Ask the Soldier Who is Leaving

(Or, जाने वाले सिपाही से पूछो )

A journalist I knew in college in Delhi, a man from my home-town, has been posting pictures proclaiming Indian advances in war. Another acquaintance, a journalist from Pakistan, has been similarly diligent, uploading reports of Pakistani strikes against India. These are otherwise sane voices. But even they appear quite human when seen against the backdrop of the insanity of mainstream media! Just look at this post that shows what various news anchors in Delhi had been claiming:

The lust for blood! And, in equal measure, the love of lies!

I rather liked this post by someone on social media, pointing out the endless cycle of fake news by our shallow and mendacious media:

If this news is correct, and how low have our standards fallen if we have to rely on Trump for news, then peace might be coming. Over the past several days, I have been thinking of the song Jaane Waale Sipahi Se Poochho, an undying anthem for peace. I remembered that I had mentioned it in my novel My Beloved Life when I was writing about the clamor of war:

This song was written by the radical poet Makhdoom Mohiuddin and it has been celebrated in left circles as a protest against the wars of the rich that have profited from the deaths of the poor. (“Ask the soldier who is leaving, / where is he going? / Who is that sorrowful woman lamenting / She who is putting to bed the hungry children / There is the odor of burning corpses / It is life itself that is screaming…”) While the elites in Delhi and Islamabad and elsewhere call for war and spread all kinds of misinformation, think about the ordinary people in places like Poonch for whom this war is a calamity.

It has been difficult to find credible news because this is turning out to be a war on truth. This is the statement from the administrators at X. Here is Sushant Singh explaining the dynamics of the conflict to Isaac Chotiner at the New Yorker. You spend a lifetime building a home and an unseen enemy destroys it. Or your loved one that is lost and will not come back. The sons and daughters of the warmongering television anchors and the politicians are probably in the US and UK; like me, they woke up this morning and while drinking coffee checked the news in the distant subcontinent. None of them are in the line of fire! So, please! And listen to this.