The ongoing targeted bombardments and killings by the Israeli forces in the Middle East is spreading out. The targeted countries and civilian population are surviving in fear and amidst daily round of disasters and destruction.
This ongoing destruction is bound to affect us, and in fact, has already been leaving imprints here in our country. In terms of employment and job avenues, business and trade, travels for pilgrimages and ziarats, interactions of academics during seminars and meets.
One could see and sense changes coming about here, in the country, from the 1990s, when America intruded into Iraq. Before the USA aggression into Iraq, the Iraqi Embassy in India, then situated at New Delhi’s posh Jor Bagh locality, was ‘alive’; buzzing with activity with over 40 Iraqi diplomats at work. And almost double the number of the junior rung staff. As the ‘mother of all wars’ peaked in the 1990s, I would visit the Iraqi embassy on several occasions to interview the then Iraqi envoy to India. I also met many Sikhs and Muslims and Hindus who gathered there in large numbers, outpouring support for Saddam Husain, “for taking on the super power of the world – America!”… I saw for myself Indian families carrying huge food and ration containers and medicine cartons, pleading that those be sent to the Iraqi soldiers fighting the Americans… And contrary to the Western propaganda that Saddam Husain was a regressive tyrant, Iraqi diplomats and their families residing in New Delhi seemed far ahead of the times. The envoys and their spouses were well educated, their attires very western, most spoke fluent English. I recall the receptions hosted by the then Iraqi envoys at their official residence/bungalow on the Prithvi Raj Road, which was gifted by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the first Iraqi envoy posted to India in the 1950s…Those receptions continued till Iraq was actually Iraq! When July 17th heralded the celebration of Iraq’s national day with a series of receptions, with Iraqi intellectuals, editors and writers, and the top creamy brass flying down here, from several cities of Iraq. Of course, before it was intruded into and ruined by American and Allied Forces on that alibi of ‘looking for weapons of mass destruction’ but thry didn’t manage to find any! Instead, they destroyed that land, its very fabric, its people, an ancient civilization.
Stand out memories of the cultural evenings held in the 90s, by the Arab envoys to India. I recall the first time I heard a Dhrupad concert was at the residence of the then envoy of Qatar to India, Dr Hassan Al Naama. He was one of those suave diplomats who hosted classical musical evenings in that traditional baithak style. Also, the envoys of Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Jordan and Algeria would also host interactive meets at their residences and embassies …Today I am not too sure whether the once well- functioning Arab League office in New Delhi still functions with that level of out-reach. After all, there’s been a slow and steady phasing out of the very vibrant and spirited strength of the Middle East and the West Asian countries. Rather too obvious that several of these countries are battling on the various fronts, devastated by the tactics cum strategies of America and Allies, using the age old Western ploy of creating a civil war like situation, with that going right ahead to rule!
Compounding the situation for us Indians, is India’s apparent slant towards Israel and its allies. This pro-Israel tilt was more than obvious right from 2014, peaking in the summer/July of 2017, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first trip to Israel.
What a contrast to India’s stand under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. In fact, it was Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision and policies vis-a-vis West Asia that made the Arab world tilt towards India. He was clear about his stand on Palestine, and with that made the Arabs and West Asians strong allies of India. Today there’s no Nehru and there’s little trace of the connect with the Middle East….I have attended press conferences of fiery Palestinian envoys to India and the emotions they generated amongst the Indian masses. I recall that warm hug that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave Indira Gandhi when she had hosted an elaborate reception for him in New Delhi.
Today, that’s all history as disturbing patterns are emerging of the changed world order. Where there’s little concern for human life or even that basic survival. A major offshoot of this Israel-unleashed war on the Arab lands is the very future of the young.
Victims of the political wars and civil strife, hundreds and thousands of Arab children are either dead or dying. Those surviving with a nothingness to them. Haven’t we all seen shots of Syrian, Palestinian, Yemeni kids and their families looking about all too hopelessly … Many tried to flee. Even those managing to reach Europe were treated as aliens; tags thrown at them - suspects, intruders, beggars seeking refuge!
Many children lay dead even before they could reach some sort of destination. For months, I couldn’t get over the picture of the Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, lying dead by the sea shore. The innocence of the refugee child, compounded by the pain of hundreds of refugees fleeing into a nowhere of sorts, brought into focus the grim reality of those trying to seek refuge… European right-wing lobbies coming in way, sealing the fate of hundreds and thousands of Aylan Kurdis, who ironically have been reduced to the refugee status because of the civil war triggered off by the Western expansionist strategies.
Before I could recover from Aylan Kurdi’s death, what had hit were those haunting photographs of the four year old injured Syrian child, Omran Daqneesh. Though alive, he looked lifeless; covered with blood and dust, he didn’t cry in pain or shock. And then came news of Omran’s older brother, 10 year old Ali Daqneesh, succumbing to his injuries. Hundreds of children and their families have been killed or disabled in and around Syria by bombardments and much more havoc.
And such is the level of intolerance spreading out in the Western world, that even refugee children are seen as potential threats. Sadist cartoonists lampooning dead refugee toddlers! Why French publications like Charlie Hebdo mocked the tragic death of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi! Wasn’t that lampooning blatantly vulgar and much too insensitive!
And though till date refuge-seekers from the Arab lands haven’t reached this part of the subcontinent, possibly because of geographical barriers, but if they do, they would experience another set of the dark realities. Today, in India, there are hundreds internally displaced. Entire clans and families forced to shift from one locale to the next, as the land and political mafia are unleashed to target vulnerable communities. Made to run from their ancestral homes, made to survive like refugees in their own country!