse, ‘war can never infuse life into dead, or it can never bring what the nation has achieved through unimaginable sacrifices and sufferings’. Human lives are important, but these autocrats, who have no minds, never think about the outcomes. They never feel pity or never get hurt by the screams and clamorous howls of widows, mothers, orphans, sisters, brothers, et cetera, and they keep pushing their limits to restrain people and divide them from each other. Separation kills more than warfare. We can endure the tragedies and animalism of war, but we cannot endure separation because, in these times, we need people we care about. Besides, separation brings insanity and insanity is invisible death.
Sadat Hasan Manto was a great writer who wrote factual stories about what was going on in our societies throughout the partition. In his widely-read short story, Toba Tek Singh explains the madness of sharing and separation. Protagonist Bishan Singh, who belongs to Toba Tek Singh lived in the Lahore Asylum and was regarded as a harmless old man. He was not insane or crazy, but the world was. He never slept or took pleasure in resting his nerves. This incident embodies the madness of the partition, which was unjust at the time.
The partition paralysed Bishan Singh’s audacities, and he kept asking people about Toba Tek Singh and where he was, in India or Pakistan. Whenever Bishan Singh gets irritated he murmurs or cries out a blend of Punjabi, Urdu and English which, we can label as an absurdity, but the intuition was distinct because through these unorganized words he articulated his outrage over India and Pakistan. For instance, ‘Upar di gur gur di annexe di bedhiyana di moong di daal of di Pakistan and Hindustan of di dur phitey munh.’ Bishan Singh’s madness and anger depict that he wasn’t happy with India and Pakistan’s partition.
War obliterates heaven and the location where people used to pass time with their neighbours, relatives, friends, etc., and when people are hurt and offended their state of mind changes consequently. The psychological effect of war turns people either mad or violent. Today, many underdeveloped countries have fallen victim to an unprovoked war. We have seen buildings turn into waste, bloodstained walls, clothes, and aisles. The deafening noise of high-tech artillery and projectiles is changing the scenario of prosperous nations. The war must come to an end, and we must free the oppressor and the oppressed from the chains of hatred and animosity. We need to spread the side effects of war from our homes all the way around the globe.
The repetition of such wars has to be halted by a collective effort. If we are concerned about memes or jokes, we are a serious threat to any nation. We should feel the pain of those in these horrific circumstances. Constant unprovoked wars could be the cause of pure madness and this can still wreak havoc on the state of being. Furthermore, prioritizing nuclear weapons will only lead to sabotage, not peace. Thus, people must be liberated from these servitudes and oppressions, by peace, not by physical force. The contemporary visuals of Palestine and Ukraine are spreading like hasty plagues. Our eyes are in the midst of the trauma and the collective madness of war and separation. Well, each month is the cruellest month for all of us.
The writer is a student of English Literature and an Independent Research Scholar
