I watched the video of anti Padmavat right wing goons attacking the school bus. I was filled with horror, anger and grief. And the Peshawar 2014 school attack flashed in front of me.

I remember it vividly — watching the news of terrorists carrying out a mindless bloodbath. They chased the little kids, caught and shot them. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. How is this even possible — that too in the name of honour and God? I mean, human beings are just not programmed that way. What kind of brainwashing must it have taken? When must it have started? What must it have taken, such that today, the promising energy of these youth has been used to unleash mind-numbing, senseless violence against little children? And they think it’s okay!

The answer came through an unlikely source — ‘Khamosh Paani’, a movie set in Pakistan of the 1970’s. I had seen a few years back. It is the story of Saleem, a sweet, laid-back village teen from the Punjab province of Pakistan. A doting widowed mother, a childhood sweetheart from the same village, a few equally vela friends, and a flute — that’s all his life is. By the end though, he has crushed his flute, abandoned his sweetheart and set out to kill his own mother with his own hands — all in the name of God.

It all started with two ‘pious’ men come to stay in the village as emissaries of religion and piety. This was under General Zia-Ul-Haq’s nation-wide radicalization program.

Gen. Zia ul Haque

The General had recently thwarted a democratically elected government, taken over as President and launched wholesale changes to social fabric and institutional structures of the country. Emissaries (the closest hindi word is ‘Pracharaks’) use a variety of methods to impose rituals, beliefs, practices regarding food, appearances, clothes, and other personal choices. At first, he keeps distance from them, like the rest of the village. But eventually, they win him over using soft emotional appeals, rabble rousing, shaming, greed, offers-of-power, and mesmerizing oratory. They paint the ‘other’ (i.e. India) as evil that must be destroyed, anyhow and at any cost.

I particularly remember Saleem’s first taste of power — hurling a stone at the glass of the shop of the village-chacha-jaan. It was a punishment for chacha not heeding to the bandh call. From that day, there was no looking back. His ‘baptism by fire’ was complete, the day he decided to kill his own mother. He had just discovered she was originally from another faith. She had to be punished. In the last shot of the movie, we see he has become a key political figure of the country. A radical leader is born, the day the human in him dies.

Such emissaries (or pracharaks) fanned out across the country during Zia-ul-Haq’s times and many were radicalized. I once heard that General Zia ordered re-writing of textbooks. I was told, the alphabet textbook for toddlers taught the word ‘zaalim’ or tyrant. Next to the word was the picture of a person from a different faith. Science text books were changed to ascribe phenomena of physics and chemistry to divine powers.

It became clear to me — 25 years later, you have an entire generation whose worldview has been carefully engineered. Few of them become so deeply poisoned that they can even unleash violence against innocent children in cold blood.

But when this happens, aren’t there counter-forces that would resist and stop the slide into the abyss? Well, it seems Zia’s regime threatened, bought out, or shut down any independent institutions that raised a voice. Better still, they just put their man — a pracharak — as the head of the institution. They crossed lines of ethics, probity and decency with impunity.

“It is all necessary for strengthening the nation”, they said. After all the other; i.e. India — was the evil enemy. And the claim was that only they can save the people from that enemy. God too was appropriated. Men in robes became brokers of power and assumed authority. Dissent was sown between different factions of the population to keep them distracted and dissipated. Attention was diverted to the glory being attained, by making friends with no less than America! The foreign money injected into the country, made a few elite richer and increased poverty of the poor.

I remember feeling immensely sad for the ordinary people of that country. I also remember heaving a sigh of relief that India was different.

But look around you today. Aren’t the last few paragraphs sounding eerily similar to what’s going on in India for the last few years? We seem to be in a desperate race to be exactly like the neighbour that they say we must hate!

Just in a couple of weeks, we’ve seen a lot — independent institutions like Election Commission being made a political weapon to thwart democratically elected MLA’s of the Delhi Assembly — a naked dance of revenge and power-lust! We’ve seen an unprecedented press conference by Supreme Court Judges. We’ve seen radicals take over streets, and their robed masters take over seats in corridors of power. We’ve seen moves to replace Darwin by dogma by Education Ministers. We’ve seen school kids being targeted in the name of valour and pride!

I worry about the affected kids. But equally I worry about the faceless youth who did this. He has cast the first stone. He has tasted power. He has experienced indignant righteousness. That first stone took Saleem to the point of being prepared to kill his own mother. And with a few such Saleem’s, their entire motherland lies in shambles today.

I have immense faith in the strength of India’s enduring values. I do believe this is a brief period of insanity, and eventually our true secular, plural, peace-loving character will prevail. But the question is, how long would it take? And what prices will we have to pay?

We must rise up and act today! Longer leashes to goondas in power, can make us a Banana Republic. Gandhiji did not take bullets in his chest for us to be ruled by Zia-ul-Haq doctrines. He’d rather be happy with those that work to make every child educated and healthy! Let’s renew our pledge towards that!