Heed Tariq Ali's Voice

I have just finished reading Tariq Ali's latest book, The Duel Pakistan: on the flight path of American power. I would recommend that all chowk walas should also read it. If anything, a careful reading of the book will help us get our ideas about the problems facing the region sorted out.

A veteran on the South Asian scene, Ali has clinically diagnosed the post-partition developments with a sympathetic mind without losing the desired element of objectivity. Tracing the origins of partition, he has come up with an interesting contrafactual proposition: The Muslim League supported the British war effort and got Pakistan as a thank-you cheque. Had Gandhi and Congress supported the war, then what would have happened? He doesn't spell it, and there is no need to indulge in that exercise. But we all need to appreciate his suggestion that whereas the clock cannot be turned back on partition, it needs to be readjusted to South Asian time.

The title of his last chapter-"Can Pakistan be recycled?" presupposes that the last 60 years have gone waste. Ali primarily attributes this failure to the fact that the Pakistani rulers have been always over-eager to please the Americans and behave as their satrapy. Like their founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah who was keen to sell his property to the Americans, the Pakistani elite too has found it useful to serve the interests of America.

So when he talks of recycling Pakistan, Ali suggests that it should forget being subservient to the Americans. He suggests that instead there should be a South Asian Union that is better than the EU. He wants that instead of being a buffer zone between United States and China, South Asia should emerge as a strong and independent region in its own right.

There is no doubt that our forefathers messed up a great opportunity in 1947 when they could not come to a sensible power sharing arrangement. It is also a fact that religion hardly divides India and Pakistan. The people may follow different religions, but religious fundamentalists on both sides have struggled to get even a foothold in the polity.

At a time when India and Pakistan find themselves engaged in this unseemly contest about the role of state actors or non state actors in the Mumbai attacks, Ali’s book has a refreshing long term perspective about the path that needs to be traveled by both the countries to live as decent neighbours. He is hopeful that an effective South Asian Union would also offer non-confrontational solutions to the Kashmir and Tamil disputes in the region.

Considering that a hostile approach has not worked for the last 60 years, at least as an option it is time for both India and Pakistan to grapple with the over-arching problems between the two countries in a creative way instead of being bogged down by old attitudes.

As it takes look at the past 60 years, Ali’s book also has many other relevant and interesting details, but it his prescription for the future that makes sense as it shows the way forward away from a beaten track.