KARACHI: The special issue of The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs on ‘Pakistan at 75’ was launched at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on Monday evening.

Speaking on the occasion, Editor-in-Chief of The Round Table Dr Venkat Iyer said the journal has been around for a while. “I’ve been its editor for the last 15 years. I still feel I have absolutely no background or expertise in international affairs. I’m just a lawyer, but having been appointed editor I’ve enjoyed every minute of my editorship. I have learnt a lot. As part of my editorship, what I do is that I try to have a decent spread of geographic special issues. I got a good opportunity when Pakistan and India celebrated their 75th anniversary. I commissioned two special issues, one on India and one on Pakistan. The former was releases slightly earlier than the latter.”

He said, “Like Pakistan (Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi) the India issue was launched in three cities — Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. The Mumbai event organisers said they wanted to organise a launch for the Pakistan issue as well, so we’re going to probably have that very soon.”

Dr Iyer said he’s particularly keen to invite contributions to the journal from Pakistan. “In spite of the popularity of the journal, I don’t get too many contributions from Pakistan and other South Asian countries, including India.”

Special issue of The Round Table launched

Senator (retired) and former federal minister Javed Jabbar said the Commonwealth is an incredible assortment of countries brought together by a heritage that would otherwise be very negative viewed: colonialism. “The intellectual enslavement by a very innovative power of its time, the British Empire — I don’t entirely mean it pejoratively, it brought scientific rationality also into intellectual discourse… it brought the English language [that] we have adopted as our own, Pakistan’s second widest spoken language on a national basis.”

Mr Jabbar said in geopolitical germs, there are members of the Commonwealth directly in conflict with each other; unresolved conflict, the foremost example is of Pakistan and India.

“The Commonwealth regrettably has not been able to reconcile these polarities. And yet there is something very fine about it. The Commonwealth is worth belonging to, not only to remember the bittersweet aspects of history, but in trying to strike out new relations. The countries that may not have been fully explored or discovered, whether they be in Africa or South East Asia, there’s so much about other members of the Commonwealth that we know very little about because we’re so focused on the US and the UK,” he said.

Reflecting on Dr Iyer’s concern on lack of adequate contributions to the journal from Pakistan, he said, “I find it so much sadder that Pakistan wilfully absents itself from overseas academia. Several chairs, designated Pakistan chairs, at leading universities in the US or Europe remain empty because the government of Pakistan in its infinite wisdom has not yet got round to deciding who to plant there as a professor… We are losing our place in international discourse partly because we have not used the opportunity available to us.”

Mr Jabbar also asked the other speakers to share the lessons that Northern Ireland in particular learnt in resolving conflict.

Professor Paul Carmichael of the School of Applied Social and Policy Studies, University of Ulster, said there were aspects of the peace process [in Ireland] which were profoundly objectionable in terms of the release of prisoners who had committed the most heinous crimes.

“But you have to look at the bigger picture, the longer term, and this is where some parallel may be drawn between Ireland and South Asia. We can all look back and say, ‘well, this has been done, if that had been done, it’s his fault, it’s their fault…’ the fact is that 75 years on from independence of Pakistan and India or 100 years of partition of Ireland and creation of North Ireland, I’d argue, we need a latter-day realpolitik. We need to accept the world as it is and not [try and] turn back the clock. In other words, work with the world as it is and try and better it. The use of violence for political means serves no purpose.”

Earlier, Dr Masuma Hasan introduced the speakers to the audience.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2023