{"id":285293,"date":"2018-02-19T13:25:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T07:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=285293"},"modified":"2018-02-19T13:25:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T07:55:33","slug":"dont-forgot-the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/dont-forgot-the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t forgot, the pen is mightier than the sword!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jaipur<\/a>As tensions accelerate here and there and all along the LOC, I have been asking myself \u2014 Can\u2019t sense prevail? Can\u2019t we see that politics of hate and hatred is being generated amongst the countries of this subcontinent so that we remain far away and cut off from each other? Can\u2019t we see political lobbies and arms dealers coming in way of our togetherness? Can\u2019t we see the destructive powers of the political mafia? Can\u2019t we see the bigger designs of powers and super powers controlling our lives and livelihoods? Can\u2019t we comprehend the dangers ahead, as every single day more divisions are thrust in our midst, in the way of our collective togetherness?<\/p>\n

As I sit rather forlorn, there comes in this latest issue of \u2018The Equator Line\u2019 with this rather catchy title sprawled on its cover \u2014 \u2018Imagine There\u2019re No Countries.\u2019 Nudging me into imagining: what if this world or at least this subcontinent was to be one! No barriers. No boundaries. No Line of Control. No political hurdles. No hounding and killing of refuge- seekers. No hate speeches. No wars. No surgical strikes. No arms dealers in those various guises hovering around the top politicians of the day. Yes, it would be bliss!<\/p>\n

And I delved into the pages of this latest issue of The Equator Line, it was sheer delight to read writers from different countries of this subcontinent and even beyond, each of them focusing on the human and his or her very being! And as I delved somewhat
\nmore into the five-year-long journey of this refreshingly different publication, there was that connect with an entire range of simple happenings in our daily lives which we seem to be bypassing or overlooking or trampling upon, caught that we are in the midst of the complicatedly chaotic changes spreading around.<\/p>\n

To quote the magazine\u2019s chief editor, Bhaskar Roy, \u201cAt a time when the once-mighty print media appeared overtaken by new technology, TEL began its journey \u2014 tentatively amidst uncertainties. Surprisingly, in the past five years that the magazine has been on the road, it has found space for itself with the young professionals and academic community strongly backing it. Every issue of TEL picks up a theme, and everything between the covers revolves around it. The issue that hit the stands on New Year\u2019s Day 2012 focused on the leadership question. India: Waiting for a New Helmsman \u2014 that was the title of the\u00a0first TEL number. The next issue raised a new debate questioning the validity of the Radcliff Line. The Subcontinent: Reinterpreting the Radcliff Line\u00a0asks the intelligentsia on either side of the border about their shared\u00a0heritage and uncertain future. The writers, academics and other professionals responded in equal measure to the challenge of achieving peace, rejecting the division, and pointing out that the resilience of the common affinities are stronger than the political division\u2026\u201d In fact, Bhaskar Roy also\u00a0focuses on its very reach. \u201cWith every such innovative number the magazine broke new ground and won wide\u00a0approval. And for Peter Canby, a legendary editor at The New Yorker this magazine from India is indeed good news. \u201c\u2018I am very happy to have a stack of \u2018Equator Line\u2019 in my office \u2014 both to browse in and share with others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2666 \u2666 \u2666<\/p>\n

Today our very survival is at stake, as the political mafia accelerates its treachery, destroying us as never before. Today it\u2019s the fundamental duty of each single writer to cry out, through words. Believe me, words from the very heart do reach out, do connect, could halt the sheer brutality inflicted each single day. It doesn\u2019t really matter which region or religion you belong to. What\u2019s crucial is the fact that no political ruler has the sanction to hoodwink the masses and then make them indulge in killings, here and there. Today, it\u2019s getting frightful to see hundreds of refugees queueing up, running for their lives from here to there. It\u2019s not just the hapless Rohingyas but also the internally displaced, fleeing the politically charged goons hounding them. Yes, something or everything horribly wrong is ongoing, yet we are not reacting! Mute we sit. Why?<\/p>\n

Remember the Progressive Writers\u2019 movement came up in the 1930s when the then repressive situation was getting impossible to deal with? Writers and poets had come to the fore, armed with verse and prose. Yes, just words and more of them, each word dripping with passion and purpose. As this verse by Sahir Ludhianvi still stands out\u2014
\n\u201cHere we go, stoking fire through song-laden lips\/
\nThe fear of the world can never staunch the flow of our words\/
\nIn all, we have just one view, our own\/
\nWhy should we see the world through someone else\u2019s eyes?\/
\nIt is true we did not turn the world into a garden\/
\nBut at least we lessened some thorns from the paths we travelled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Move your pen, my countrymen. Time ripe, rather over-ripe for a full-fledged writers\u2019 movement to take off. Call it by any name or term of choice but it ought to halt the fascist forces denting and destroying this entire region. It ought to be such a tough movement which can take on the might of the rulers and their ruthlessness inflicted on us and on our children, day after day. So much so, that this generation seems to know more about wars and conflicts and hate- killings and surgical strikes than about our literature and those literary giants who\u2019d more than hinted of the tough stand one ought to take in dark times.<\/p>\n

Read and re-read this passion-laden verse of Faiz Ahmad Faiz, his words compelling each one of us to pick up the pen and write on, to write fearlessly without giving a damn to the hurdles thrown along the way by the brutalities of the rulers and the very machinery they man:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what if my pen has been snatched away from me\/
\nI have dipped my fingers in the blood of my heart\/
\nSo what if my mouth has been sealed; I have turned\/
\nEvery link of my chain into a speaking tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n

letters@tehelka.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As tensions accelerate here and there and all along the LOC, I have been asking myself \u2014 Can\u2019t sense prevail? Can\u2019t we see that politics of hate and hatred is being generated amongst the countries of this subcontinent so that we remain far away and cut off from each other? Can\u2019t we see political lobbies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[481,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}