September 14, 2003

The second-tier relationship between Pakistan and India through Track-II diplomacy has ironically become an expensive, rehearsed and lifeless tourism pursued by retired generals and diplomats, who are good with words, but irrelevant otherwise

IN an issue of Newsweek back in 1987, an American was asked by its correspondent to express his reaction to Mikhail Gorbachev’s reformist Glasnost and Perestroika winding down statist communism and the Cold War. “The worst thing this gentleman has done to America, is that he has taken away our enemy from us,” was his spontaneous response.

That may well be the case on the subcontinent at some stage, according to eternal optimists. However, to the pessimists, if recent history is to be any guide, the one-fifth of humanity is perennially lost in a cul-de-sac. The protagonists as well as the antagonists on Indo-Pakistani discord have innumerable examples to illustrate their respective viewpoints.

The protagonists highlight enduring though overshadowed commonalties such as the Indo-Muslim culture, similar ethnic loyalties, shared history, undivided ecology, similar economies, cherished sufi-bhagat cultural moorings, and, most of all, the sheer exhaustion with a five-decade-old but immensely taxing enmity.

The similarities in terms of socio-economic hardships of the masses and the alike imprints of external developments over the region on the whole, apart from its marginaliztion from the global economic and geo-strategic core zones further underpin a pervasive desire for regionalism.

The growing realization outside central Punjab — the power engine of the Pakistani state — of the enormous cost to the country on the whole is a fact that one encounters intermittently in southern Pakistan, away from the citadels of powers. Here, the separation of East Pakistan, undiminished cost of an externalized security paradigm to the social sector, the dominance of military and right-wing outfits over the civic and democratic institutions and an escalating poverty — opposed to steady economic growth in India — further strengthen the desire for better relationship with the eastern neighbour.

Not just the critical opinion-makers, even the common non-Punjabi Pakistanis strongly believe that a high-level preparedness justified under the pretext of an eternal Indian threat, is mainly geared towards guaranteeing a larger-than-life role for Punjab-dominated military, civil and religious cadres, which the former East Pakistanis used to refer as internal colonialists.

On the contrary, the antagonists — and they abound as well — posit Islam and Hinduism as two rival and even mutually exclusive civilizations, sharing nothing in common. They flag separate histories, lifestyles, names, heroes and villains, and can never imagine Allah and Ram co-existing under the same sun.

To them, India and Pakistan are the two logical manifestations of irreconcilable historical forces vetoing shared history, common cultures or a trans-regional amity. India and Pakistan, to such rejectionists, today essentialize what had been an unassailable fact all along. These unilateralists refuse to allow any meeting grounds nor do they acknowledge the inherent pluralism where de-Islamization of India is as dangerous and ahistoric as is the de-Indianization of Pakistan.

The essentialization of this permanent void and divide is further augmented through doctored text books, manipulated official media, alarmist popular culture, and partisan official policies that collectively feed into mutual misperceptions bordering on total hostility. This hostility or even occasional indifference also sprouts from an information vacuum and absence of holistic mutual contacts on both sides.

Sadly, such groups do not recognize that the Indo-Pakistan dichotomous relationship is not simply confined to their calamitous borders; instead charges multiple cost from their respective communities by turning into a systemic malady. Enemy is not across Wagah or Attari where it may express itself through curious orchestrated theatrics of the ludicrous Jhanda ceremonies symbolizing abrasiveness and malfeasance of the Cold War, but also permeates the socio-political fabrics of these neighbours.

More recently and rather positively, a new group of regionalists has started looking at the issues of pluralism in both the countries within the context of an enduring Indo-Pakistan enmity. To such critical viewers, the inter-state conflict has dangerously exacerbated — if not created — the Hindu-Muslim strife where Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan fall victims to xenophobia. The proponents of the so-called majoritarian nationalism scapegoat them.

The lesser-known plight of Hindus in Pakistan, and steady massacres of Muslims in Gujarat have a powerful interface with this regional conflict in addition to spawning intolerant forces of Hindutva and Islam. Thus, the Indo-Pakistan hostility is not merely confined to border regions or over Kashmir; it is felt across towns, communities and bazaars where minorities are constantly losing to majoritarian onslaught, anchored on exclusive forms of religion and nationalism.

The criminalization of democracy in India at places like Gujarat and Maharashtra amidst an erosion of Nehruvian-Gandhian secularism, and the total decimation of democracy in Pakistan thanks to military-clergy axis are the most serious portents of this polarity, even if one ignores the economic costs. In particular, the volatile separation of East Pakistan in 1971, embarrassing and wasteful Pakistani Kargil campaign in 1999 and a stupendously costly Indian venture on Siachin since 1984 and their global humiliation in failing to protect the civic rights of their plural communities are some examples from several callous misdemeanours.

In fair and impartial terms, the cost of this polarity has been multifarious and more devastating to Pakistan than to India and that is why one wonders why India would be longing for normalcy when many of its hawks find Pakistan tangled on too many costly fronts — domestic and regional.

Many BJP-related economists and other pundits have been forecasting the end of Pakistan, thanks to its ill-planned enterprizes and ever-descending economic graph. To them, India does not need to be impatient to ‘deal with’ Pakistan which, according to them, is already a failing state. To them, ‘the state within the state’ is bent upon its Somalianization with one million mutinies across the board leaving the country at the sweet will of Allah, Army and America!

Simultaneously, several concerned Indians are apprehensive that any dissolution/Balkanization of Pakistan due to internal combustion or external invasion may pose a serious threat to India with severe demographic, economic and security-related challenges enveloping Delhi.

These people neither desire an annexation of a predominantly Muslim Pakistan nor its total decimation. They rather seek a subservient state operating both as a buffer and an easy alibi for transferring all the problems. They are not eager to integrate another 140 million well-fed, independent-minded Muslims within their polyglot, even if that may usher an idealized Akhand Bharat, or one united India. Such Indian ideologues are not being faithful to a triumphant Ram; they are the ardent descendants of the Raj brandishing Trishol, or trident, which symbolises an India-led Monroe Doctrine over South Asia.

Amidst a vast plethora of diverse Indian public opinion, the secular, liberal and leftist elements genuinely desire peaceful coexistence, salience of human rights over monopolist pressure groups and espouse sovereign equality of all the states.

On the contrary, within Pakistan, other than the antagonists and the protagonists, most of the ordinary people are preoccupied with their basic daily needs and are on the receiving end of the Indo-Pakistani discord.

The costly wars have affected homes and hearths across the country, especially in the recruiting areas of Punjab where Indo-Pakistan bickering and now a volatile Pak-Afghan Durand Line have caused hundreds of thousands of sad telegrams emanating from the military headquarters (GHQ). Destined for destitute peasant families, they leave countless widows and orphaned children in their wake, whom the clerics and the feudals will be too happy to adopt for their ventures. The ruling elites in Pakistan and India are the main antagonists refusing to see any alternative to the traditional but equally pernicious polices based on mutual denigration.

The Pakistani steel-frame sees in India a genuine and also a well-needed enemy both for escapism and also to continue with their own privileges and power. A continued hostility with India over one excuse or the other — irrespective of its costs — stipulates a sustained ascendance for army and the clerics over the national consciousness, resources and institutions.

Other than a dozen think tanks in expensive neighbourhoods of Islamabad, the universities and some media sections faithfully parrot an elitist discourse on national security and identity, originally masterminded by GHQ and ISI sleuths.

In the same vein, the obliging and insecure politicians, whenever given a minor chance to be in the limelight, cry their loudest in denouncing India not just to please ordinary Pakistanis, but mainly to appease the domineering khaki establishment that has misgoverned the country for most of its existence.

Even the turbaned outfits spew Jihadi rhetoric against India by trying to outdo one another, exactly like saffron groups in India use Islam and Pakistan interchangeably to steal a march over their rivals.

To the Pakistani khaki establishment and its civilian hangers-on, India is the convenient alibi, whereas Washington and London are the demigods to kosher frequent take-overs. Why should the Anglo-American powers support democracy in Pakistan when the real establishment remains so loyal, durable and easily manageable? After all, it is easier to deal with a few Westernized generals than encountering the assemblies of noisy, questioning and critical clusters of Third World politicians.

No wonder, then, that all the 57 Muslim countries and several of their counterparts in the developing nations remain eternal yatris of unattainable destinations. Democracy is a convenient mantra frequently overridden by national/imperial interests.

While a weak and turbulent Pakistan may serve as a useful alibi for the Indian antagonists, the BJP chauvinists, the Shiv Sena activists and Kar Sevaks continue to draw a greater pound of flesh from Indian minorities and weaker neighbours. To them, Pakistan is a useful goal post for transferring responsibility of their own failings, whereas Indian Muslims are the enemy within whose presumed collaboration with ‘the enemy without’ merits coercive control.

The obliging historians, Bollywood ideologues and a section in biased media are the loyal instruments of an irredentist and intolerant Hindutva, operating as the holy warriors for Ram.

However, one needs to acknowledge Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s two meaningful efforts aimed at a fresh start: firstly, in 1999 at Lahore, and then more recently, in 2003, from Srinagar. The first one was embarrassingly bamboozled by the Pakistani military brass, especially through their attack on Kargil Heights, and then by a takeover; whereas his second offer has already become a casualty to the recent Bombay blasts.

Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore in 1999 was historic and could have proven to be the harbinger of a better relationship, whereas Musharraf’s Agra visit in 2001 proved inconsequential as the reciprocity remained missing. It is the same old story of being one-step forward, and two steps backward.

The second-tier relationship between Pakistan and India through Track-II diplomacy has ironically become an expensive, rehearsed and lifeless tourism pursued by retired generals and diplomats, who are good with words, but irrelevant and irreverent on deeds. How could they embrace their former foes while they have spent a lifetime building up destructive structures and fanning hatred?

Change is a more difficult virtue, especially when it may involve self-negation. The exorcism of an enemy from within one’s system is an act demanding of ultra moral courage and honesty. Their expensive visits, lengthy lectures, routine cacophony of empty wordsmithry and accompanying rituals not only betray hypocrisy, but are also aimed at a belated koshering of their erstwhile role in anchoring the perfidious politics of hostility.

This supercilious mode is starkly taking both the countries nowhere. Their tours are highly predictable as they are highly publicized through numerous photo sessions, but their own lifestyles do not reflect a single iota of South Asian realities. On the contrary, the money and resources wasted on these inflated egos could be invested in academic exchanges and technology transfers between the two neighbours.

It is time perhaps for Track-III diplomacy which may be a bit more realistic and meaningful as it would involve both the opinion-makers and the decision-makers on both sides. Asma Jahangir, Mubbashir Hasan, Kuldip Nayar, Asghar Ali Engineer, Pervaiz Hoodbhoy, Harsh Kapoor, Amrit Wilson, Mubarak Ali and several jurists, artists, workers, writers and pacifists are the powerful forces of sanity and humanity, but stay scattered like islands of calm and sanity in a vast foaming ocean of hostility and ambiguity.

They are the courageous individuals who are least scared of being controversialized, as their aims are genuine and well targeted in the larger regional interests. The establishments on both sides, however, have jealously controlled such contacts through rude visa denials, sheer harassment and even by brutally disgracing and profiling otherwise such committed individuals.

Still, it is only these interlocutors who can break the cycle of violence through a cycle of peace and respect, provided the establishments also get involved. Maybe, they will be the new Mandelas, Gandhis, Jinnahs and Gorbachevs of South Asia, who will banish the enemy from within a corrupted consciousness by leading South Asians astride the road to amity and friendship.

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