Talking of Talks

The talk of the town is that Indian and Pakistani rulers have talked about talks that could perhaps lead to further talks. Following the Foreign Secretaries’ face-to-face talk, the Prime Ministers have had a telephone talk. Like all the talks in the diplomatic world of ‘winks and nods,’ these talks have also been dubbed swiftly as "friendly" and "satisfactory" by the officialdoms. It is way too early to speculate on the ruling classes’ will and commitment to walk their talk because they have not talked about anything other than the need for more talks. It is also not guaranteed that they will not revert to their traditional position of not talking when they actually begin talking about something other than the talk.

The crux of the matter is not if the ruling classes will talk or stalk, but most of us in India and Pakistan, both the rulers and the ruled, have accepted the Indo-Pakistan altercation as some sort of a ‘curse’ with little or no role for human agency. One can identify at least four intricate aspects of this mentality: givenness, negativism, resignation and futurelessness.

Consider, for instance, how Altaf Hussain, the leader of the Mohajir (Muttahida) Qaumi Movement (Refugees' National Front) in the Pakistani province of Sind who later moved to London in exile, employs the theme of curse to narrate the history of the Subcontinent:

The Hindus and Muslims were fighting for independence together. But the British created distrust between them. The leaders of the Hindus as well as the Muslims are to blame, for if only they had accepted each other's existence and rights, the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and all the others would have continued living together as they had done for centuries. There would have then been no relevance of the two-nation theory, and India would not have been divided. Gandhi did not want India's division. He wanted all religions to live together. But there were some biased Hindu leaders. The point is, what had to happen, happened. Our ancestors suffered migration, and the curse has stayed with us.[1]

Hussain, who commands a great sway among the nearly 20-million-strong community of Urdu-speaking Pakistanis who migrated from India during the partition and formed the majority in the urban centers of Sind, continues:

The Mohajirs of Pakistan have already suffered the curse once in 1947. They left in India the graves of their ancestors, their cultural heritage, all the memories attached with that soil. And for so many of us, now exiled, fearing our lives in Pakistan, this is the repeat of that curse.[2]

Although Hussain's 'curse' metaphor is interesting, his argument of "what had to happen, happened" rejects human responsibility for the Indo-Pakistan altercation and relegates human agency to the imagination of a novelist.

The degree of negativism that permeates both in India and Pakistan is even higher and more intense than the unproblematic acceptance of our common lot. Since partition, according to Hussain, the Muslims of the Subcontinent have lost everything materialistically and the only "spiritual success" is that they have built a country for the Muslims. He concludes: "Materially, it is a case of na khuda hee mila, na visaal-e-sanam, na idhar ke rahe, na udhar ke rahe (I got neither God, nor a glance at my lover, I ended up neither here, nor there)."[3] It is this "spiritual success," what Renan calls the "spiritual principle" known as a nation, that has come to haunt Indians and Pakistanis and to make them feel bitter about each other.

Although the Islamic clergy has been active all along in Pakistani politics since its inception, it was General Zia ul-Haq who resolutely sought to mould an "Islamic State" in his country ever since he took over the Pakistani government in 1977. His efforts strongly emphasized the existence of Pakistan in terms of "God's Oneness" and justified its government as "Godly". For instance, a Social Studies textbook in Urdu under the changed curriculum narrated:

What is the meaning of Pakistan? God is one and alone. The concept of Pakistan was such a fact that everyone understood. Its direct meaning is active Islamic interpretation and its implementation. Pakistan was demanded so that Muslims could live their individual and collective lives according to Islam. Instead of an un-Godly government, they could live their lives under the government of God.[4]

The Hindu communalists in India savor this Islamic fundamentalism as it validates their own destructive politics. They argue that the Koran itself proclaims that the Muslims are a separate nation, the Ummah. Kafirs (infidels), the practitioners of kufr who themselves can be divided into the Zimmis (Jews and Christians who have the right to life) and the Mushriks (idol-worshippers who have to choose between Islam and death), can never be part of the Ummah. The 'Hindu' interpretation continues:

According to the Koran this land of ours is a Jahiliyyah, a land of darkness. It will remain a Jahiliyyah till the rule of Islam is fully established here. Muslims...have no freedom to believe that in the present stage of history, when India is still predominantly Hindu, they are a part of the Indian nation.[5]

So, as Aurobindo put it as far back as in 1909, when the time comes for the 'Hindus' to meet the Muslims in the political field, they are ready to exchange with the Muslims "the firm clasp of the brother or the resolute grip of the wrestler" as per the latter's choice.[6] According to Aurobindo,

Spirituality is India's only politics, the fulfillment of the Sanatan Dharma its only Swaraj. I have no doubt we shall have to go through our Parliamentary period in order to get rid of the notion of Western democracy by seeing in practice how helpless it is to make nations blessed. India is passing really through the first stages of a sort of national Yoga. It was mastered in the inception by the inrush of divine force which came in 1905 and aroused it from its stale of complete tamasic ajnanam [ignorance]. But, as happens also with individuals, all that was evil, all the wrong samskaras [imprints] and wrong emotions and mental and moral habits rose with it and misused the divine force. Hence all that orgy of political oratory, democratic fervour, meetings, processions, passive resistance, all ending in bombs, revolvers and Coercion laws...God has struck it all down.[7]

This psychedelic preoccupation with God and history has given rise to an enormous negativism among many Indians and Pakistanis about each other. None other than the Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. herself has joked about the difference between India and Pakistan: "In Pakistan, we worship one God. In India, they worship many gods, some with nine arms and legs."[8] A former Indian Foreign Secretary recounts a personal experience:

[M]y wife and I had gone to a Pakistani friend's residence on the day of Id in 1990. Some other relatives of this Pakistani friend were also present. A six-year-old girl belonging to that family wandered in and asked who "uncle and aunty" were, referring to us. When she was given the reply that we were from "Hindustan", this little child skipped us around chanting "Hindu Kutta", "Hindu Kutta" [Hindu dogs], to the deep embarrassment of my Pakistani friend.[9]

If this is how Indians are perceived in Pakistan, the other side of the border is not any better either. For instance, Mrs. Sahia, a shopkeeper on Ayodhya's central street, contends:

Back in forty-seven, the Muslims got all of Pakistan for their state, and we got India for ours. Do you think Hindus are welcome in Karachi or Lahore? Of course not. Yet we let Muslims live here in peace, and they do nothing but stir up trouble. If they don't like it here they should go back to Pakistan where they belong.[10]

Hari Prasad, a market vendor in Ayodhya, "doesn't like Muslims. They're violent people,...untrustworthy people, people who kill cows, people who will cheat you any chance they get, people who never bathe."[11] This kind of bitterness and vehemence among many Indians and Pakistanis about each other has crept into the cultural, educational and psychological realms and has set an overwhelming negativism in their socio-economic-political affairs.

Understandably, the cumulative effect of these tendencies of givenness and negativism is the inevitable attitude and behavior of resignation with faith in maledictions and other such fatalistic references. Calling the Indo-Pakistan relations "a flawed inheritance," a former Indian Foreign Secretary, J. N. Dixit, concludes his book with two Urdu couplets that mean:

The cogitations of my heart are so complex and convoluted; how can I explain them to my protagonist--How can I structure a harmonious relationship when the very impulses and motivations for it are not there?

Come on despite the frustrations of my heart, let us go to the gathering, but do alert me when the presiding figure of the gathering arrives.[12]

Fostering this mood of resignation, another former Foreign Secretary of India has reviewed the above book under the title, "Doomed to be Adversaries."[13] Another Indian writer goes even greater lengths and advocates a "clean break" in India's Pakistan policy. According to him,They [Pakistanis] make a pact. They break it. They make another pact to stick to the earlier pact...After weeks of diplomatic cross-fire, such pacts evoke deja vu more than hope. Indo-Pak pacts have never had a history of inspiring positive policy shifts. That being so, and given Islamabad's three-slaps-for-one policy, is there a case for tapering off diplomatic ties rather than chalking out ill-fated Codes of Conduct?[14]

It is no wonder if the inevitable outcome of all this is a strong sense of cussedness and futurelessness. Of couirse, the subcontinental diplomats and politicians lead the way. Pakistan's High Commissioner to India, Abdus Sattar, is said to have commented in mid-July 1992:

I have spent nearly half my diplomatic career dealing with India. I do not think India and Pakistan can be friends or have normal relations in our lifetimes. Not perhaps for another two generations. One can keep trying, but it seems pointless.[15]

Islamabad's Foreign Minister, Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali, told in 1994: Unless the Kashmir problem "is solved on the basis of international law and the U.N. resolutions, there cannot be lasting peace in South Asia and there is always the danger of a fourth war." A nuclear war![16] This and worse kind of doomsday forecasts are not uncommon in India either.

This vehement antagonism's manifestations are diverse and ramifications wider. The enmity has steeped so much in India and Pakistan that some of our fellow citizens cannot even enjoy a game of cricket with sporting spirit. When these countries played a World Cup game together in Bangalore, India, Bal Thackeray, a Hindu fundamentalist, vowed to make life "difficult for all visiting Pakistan teams in all sporting disciplines," and the mouthpiece of his party Shiv Sena considered the Bangalore match a "dharma yuddh," a battle for righteousness. When Pakistan lost the match, a Pakistani Senator, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, interpreted it as "Allah's wrath." Another public figure, Maulana Naqshbandi claimed: "Any nation...which made a woman its ruler, never prospered."[17]

In the trade sector, a little over 1 per cent of Pakistan's exports head for India while a meager 0.7 per cent of India's exports go to Pakistan. Pakistan recently imported 5,000 tons of potatoes from India and for some reason the first consignment was delayed by almost eight days. In the meantime, the potatoes had begun to rot and the opposition parties in Pakistan made a big noise over India supplying rotten potatoes. Similarly, Pakistani businessmen are afraid to export disposable syringes to India so as to avoid the accusation that they export AIDS across the border.[18]

On the "defense" front, both countries are importing weapons and India is also building many of them. With nuclear capability, Chinese patronage, and hunt for weapons systems, Pakistan tries to ward off Indian offensive. The tenuous logic in India is, as a military man puts it: "Ours is a country which has to protect two borders and we should be doing what we have to, irrespective of what Pakistan buys or does not buy".[19] As a result of all these, the Indo-Pakistan altercation has been accepted by many as a 'curse' with little or no role for human agency.

It is not that Indians and Pakistanis lack any critical understanding of our ancient ‘curse’ or fail to envision brighter futures. Intriguingly enough, all our problematizations and deliberations fall short of concrete actions or get overruled by the elitist realpolitik. What can we do? An Indian newspaper had a valid suggestion two years ago: "Both countries will profit from a dialogue to exchange experiences. If the two Governments find themselves prisoners of the past and are unable to manoeuvre, even to have a meaningful dialogue, the time has come for good citizens, particularly professionals on both sides to show the way."[20] We, the "ordinary Indians" and "ordinary Pakistanis," had better take charge of the situation and talk. When we talk, our "leaders" will stop stalking and begin talking earnestly.

[1] See Hussain's interview in India Today, July 15, 1995. p. 42.[2] Ibid.[3] Ibid., p. 45.[4] A passage from Pakistan Studies Compulsory. 1982. p. 1.[5] Abhas Chatterjee, The Concept of Hindu Nation. New Delhi: Voice of India, 1995. p. 18.[6] See "Sri Aurobindo's Vision of Indian Nationalism" in ibid., p. 57.[7] Ibid., pp. 65-6.[8] "Our God Can Lick Your God" (book extracts from Critical Mass by William Burrows and Robert Windrem), India Today, February 28, 1994. p. 27.[9] J. N. Dixit, Anatomy of a Flawed Inheritance: Indo-Pak Relations, 1970-94. Delhi: Konark, 1995. p. 238.[10] Jonah Blank, Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992. p. 19.[11] Ibid., p. 7.[12] Dixit, 1995, pp. 236, 247-8.[13] A. P. Venkateswaran, "Doomed to be Adversaries," India Today, July 31, 1995.[14] G. M. Telang, "The endless reprisals," Indian Express, July 31, 1994.[15] Quoted in Dixit, 1995, p. 1.[16] "Pakistan minister says nuclear war possible," The Honolulu Advertiser, January 9, 1994. p. A26.[17] "It's Only a Game!" (editorial), The Statesman, March 12, 1996. p. 8.[18] "Talking Shop," India Today, February 29, 1996. p. 108.[19] Quoted in "A Call to Arms," India Today, September 30, 1995. p. 97.[20] See "Good Luck, Benazir!" (editorial), The Statesman, March 18, 1996. p. 8.