Date:20/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/20/stories/2006022005560200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

For those voiceless millions

Rasheed Kappan

NOVEL PROTEST: Children with a poster against war during a demonstration in front of the Mahatama Gandhi statue in Bangalore on Sunday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE: With the war clouds threatening to engulf West Asia yet again, thanks to the American pressure on Iran, the peace hungry have every reason to feel jittery. The only way they see a change in attitude is through non-violent protests, through art that exposes the hypocrisy of violence that causes only suffering.

Artists have always been up against the mighty, brandishing their creative brushes to ridicule the warmongers.

Displaying a 6 ft. x10 ft. poster titled "Stop the Bush Bomb" in front of the Mahatma Gandhi Park here, a city-based artist was doing exactly that.

He was reinforcing the dictum against war of every kind.

Keep off

As children stood around the poster, they were telling the warmongers to keep off.

"Mr. George Bush cannot unilaterally decide upon a war on the people of Iran. Dictators should not play with the innocent lives of people," they were talking for the voiceless millions, the children who often suffered the most.

Children are often dismissed and excluded from social life and political decisions.

The reason: they are seen as not possessing the maturity and discerning ability to take sound decisions.

"But what sense do presidents and prime ministers have to wage war and put children into misery?," they asked.

In any war, the first victims are always children. Nobody cautioned them when bombs were dropped on Hiroshima, in Vietnam and in Iraq.

"Of the 60 million people killed in World War II, 24 million were children."

Shouting slogans, the children were telling the world to pause and beware of the wrongs of war.

"The people of America do not want war. The children of Iran do not want to fight. The people of India desire peace. Stop the Bush bomb. Save the children of Iran. Save the children of the world," the children were pleading for a just world, far from the violence perpetuated by the "thinking" adults.