In George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm he shares the story of a rebellion. The rebellion is unlike any before it – it is concocted by farm animals against their human owners. “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself”, declares Major, the porcine self-proclaimed leader of the farm animals. The animals dream of a time when they have azaadi and self rule, a glorious time when they are free to be their own masters and relish in the products of their hard labor. Major reminds his ‘comrades’ that “in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.”
After months of plotting and planning, the rebellion takes place and the animals are victorious. Soon after, the pigs assume leadership because they claim to be ‘the most intelligent’ of the animals. They develop 7 commandments, which include the maxim ‘All Animals Are Equal’. But with the course of time, the pigs usurp more and more power and eventually change this maxim to ‘All Animals Are Equal…But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others’. The story ends with the pigs becoming worse than the unjust human rulers they once detested, and the fate of the animals in the farm, far more perilous than it ever had been. Eventually, the rebels become more tyrannical than the tyrants they once rebelled against.
On October 7th, Rehana Gulzar – a mother of three from Bandipora – was burned to death by her in-laws. Because her in-laws had reportedly made her life living hell, Rehana was planning to move out with her husband into a home they were preparing to construct – the foundation stone for which was laid the day Rehana was burnt alive. Aside from protests in Bandipora by Rehana’s colleagues in the Government Health sector, there have been no shutdown calls, no state-wide protests, and not even further news about this case in major media.
Tyranny is tyranny; injustice is injustice – no matter who propagates it. The message of Orwell’s book rings as true today as it did back in 1945. We live in a world where we dream of freedom and self-rule, but the moral fabric that binds a society together and gives it any chance of prosperity has been set ablaze and only decrepit ashes remain. We protest the injustices done to us by outside forces – as we should – but what of the injustice that we do to each other? What of the scores of land disputes between brothers, what of the hate and venom between family members, what of the sale of donated hospital equipment for the profit of storekeepers, what of the corruption whose stench reeks from every government agency, and what of our Rehanas?
I am reminded of the chilling last scenes from a Pakistani drama Dastaan which tells the tragic story of the partition. The protagonist, a female Muslim girl, is inadvertently left behind in India, separated from her fiancé who reaches Pakistan. During her long and arduous journey to Pakistan, she is raped repeatedly by various Hindu and Sikh rebels. However, she never lets go of her dream to get to Pakistan – the land of pak, of purity, where she believes that none of the torments she has experienced will exist. She finally reaches Pakistan but within mere days of her arrival she is raped, yet again, but this time at the hands of a Muslim Pakistani in a land she had dreamed would be free of the tyranny she had seen before.
What meaning does freedom hold when basic human rights have no value? What value does freedom have when morality has no foundation? How many Rehanas will it take for us to consciously work to rebuild the moral fabric of our society?
The Bégel's Blab 