A Tribute to Unbowed Spirit,
by Amitabh Sinha

High up in the north of what used to be the USSR lies a small country called Ingushetia. A tiny nation of 4000 km2 and less than half a million people with an average age of less than 23. Ingushetia is a proud and monumental living tragedy.

I've never been to this land and yet it and its people are often in my thoughts. The Ingush as a nation have historically been a warrior caste, employed by regime after regime and conqueror after conqueror as the spearhead for attacking difficult and recalcitrant enemies. Yet for themselves the Ingush have been a people of peace by choice.

That in itself is enough to command respect – a people steeped in fighting tradition and gifted at it, choosing to live in peace and without aggression. Yet the Ingush chooses to go further. Attacked, enslaved, victimized, racially and ethnically cleansed and repeatedly betrayed over centuries, the Ingush still prefers to try for peaceful existence.

When attacked, the Ingush chooses to run, rather than fight, disappearing like smoke into their mountains – not to regroup and attack their pursuers, but to wait till the vitriol of racial hate, bubbles off and they can return once more. It is this patience in the face of overwhelming victimization that commands respect.

Yet their enemy is persistent and increasingly abusive and there are times when the individual Ingush chooses to run no more in the face of consistent abuse. Then the Ingush turns in his tracks. The story of what the Ingush does when he turns at bay, is both surprising and humbling.

Chased, humiliated and victimized beyond the limits of his endurance, the Ingush does not adopt the tactics of his assailants. He does not hide in ambush and massacre in revenge. He does not return injury for injury and wrong for wrong.

No. Even at the close, the Ingush is proud, upright and above all honourable. A part of the Ingush attire is a long cape called the "burqua". When the Ingush turns at bay, he throws his burqua on the ground, stands on it and draws his knife. The signal being "thus far and no farther".

It is recorded time and again, that if the enemy retreats, the Ingush does not pursue, yet if the enemy comes on, the Ingush retreats no further. Nothing less than death will make his feet leave that burqua, and like any proud man he has chosen the ground and the manner of his final goodbye. In life unfazed, in death unsullied.

I carry no brief for the Ingush people, they are a product of our evolution, just as much as the eternal victims of life, whether in Bosnia or Jaffna or Beirut or Kabul or … or … or … They are as much the victims of their circumstances as all the abused, the betrayed, the trifled with, whether the abuse and the betrayal are national, regional, ethnic, tribal or individual.

Yet the manner in which they choose to meet the end of their circumstance, humbles me, for it reflects a humble yet firm refusal to bow before wrong.