ALTHOUGH it has been a while since we separated, Pakistanis cannot help but peep into Indian territory to find out what is cooking there. India’s treatment of minorities is a topic close to our hearts. But it provides us with so much else that we consider beneath our dignity or beyond our call to produce ourselves —– films, television soaps, rags-to-riches stories, etc. Every now and then it also offers us an opportunity for free and meaningful discussion on a subject we are still too shy to locate in our own situation. Routinely, what we see there leads to comparisons with our own little broth here. It is almost natural then for the episode involving the executive, the army chief and the judiciary in India to have been closely followed this side of the Wagah.

It was intriguing to find a serving army chief going all the way to the court when all he wanted was a one-year extension of his tenure. The issue at the base of the affair was itself no less mystifying, given the subcontinental habit of forgetting birthdays. Gen V.K. Singh contested the papers had wrongly recorded his date of birth as May 10, 1950, claiming this amounted to pushing back the auspicious occasion by a year. He believed he was born on May 10, 1951 and therefore would attain the age of retirement (62 under Indian law), not in May 2012 but in May 2013. The court ruled that Gen Singh’s words and the facts were not the same thing. It agreed with the executive, and the army chief saw sense in withdrawing his plea — the graceful acceptance of reality still appeared to be the preferred way. The executive has welcomed the gesture. This should ensure 60-odd birthday bumps for the general on his big day.