An article in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading newspaper, is food for thought for both Pakistanis and Indians. Entitled ‘A Vote for Peace at the Stadium,’ the article makes several insightful observations. The crowd behavior during the one-day international cricket match between Pakistan and India, according to M.J. Akbar, Editor-in-Chief, Asian Age, New Delhi, was deserving of a big compliment: The players produced a game on Saturday choreographed in dreams. But there was something much bigger in the air. The true revelation was the city of Karachi. The spectators in the stadium gave a phenomenal vote for peace, for goodwill, for normality, for a future without hate and bitterness and war. It was not just the standing ovation at the end. It was the eloquent behavior through the match.
Another edifying observation: India and Pakistan are at last beginning to see that their worst enemies are not each other but rather the poverty and terrorism that threaten the stability and destiny of both neighbors. Their resources make some foreign industrial-military complex rich, their wars leave their people poor. For half a century, India and Pakistan have placed passion above compromise. We are only seeing the first glimpse of what can be achieved through a spirit of understanding. At one corner of this jumble is a cricket game. At some other corner is a bus route through the deserts of Rajasthan and Sindh, or the mountains of the two Kashmirs.
President Musharraf’s address to the India Today Conclave 2004 via satellite the other day was made in the same vein. He talked of peace, spelling out the spin-offs of the changing mood in the subcontinent. He listed the multifarious benefits that could accrue if the two countries successfully resolved the issues that plague their relations, including the core issue of Kashmir. The market size could expand to 1.2 billion (equal to that of China) opening vistas of trade opportunities in the region. Besides, the direct foreign investment, presently stagnating at $ 3 billion, could rise manifold. A cut in defense expenditure would mean a greater allocation for education, health, and poverty alleviation. Surely, the common man stands to gain a great deal if the peace initiatives on both sides of the border succeed and generate tangible results.
Would the SAARC Summit peace drive sustain its momentum? Would it have a chain reaction effect? Would reason triumph, and for a wholesome change on the political front, irrationality be a casualty? There is room for optimism, and indisputably, justification for a reiteration of the argument that has been spelled out in these columns earlier.
The emergence of India and Pakistan as two sovereign states in 1947 had a singular purpose: to strike a new political equation between Hindus and Muslims. Partition was to serve as a new experiment in peaceful co-existence - not an ideal solution to the myriad of problems plaguing the subcontinent but a well-meaning scheme that sought to put an end to the seething animosity between extremists on both sides of the religious divide. Partition thus had the potential and promise of ushering a wholesome change on the political front.
Ungrudgingly, the prime objective of the scheme was to ensure the rights of the people inhabiting the two countries, including the sizable Hindu and Muslim minorities in Pakistan and India respectively.
For well over fifty-six years sincere and sustained strivings were made for peace in the Indo-Pak subcontinent and for well over fifty-six years well-meaning peace initiatives were scuttled. Hapless commentators on both sides of the divide were not hesitant in calling a spade a spade to vindicate the incontrovertible truth. Kuldip Nayyer, a senior Indian journalist, for instance, conceded in one of his articles: “Whatever the objective reality, the international community wants India to sit across the table with Pakistan to sort out all our problems, including Kashmir. Already some signs of exasperation with New Delhi are beginning to appear in the American and British press. What Vajpayee can offer to Musharraf is difficult to quantify … There have to be talks….”
This piece was written before the SAARC Summit in January 2004.. Mr. Vajpayee appears to think differently today. But one could be skeptical about the change in the mood given the nature of India-Pakistan relations.
This is but natural. One is reminded of India’s consistently belligerent posture in the past. Even in India, there has been principled dissent to Delhi’s highhanded acts. Commented C. Rammanohar Reddy in The Hindu: “The illusion that a country can beat the drums of war and yet assume that normal life will go on was at last shattered last week. The cost of a war finally begun to hurt most the very groups which have been the most enthusiastic supporters of an open conflict with Pakistan - the urban upper middle and wealth class. A common belief among those who support an open war is that if (the) US can wage war on Afghanistan and Israel on Palestine, there is no reason why India should not likewise attack Pakistan. Setting aside the absence of a moral compass that underlies this argument, it should be obvious that as far as the economy is concerned India is not the US or for that matter even Israel. Globalization imposes its own decrees and a distaste for war between two developing countries is one of them…”
A Times of India report too made a realistic appraisal: Standing committee members were told that given the ground realities, a short surgical strike, either against terrorist camps in Pak-occupied Kashmir or against strategic targets in Pakistan, was not possible. The war was bound to be a prolonged one unless interrupted by a nuclear strike or heavy international pressure, representatives of the Army, Navy and Air Force reportedly said…
These reports are not of a recent origin yet they do seem to furnish the rationale for the changing political climate in the subcontinent today. Are we on the threshold of a new era in India-Pakistan relations? There are several indications that inspire one to shed pessimism.
The thrill, according to the Economist, was palpable after the unexpected announcement on May 2nd (2003) by Atal Behari Vajpayee, India’s prime minister, that he wanted to start a “decisive and conclusive dialogue” aimed at ending the decades of hostility between his country and Pakistan. Mr. Zafarullah Jamali, Pakistan’s prime minister, smartly responded with a ten-minute telephone call to Mr. Vajpayee, and a letter which talked about curbing terrorism and proposed a summit in Islamabad.
In much the same spirit, a Pakistani parliamentary delegation embarked on a visit to India and was warmly received. According to MNA Ishaq Khan Khakwani, Indians from different walks of life showered utmost affection on members of the delegation the moment they crossed the border. Former diplomats and intellectuals like Naresh Chandra, S.K.Singh, G. Parthasarthy, Ashok Bhan, Vijay Grover et al. showed them utmost respect. A good omen.
Another significant development was reported by the BBC: Indian director Mahesh Bhatt intends to make the first ever Indian film shot entirely in Pakistan - a project he described as a “South Asian Schindler’s List”. Bhatt’s film will spotlight the true story of a Muslim who saved the lives of 200 Sikhs during the riots that took place in 1947. “So I sourced my inspiration from that brave, anonymous policeman, and I felt that in a country where we have demonized the Pakistanis in our movies, it’s time to look at them affectionately.”
“It’s time we paid a tribute to them - and learned something from them.” Bhatt hopes to highlight Pakistani bravery towards Indians even at the height of tensions during partition in 1947. A noble enterprise, indeed.
One sincerely hopes such peace initiatives would bear fruit. Hindus and Muslims were not born to nurse eternal hate for one another. Nor are hate and intolerance central to the teachings of their faith. What is more, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatama Gandhi did not envision the two sovereign nations to perennially remain at loggerheads when the partition plan was drawn up. Neither the Two-Nation Theory nor a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute, is a contradiction of Hinduism. - afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
