The Voice of the Scar

We were neither brothers nor neighbour. We were neither friends nor enemy. We were not strangers but just one soul meant to be interwoven for eternity—we were not two but one. We were I. An ‘I’ beautifully accentuated with pride and prestige and wore the divine smile of unity. An ‘I’ merged with indistinct colours of human, vibrant than the vibgyor of the firmament; an ‘I’ whose divinity was brutally torn for useless reason and treason.

I was huge, strong and ravishing with every essence of life. The Mughal Emperor, Jahangir had eulogized my beautiful face, saying, “Ya firdaus barruhe jaminast, aminasto, aminasto, aminast” (if there is paradise on earth, it is here, it is here). My head was held high above the clouds and the giant scintillating white crown trumpeted my existence. My wardrobe oozed with clothes of every fashion. I loved dressing vibrantly in different cultures, had frolicked with every different season and with every lights of different festivals. I welcomed every different race as the smile of brotherhood. I had cherished every love blossoming here and endured every raging armada of hatred and power. Yet I was strong and prosperous because my children fought and lost, but never disintegrated.

I thought this would last forever like a heaven of men on earth. But it hurts me to say, I was wrong.

It was the 1947’s spear, who had scathed my soul and separated a part of me. The Golden bird’s wings were pinioned, not by the tyrants but by one of my own. My face was spattered with blood and murder. I was hearing the fading voices of brotherhood and the howls of renigation; I heard the crack in my soul and the dying shriek of unity, slowly being swallowed by the Gallows. I had then cried oceans of blood but the blind eyes can never see it. I carried the unbearable weight of 1.5 million bodies for weeks. Yet they kept raining swords and arms until the armada of noxiousness had exploded their minds. They mercilessly scratched me and then named my scar, “Line of Control”. They had taught me its importance. Being the worst pupil, I could only understand that it’s awfully inefficient to prevail its law—to ‘control’ differences, hatred and war between a nation—now dissected into two. I am sorry; I can never understand this language. But I can vividly see it as a prison wall built on my scar, with some invaluable treasure buried deep beneath it. I thought God has created other men to provide man a company; but man created wall to estrange that company and accompany loneliness instead.

They had divided me so as to stand. Oh naive men! Whenever I divide myself, you certainly fall. Yet their voices resonated with, “Peace in division”. If it’s so, then why I still weight the fallen on my scar. Why I witness starvation, poverty, corruption, commotion and riots chasing and running down you people? Why do I still feel the heat of hatred and the numbness of heart? Why there are chronic smokes still exploding? Why is the outcome of your theory so diametrically opposite when you roared for it with obstinate confidence? Why did you fail and are planning to fail for future?

You know the answer, but you turn a blind eye towards it. You know that there would have been no Kargil War, no Kashmir war and no 2013 border skirmishes between you two; no parasites would be feeding on you both and no rage of death blasting people, faith and religion like in 1969 Gujarat riot, the 1989 Bhagalpur violence, the Gujarat riot of 2002, the Goan Inquisition, the unnamed baseless conflicts prevalent on my separated part—killing 1,650 people in 2006 and 1,300 in 2007. Do you realize that you have polluted the very fragrance of brotherhood and humanity by razing the unity when you had struck that spear into me.

I have witnessed the splendour of unity— the united march of diverse valour, sacrificing itself for the bright free nation. Indeed, we are now not ruled by a company, or crown, but by something more devastating—SECTARIANISM!! You both are the victim of 1947. Since then, you both struggle for peace and prosperity. An empty mind is the mind of the devil which your brutal education of ‘peace in division’ has produced. Now I’ll teach you where L.o.C. should be drawn; the beauty in differences which you see with disdain and the unity of souls which brings triumph of peace.

You denounce differences. Difference in colour, faith, caste, sex, nationality and so on disturbs you. You seek for ‘uniformity’ which is so elusive. It’s a fact that God has made us all different but of one common existence. He has painted this earth with different shades of life as a sublime portrait. It’s not dyed solely in black or white—the world you desire. This earth is not blue with a single drop of water; it is not green with a single tree. Every unique soul is born with a unique role. Uniqueness is not a gift to ruin just to “fit in” into similarity. This gift is the fountainhead of new thoughts, innovations and change. When you exercised that Line of Control on yourself to set aside differences and unite yourself with others for a common goal, that’s when you possess the power to change the world. All the fingers of your hands are different, yet they can lift any heavy load together. A finger can’t do it alone but can only be used to point at others. Unity never demands uniformity, which impedes growth by killing uniqueness. Unity is rich in progress, ideas, resources, mutual respect, trust and love by binding differences into oneness. It possesses Herculean strength of action and opinion to mould things the way it wants. When you are about to fall, the other won’t let you. That’s the power which you can never find in a single hand. This world is a large family. If they try building a house with bricks of discrimination; the house will eventually crumble and come crashing down on them. Its strength is in the hands of Unity who binds all together and nurtures it.

You have waged war on religion. But I cannot consider such a man to be religious; as religion never preaches hatred and disharmony towards others. Every religion had one thing in common—the indispensable love and respect towards every man and every creature. Love and Respect blooms sunlight of peace, harmony and prosperity. So don’t spoil the name of religion by tagging it with your sacrilegious deeds. You have killed men in the name of caste and nationality. You ascribe ‘name’ as the tag of difference, the tag which was not there when you were born. You are all made humans to civilize together, not parasites to feed on others. You are born as humans not as Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and so on.

To achieve widespread peace, stability and civilization of human, unity is must. It can truly transform this earth to a healthy and gleeful paradise if we unite for a common healthy goal. This education, I believe, is the foremost part of any religion or any book of moral principles. Your borders have only bordered harmony and love. Your two arms are to embrace two other men, not to projectile it at them. Let us all—you and I stand together as one, and flower sunshine and nurture love. Let us not be a scathed fragment, but a huge giant tree producing sweetest of fruit and loveliest of flowers; with all its root tightly interwoven together—never to fall and never to crumble.