| February 23, 2007 | Friday | Safar 5, 1428 |
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Call it the ‘Samjhota’ Express?
THE train between Delhi and Lahore is no Peace Express, but if we insist on calling it that, our notion of peace and understanding (the latter being the real meaning of samjhota) has to be funny. Considering the kind of people who travel on it — the less-than-affluent — it is more like the Poverty Express. Those who can afford to go by air give it a wide berth.
And considering that the doors and windows of this train remain closed and locked as it makes its journey — a tribute no doubt to the wisdom we claim to have inherited from our ancient civilizations — it more deserves being called the Auschwitz Express. Imagine doors and windows closed, and then imagine, if you can, the horror of those trapped in those two bogeys which caught fire on Feb 19.
Tragedies happen all the time. It is a part of the business we call life. High moments and low, ecstasy and sorrow -- all a part of life. But closing doors and windows as a grimy train (the Samjhota being no Orient Express) moves across the north Indian plain, is almost an invitation to tragedy. Sooner or later someone, somewhere, would have figured it out that this was one inferno from which there could be no escape. Doors shut, windows closed, just like the trains which sped to Auschwitz.
Will anyone have the heart to call this a crying shame and decide that henceforth as the less-than-affluent board this express, the doors and windows will be open?
You can bet your life this won’t happen. Officials on both sides will rather be tempted to halt the train altogether. The sensible thing, the decent thing often seems simply beyond our thinking and doing.
The giants who were the leaders of India pre-1947 couldn’t stop quibbling and ended up with the orgy of bloodletting which was the partition of Punjab. In all the wars and conquests north India witnessed throughout history there was nothing like it, nothing to match its blind frenzy, nothing to match the numbers of the raped, violated and killed. Punjab’s bloodiest hour, the spur to some of Amrita Pritam’s most moving poetry.
The British cut and ran, the exertions of the Second World War having tired and exhausted them, leaving them with neither the spirit nor the resources to preserve their Indian Empire. Enter Mountbatten who thought too much of himself and was in too great a hurry. Partition and independence were rushed through. Demons whose existence few people could have suspected emerged from the shadows to choreograph one of the 20th century’s most intense dances of death.
Should we blame the British for everything? The turn the communal question had taken, the way the leadership on both sides had signally failed to resolve it, almost ensured that when the barriers were lowered all hell would break lose, as indeed it did. Frenzy often gives way to a quieter mood. After the storm, the calm followed by the interrupted song of the birds. But between India and Pakistan the agony of partition was succeeded by no dawn of wisdom. The birds did not sing. Both countries remained locked in bitter hostility, on several occasions even going to war, for purposes which still elude the most diligent historians.
Sixty years have passed and although new realities have emerged, making nonsense of the dynamics which sustained the old hostility, distrust continues to be strong, the closed doors and windows of the Samjhota Express testifying to this.
A pretense at peace-making is being kept up in the form of the ‘composite dialogue’, a process more notable for its tortuous form than for any triumphs it may have yielded.
Kashmir, as the mother of all disputes, may not be amenable to a quick or bold solution. But what about lesser problems which remain unresolved? Not because of any special complication but because India and Pakistan find greater solace in rigidity and negativism than flexibility and accommodation.
We could have settled our differences over the Baglihar Dam ourselves but the matter had to be stretched to third-party mediation. Sir Creek remains unresolved. The Siachen conflict deserves the title of the most stupid conflict two supposedly mature countries could engage in, with more martyrs to frostbite on those cruel and treacherous heights than to hostile fire. But the sensible thing of withdrawing to the positions of 1984 is blocked for reasons of military prowess and national prestige.
The poverty which is the subcontinent’s most defining feature does not engage or challenge Indian and Pakistani prestige. The deliverance of the downtrodden — this being no cliché in our countries — does not call forth our best endeavours. We remain in thrall to false gods and false notions of honour.
When we can’t fix old problems why do we have to invent new ones? Our highest aim should be to return to the pre-1965 situation when travel and communication between India and Pakistan was easier. Despite differences over Kashmir the overall relationship was more stable and, I daresay, more civilised. Getting visas was not the hassle it is today. You could get Indian newspapers in Pakistan and Pakistani papers on the other side. Indian films could be seen in Pakistan cinema houses and Pakistani cinema still produced quality films, or what passes for quality in the subcontinent.
We don’t have to be sentimental about each other. We don’t have to say, as the prophets of false sentimentality feel driven to do, that we are the same people and have so much in common. We are not the same people. We are two separate nations living in two different countries.
The best we could have hoped for was an acceptance of the principle of two nations and one country — that is, two nations living in one country. But that would have required wisdom and sophistication that even the best and brightest among our forefathers did not possess.
The Musalmans of the Indian heartland were haunted by dreams of mastery and empire. Their world had vanished and they were fearful of a future whose outlines they had no means of knowing. Our Hindu cousins were driven by different feelings. For them the ‘other’ was always the Musalman who from the fastnesses of the North West had swept into India and ruled it for 800 years. The sense of injury and violation this resulted in, and which our Hindu cousins bore on their shoulders like a cross of their own, precluded the search for a common nationhood.
As Nirad Chaudhri, whom most educated Indians love to hate, presciently observed, Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations from the moment the first Musalman stepped on to the shores of India.
Yet, as other nations have demonstrated, separateness need not necessarily mean unending conflict. After the most terrible wars in history the nations of Europe have forged the bonds of a common understanding. India and Pakistan don’t have to be the same to create a peaceful relationship. The challenge before them is to find a common language even as they go their separate ways.
We can retain sharply differing positions on Kashmir and yet be sensible and practical about our overall relationship. Variances on Kashmir should not prevent movement across the Line of Control. Indeed, the relationship we should aim at should be so strong as to accommodate differences over Kashmir. If India claims Kashmir to belong ‘integrally’ to it, we should cite chapter and verse to show it is wrong instead of going into a huff and retreating to our side of the corner.
And if Pakistan speaks for the Kashmiri people’s right of self-determination, as it should, India, if its claims to great power status are to mean anything, should be able to stomach the demand instead of panicking and giving the impression that its unity is at stake.
China does not accept the independence of Taiwan, which does not prevent it from having strong economic ties with Taiwan. We do not accept India’s occupation of Kashmir. This should not mean we do not develop a good relationship with it.
This is where the present regime in Pakistan is following the wrong tack. Its off-the-cuff proposals on Kashmir, most of them liable to the charge of being half-baked, amount to Kashmir revisionism. Why should Pakistan indulge in this exercise? In return for what?
In any case, the right of self-determination is not a saleable commodity. Taiwan may not become part of China for a thousand years. China will still not revise its position on Taiwan. The Kashmiri people may be denied their basic right for 500 years. This still will not give Pakistan the right to barter away what belongs to the Kashmiri people.
We were wrong in going to war, the 1965 war especially having much to answer for at the bar of history. Not only did it hurt the Kashmir cause, it also put brakes on our evolution as a democratic country. But it was started with the noblest of intentions (that the road to hell is paved with good intentions is a separate matter.) Kargil, however, was pure folly — distilled and unadulterated.
We are wrong in swinging to the other extreme and opt for a course often smacking of misguided appeasement. Guess what is behind this new course? The same judgment which chose Kargil as a testing-ground of Pakistani valour.
We should lift the blinds which enclose Indo-Pak understanding and let the light stream in. Too many cobwebs hang in the museum of Indo-Pak history. We should remove them. But before tackling these superior tasks, can we take pity on the Samjhota Express and ensure that it bears no resemblance to the trains speeding towards Auschwitz?
