Till the gruesome Peshawar killings, I always
believed, that Pashtoons and the Rajputs valued valor far more than victory.
And that being vicious in war was never a value that they espoused or a virtue
that they lived by.
The Peshawar massacre willy-nilly in dubbed
voices has once again kindled the debate of terror being Islamic. Whether Islam promotes and propagates terror
is clearly a question only its arch exponents can answer, and any effort that I
may make in that direction, would be only half-baked.
But I did read just a few chapters of the
Koran in an attempt to understand its ethos. And in the chapter that I read,
after every second verse was a threat of punishment that Allah holds out to his
followers for non-complying with the tenets as touted by the Quran, and threat
of eternal perdition to those who did not believe in the Quran.
The holy book is like a book on conduct and
holds a constant threat of punishment - should there be deviation from the code
of conduct as enshrined - a metrics for calibrating such retribution is also
provided by the book. Undeniably, it is not a religion of love, but more of
threat punishment and retribution.
While I am quite a slave of the
egalitarianism that is propagated by Islam - something that is grievously
lacking in Hinduism - one problem that I clearly see in Islam is its being
paranoid and phobic to any reform. Any talk of reform seems to insinuate some deficiency,
and like other Abrahamic religion pointing out of a deficiency tantamounts to blasphemy.
Something that is again punishable and the measure of such punishment clearly defined.
Christianity addressed this inwardness to
an extent by bringing out the New Testament, and may be Islam will have to
figure out a similar way too to bring in long pending reform in the religion
and also to bring in some softening of the radical message that is spread by
that religion.
It was 10 supposedly chastened viridescent draped
TTP Jihadists who scaled the wall of a army school and slayed 140 innocent
children and teachers. The TTP was a state sponsored terror outfit helping the
Pakistan army in wrecking terror on the Afghan neighbouring autonomous tribal areas of the North.
Apparently, the dance of death in the
school was a tit for tat aimed at the army, which, after the ascendency of
Sharif to the post of PM, has been liquidating terrorists through air strikes,
precisely the TTP and its members that it once supported and sponsored.
The TTP wanted the army to feel the pain of
losing women and children they lose in Pakistani army air strikes as collateral
damage.
While we must with all the sincerity
sympathize with Pakistan, the galling truth is, that no action is being taken
against the Hafiz Sayeed's LET Jihadists harbored in Punjab area of Pakistan, as they
help the Pak army in the proxy war with India, bleeding India by keeping her
embroiled and engaged in a frivolous war, sponsored but not waged not by the
army itself.
I only hope that the Sharif government
realizes that the once friendly TTP turned against it, so can the LET that it
is nurturing to foment trouble in Kashmir could turn against it.
But sanity is something that eludes you
most when you are intoxicated by power and Sharif and Pak army may be most
prone to it today.
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