ARTICLE OF THE MONTH

Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA)
www.asiapeace.org & www.indiapakistanpeace.org
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Articles of the Month

Articles of the Month
*Forget 1947, it's history, Allen O'Brien, TNN, 04 Mar, 2010
*Suspicion of India’s hegemonic ambitions not based on facts, M S Khan, New Age, March 4,10
*Canada-US Relationship Model for Pakistan-India? Ottawamysteryman, Feb 15, 2010
*Atmosphere of mistrust, Kuldip Nayar, Kashmir Times, March 5, 2010

*Forget 1947, it's history, Allen O'Brien, TNN, 04 Mar, 2010
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/amankiasharticleshow/5639488.cms

Did you know that walls, barbed wire fences and barricades stretch across almost the entire 1,800 miles of the defined Indo-Pak border?

Did you know that some Rs 1,201 crore is spent on fencing, floodlights, roads and border outposts across the Indo-Pak border?

And did you know that the barbed wire border is going to be made less formidable by a 'Rope of Respect' peace chain comprising some two lakh hankies! It's how young India bridges the great Indo-Pak divide by laying down a new matrix for the bilateral relationship. With funky slogans on handkerchiefs from nine cities — Delhi, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai — and 1,200 schools, this TOI peace initiative — Aman ki Asha, begins a new season of hope, a new Indo-Pak border, sans discord. This is one in which young Indians take on responsibility for shedding the baggage of history.

It is obvious that this is the need of the hour. The terrorists must be crushed; the fundamentalists must be hushed. As some of our students' slogans rightly declare: If war is the answer, then the question is wrong; Nukes are flukes; Hand out free chocolates, not suicide vests; Put 1947 behind, it's history! Look ahead, it's 2010. Or more aptly: Love your enemies, it really kills them! Read on to find out why young India feels Munnabhai's reworked Gandhian philosophy of love is the only real weapon of change.

Why we need peace...

"We need peace because we have seen enough of this mutual hatred. Economically and politically too, peace would do a lot of good to India and its neighbour," says Shivam Sharma, student, Chandigarh. And "by working together, we can become an even stronger force in the global community," believes Gayathree Devi of Hyderabad. More important, young India regards geographical borders as an irrelevance in a globalizing world. As Irene Kibria, a student in Kolkata, says: "Borders can be different, but hearts are the same."

How to attain peace...

"Interactive camps and forums should be initiated to create acceptance and understanding of differences," suggests Anam Vadgama, a Mumbai student. Schools can help as well. Harini G, student, Chennai says, "Both countries must have a common pledge which could be read across schools, both in India and Pakistan, during the morning assembly." On a larger scale, suggests Delhi student Ayesha Bhatt, "Both countries need to work on their misunderstandings by being more friendly."

When is peace possible...

Trisha Menon of Bangalore says, "Perhaps in the next five years when commonalities of culture play a vital role." Sudeep Vashistha of DPS, Gurgaon believes, "There is an urgent need for each country to set things right within its own system. Once the inner eroded structures are taken care of, peace shall prevail. And that could take anything from tomorrow to 10 years!"

Till then, our students are already shutting out the dustbin of history and looking towards a future of peace. It could be the Aman ki Asha 'hanky campaign' or the 'If peace prevailed' venture. The latter is a look into the future and how the two countries could progress if they came together.

For instance, an unbeatable combined cricket team, suggests Vrinda Duve of New Delhi:

Where the ball bounces free,
and the bat rises to beat its bounce,
into that heaven of cricketing
freedom, Oh Lord, let the two countries awake

*Suspicion of India’s hegemonic ambitions not based on facts, M S Khan, New Age, March 4, 2010 http://www.newagebd.com/2010/mar/04/oped.html

MJ AKBAR, chairman of the fortnightly Covert magazine, is one of most revered journalists, columnists and non-fiction writers in India. He was formerly editor-in-chief of the Asian Age and the Deccan Chronicle and editor of the Telegraph and Sunday. He has also authored a number of books including Riots after Riots, India: The Siege Within, The Shade of Swords and Blood Brothers. Akbar had a brief stint in politics as a member of parliament for the Congress Party from 1989 to 1991, as adviser to the Ministry of Human Resources and also as official spokesperson for the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

   Akbar was recently in Dhaka as the speaker at the 13th convocation of the Independent University of Bangladesh. He talked on a number of issues during an interview with New Age. Excerpts:

   To start off with, how did you enter the world of journalism?

   (Laughs) That was a long time back. I guess I entered the profession because no one else gave me a job. That’s not really true, I was offered a position as a senior management trainee, but I wasn’t really interested in that.

   But what kept you in this profession for so long?

   I don’t really know but I have never wavered from this resolve, never had any dilemmas or doubts, apart from a brief stint in public life which I did not really enjoy.

   In your recent lecture at the Independent University of Bangladesh convocation dinner you highlighted the great success of the Indian experiment about how democracy was paving the way for all kinds of communities and classes to come together and benefit from it. The Congress Party of India, now in power, has in recent years projected to the world the image of India as an emerging economic power much in the same vein as its predecessor BJP. But the fact remains that the bulk of the Indian population has not benefitted from this economic surge and the gap between the rich and the poor in India has widened.

   I won’t say the gap has widened but it certainly hasn’t narrowed. I think this will be the challenge for India in the years to come and remains the primary problem for India.

   But are steps being taken to narrow this gap?

   There is certainly a consciousness about it. The Naxalites are making them conscious.

   There is a feeling in the rest of the subcontinent, outside of India, that this economic growth will push India to realise its hegemonic ambitions?

   This is an unreasonable fear not based on facts. If you study India’s recorded history, India has never shown any ambitions of territorial expansion. The Indian border has not expanded an inch since 1947; in fact, it has shrunk in some parts. We withdrew from Bangladesh in three months after the 1971 war. Do you think if George Bush had arrived here he would have left in three months? In fact, if he had left Iraq in three months he would have been a popular man.

   But short of expansionist ambitions, India has displayed tendencies in the past of interfering in the internal affairs of its neighbouring states?

   I believe these suppositions are based on irrational fears. To put it simply, India has found the right balance between its territory, population and races, and it would not want to disturb this demographic balance. It has no interest in taking any burden.

   You mentioned in your lecture that India and Bangladesh have no problems. There is a significant population in this country who would strongly disagree with you?

   What I meant that there were no problems which could not be resolved.

   But for years Bangladesh has had serious issues with India regarding the patronisation by India of an armed struggle in the Chittagong Hill Tracts as well as the drying up of rivers. We had the Farakka problem in the past and now there is the issue of the Tipaimukh Dam?

   Neighbours will always have problems. Neighbours across the world have problems. Look at Nepal, it is a Hindu kingdom and yet it has so many issues with India. What matters is that you have a civilised relationship in which you can at least address these differences.

   In your recent lecture as well as your columns over the years you hammer upon the need for Pakistan to emerge out of the two-nation theory of 1947. On the other hand, you argue that India has no expansionist plans. But if you take out the two-nation theory, that the Muslims of the subcontinent deserve a separate nation, what happens to Pakistan?

   It’s true! What will happen to Pakistan if you take out the two-nation theory? (laughs) But I guess Bangladesh is a good example of how you can survive without the two-nation theory.

   What I meant was that Muslims as one nation was not a real ideology. Religion cannot bind a group of people as one nation; there are other factors that dictate the formation of a nation. Look at the Middle East, they are Muslim countries and yet there are 22 states in the region.

   However, India has no ambitions of taking over Pakistan. In fact, who would want to? Not even the United States would want to take over Pakistan. I hope for the Pakistani people that beyond the two-nation theory they find somebody to run them.

   The state of India has for years militarily suppressed the nationalistic ambitions of many people including the Kashmiris as well as those of the north-eastern Indian states and yet it continues to project itself as the largest democracy in the world?

   It’s a huge country with many different nationalities, races and religions. There are bound to be problems.

*Canada-US Relationship Model for Pakistan-India? Ottawamysteryman, Feb 15, 2010
http://ottawamysteryman.blogspot.com/2010/02/canada-us-relationship-model-for.html

In looking at the future of Pakistan-India relationship, it is useful to have an aspirational model of what we might aim for. Various people have made various suggestions, based on the history of other countries in the world, depending on what their final vision is, and what lessons they draw from history. For example, it has been suggested that France and Germany could form a model: their history is full of wars in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries. Yet today they are living in peace, and are jointly the principal countries in the European Union (EU). Other people have suggested that East and West Germany could provide a model. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the two Germanies merged peacefully, though not without significant economic and political adjustments.

Yet other people have suggested that Brazil and Argentina, which had a long-running rivalry in the 19th and early 20th Centuries (that included a race toward nuclear weapons, which both eventually gave up) could form a model. Other people yet have suggested that the European Union itself forms a model, for the whole of South Asia, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka - as a sort of next step from SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) - to result in what has been called a South Asian Union (SAU). Yet other people have suggested that the United States is itself a model for South Asia, and all countries in the region could eventually organize themselves internally and externally into what has been called the United States of South Asia (USSA).

All of these ideas have many things to commend them, and some have also been studied in depth by various scholars, generals, and diplomats. It may very well be that sometime in the future, a version of either the SAU or the USSA models, or some variation thereof, could be the model for political organization in South Asia.

Here I would like to suggest that perhaps the Canada-US relationship could serve as a good model for Pakistan and India for the immediate future, while in the long term other possibilities can also be studied and could come to fruition if found suitable. Consider the similarities.

First, scale: Although Canada and the US have roughly the same land area, the population and economy of USA is roughly ten times that of Canada. The population and economy of India are roughly in the same proportion relative to that of Pakistan, though in land area terms, Pakistan is about a quarter of India's land area.

Second, history: Both US and Canada were once ruled directly by Great Britain (later US also took over areas under the Spanish and French). What is often not appreciated is that a significant number of present-day Canadians had ancestors who were Americans that escaped to Canada (then known as British North America) after the American Revolution of 1776. This has its counterpart in India-Pakistan history: both were ruled by Britain (and therefore also, like Canada and the US, use English), but also, as a result of Partition, there is a significant number of people, especially in Pakistan, whose ancestors lived in areas that are now in India.

What is appreciated even less today is that Canada and the early US had hostile relations in the first few decades. They even went to war in 1812. However, in 1815, a peace treaty was signed, and has held ever since. Disputes between the US and Canada have arisen since then, but they have always been settled by negotiations, discussions, give-and-take, and arbitration when needed. For example, the boundary between Canada and Alaska, a dispute running for nearly 80 years, was eventually settled in this way. The Alaska boundary issue between Canada and the US does resemble the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan, and the Kashmir issue can also be settled between India and Pakistan in the same way - negotiations and discussions, and arbitration if necessary.

What is even more interesting is that water is an issue between Canada and the US at present, just like water is an issue between Pakistan and India. There are proposals today to meet water shortages in the US through import of water from Canada. While strong views are held in Canada on the issue, the matter will eventually be settled in a peaceful manner, with no thought of going to war, an example that Pakistan and India can also follow.

Canada and the US are today joined, together with Mexico, in a North American Free Trade Area, and this is also something that India and Pakistan could move toward, a South Asian Free Trade Area. Canada and the US share a relatively very open border, where citizens of either country do not need visas to travel to the other. So could India and Pakistan.

And just like with India-Pakistan cricket rivalry, teams of Canada and the US have rivalries in (ice) hockey and to some extent, also baseball. Just as many talented Pakistani actors, musicians and other artistes work in Bollywood, so also, many Canadian actors, musicians and other artistes work in Hollywood. In this respect, many concerns regarding cultural issues between Canada and the US are similar to those that often arise in Pakistan and India.

In summary, Canada and the US share many aspects of India-Pakistan history (a common language, English; common colonial master - Britain; populations with significant shared ancestry) and today their relationship has many aspects that India and Pakistan too could come to share: Issues settled by negotiation; relatively free borders; free trade; friendly rivalry in hockey/cricket; shared cultural traditions/Bollywood.

The Canada-US relationship is therefore, in my opinion, an important aspirational model for the Pakistan-India relationship, that merits greater attention from thinkers and scholars on all sides as a good direction for the near term future, while the long-term future could include any of the other possibilities such as SAU or USSA.

*Atmosphere of mistrust, Kuldip Nayar, Kashmir Times, March 5, 2010
http://www.kashmirtimes.com/

It is unfortunate that Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor hijacked a successful trip by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Riyadh.

Tharoor's remark that Saudi Arabia could be an interlocutor for talks between New Delhi and Islamabad was embarrassing.

Tharoor may be indiscreet but I suspect that somehow, he got the impression that the prime minister would go along with him. True, an interlocutor is not a mediator. But he participates in talks.

Tharoor's observation did not work due to a strong reaction against it in the country. India's enunciated policy after the Simla conference in 1972 has been to talk to Pakistan, without involving a third party. Has there been some rethinking? Whatever the import of Tharoor's observation, it gives oxygen to the dead dialogue between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan.

Islamabad's reaction to Tharoor's remark was on expected lines: it was ready for talks without conditions. This throws light on the talks held last week in Delhi. No doubt, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao made it clear to her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir that the talks would be confined to terrorism. But Salman Bashir touched all points, including Kashmir and water, although not at great length. Yet the whole dialogue was cursory.

The talks must have been a formality because a few hours later I found both foreign secretaries sitting separately, engaged in an animated discussion, at the Pakistan House in Delhi for dinner. There was no recrimination, no rhetoric, no raising of voices. They talked about confidence-building measures and conciliation.

This is how the two sides behave when they are relaxed and when they have no agenda to sell, no government message to convey. In fact, Indians and Pakistanis are the best of friends when they are not talking at each other.

However, the talks show that both countries are prisoners of mistrust and hostility. The reason why the two remain distant lies in their inability to overcome the prejudice they have nourished against each other for decades. The two foreign secretaries did not know what their political masters were contemplating. Still, had they fixed a date for the next meeting in Islamabad, people on both sides would have taken a positive view of the talks.

How far Salman Bashir could go was known to him because before arriving in Delhi he had met the high-ups. Bashir was surprised by India's allegation of involvement of Pakistani army officials in the Mumbai carnage as was Nirupama Rao by the charge that New Delhi was involved in Balochistan.

The arrest of Hafiz Saeed, the Jamaatud Dawa chief, is New Delhi's criterion to judge Pakistan's sincerity in fighting the terrorists who are reportedly operating in India. New Delhi concedes that the law courts in Pakistan are independent but wonders why he is free to threaten war against a neighbouring country.

What may have made the otherwise suave and soft-spoken Salman Bashir lose his cool was the strong message that national security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon gave him. Menon reportedly did not mince his words in accusing Pakistan of sending terrorists to India as part of Islamabad's state policy. He repeated many a time that he was the prime minister's adviser.
Since the meeting with Menon was before the press conference, Salman Bashir did not maintain the equanimity which he showed during talks with Nirupama Rao. Phrases like 'don't lecture us' were probably meant for Menon. Yet his observation that India's dossier against Saeed was 'literature' was indiscreet. The Pakistani foreign secretary was quiet when he met the national security adviser. Was Menon conveying New Delhi's thoughts? I have my doubts because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is considered a dove. He reiterated in Riyadh that he was willing to go the extra mile to make up with Pakistan.

Since Manmohan Singh's government is increasingly on the defensive because of the inflation, I do not think that it is in a position to take bold initiatives on Pakistan. The opposition, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has created an atmosphere where it is difficult for New Delhi to depart from the status quo. This should not surprise either Islamabad which is prepared for a long haul or Washington which is more focused on Kabul and Islamabad than New Delhi.

The silver lining was Prime Minister Singh's reiteration that there was no option other than talks and that the two countries must come to an agreement to live like good neighbours. In the years since independence, both countries have gone down the same path, knowing that it leads to nowhere. Maybe both have no fresh ideas. Maybe both have come to accept their inability to solve the problems which confront them.

Perhaps civil society on both sides can help. Some persons who have been working on the improvement of relations between India and Pakistan for years can meet to see if they have some new ideas on which they agree. The proposals made by them may change the situation which remains frozen.

The governments on both sides would find it difficult to reject the suggestions if they have unanimous backing. Ultimately, the pressure of the public on both sides will make the governments relent. Are ordinary people committed to rapprochement between India and Pakistan and ready to go through fire and water to prove their credentials?

The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi.

*Apology Day for Pakistanis, Hamid Mir, Prothom-alo & Daily Star, March 26 2010
*Reinventing Pakistan, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Dawn, 23 March, 2010
*Little Pakistan's big India Problem, M J Akbar, March 20, 2010
*Regaining cultural space (in Pakistan), Hajrah Mumtaz, Dawn, 21 Mar, 2010
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*Apology Day for Pakistanis, Hamid Mir, Prothom-alo & Daily Star, March 26 2010
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=131584
SOME people hate me a lot in Pakistan. They hate me because I said sorry to Bengalis two years ago in Islamabad Press Club for the atrocities committed by Pakistan Army in 1971.They hate me because I also demanded an official apology from the government of Pakistan to the people of Bangladesh for the genocide of March 1971.They say I don't know anything. They say I am not a good Pakistani.

They say I was very young in 1971 and I am not aware about the truth. When I say yes I was only a young schoolgoing boy in 1971 but I heard and read a lot about the genocide. How can I deny my late father, Professor Waris Mir, who visited Dhaka in October 1971 with a delegation of Punjab University students? My father was a teacher of journalism in Punjab University, Lahore. He was asked by the University administration to organise a visit of the student's union office bearers to Turkey, but he took the boys to Dhaka with their consent. They wanted to know what was actually going on in Dhaka.

I still remember that when my father came back from Dhaka he wept for many days. He told us stories of bloodshed. These stories were similar to the story of my mother. My mother lost her whole family during migration from Jammu to Pakistan in 1947. Her brothers were killed by the Hindus and Sikhs in front of her eyes. Her mother was kidnapped. She saved her life by hiding
under the dead bodies of her own relatives. I remember that my mother cried a lot when my father told her that Pakistan army officers raped many Bengali women. My mother said: "We made sacrifices for the safety of our honour but why we are dishonouring each other today?"

My father always said that Bengalis made Pakistan and we Punjabis broke Pakistan. Once he said that March 23rd was Pakistan Day, March 26th should be the apology day and December 16th should be the accountability day. I started understanding the thoughts of my late father when I became a journalist in 1987.

When I first read the Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report I felt ashamed. This report of a Pakistani commission admitted murder and rape but, despite this documentary evidence, many people still live in a state of denial. They say Sheikh Mujib was a traitor who created Mukti Bahini with the help of India and killed many innocent Punjabis and Beharis. I say that Sheikh Mujib was a worker of the Pakistan movement, he was a supporter of Fatima Jinnah (sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah) till 1966. He only demanded provincial autonomy but military rulers declared him a traitor. In fact, these military rulers were traitors because their troops raped their own mothers and sisters. They say I am a liar and an enemy of Pakistan. How could I be an enemy of Pakistan? My mother sacrificed her whole family for Pakistan. My problem is that I
cannot deny truth.

A senior colleague of mine, Afzal Khan, is still alive. He is 73 years old. He worked with Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), and was secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) from 1980 to 1985. He was sent to Dhaka on March 28, 1971 for the coverage of the army operation. He told me many times that yes Mukti Bahini killed a lot of innocent people but what the Pakistan army did was not the job of a national army. Once he was staying in Ispahani House in Khulna. An army major once offered him a girl to spend a night with. When Afzal Khan asked who the girl was, the major said that she was the daughter of a local police officer and she could come to Ispahani House at gun-point. After this incident Afzal Khan came
back to Lahore in May 1971. He says that all those who were responsible for the rape and genocide of Bengalis never enjoyed any respect in Pakistan.

The name of General Yahya Khan is still like an abuse in Pakistan. His son Ali Yahya always tries to hide from people. General Tikka Khan is still remembered as the "butcher of Bengal." General A.A.K. Niazi wanted to become "tiger of Bengal" but is remembered as "jackal of Bengal." The majority of Pakistanis hate all those who were responsible for the genocide of their
Bengali brothers. That is the reason the family members of these army officers don't even mention publicly that who their fathers were.

But still there are some people who are not ready to admit their blunders. These people are a minority but they are powerful. I consider them enemies of the Pakistan for which my mother sacrificed her family. Why should we defend these enemies? Why doesn't our democratic government officially apologise to Bengalis? This apology will not weaken Pakistan. It will
strengthen Pakistan.

I am sure that Pakistan is changing fast. A day will come very soon when the government of Pakistan will officially say sorry to Bengalis and March 26th will become an apology day for patriotic Pakistanis. I want this apology because Bengalis created Pakistan. I want this apology because Bengalis supported the sister of Jinnah against General Ayub Khan. I wants this apology because I want to make a new relationship with the people of Bangladesh. I don't want to live with my dirty past. I want to live in a neat and clean future. I want a bright future not only for Pakistan but also for Bangladesh. I want this apology because I love Pakistan and I love
Bangladesh. Happy Independence Day to my Bangladeshi brothers and sisters.

Hamid Mir is Executive Editor of Geo TV in Islamabad. He will receive Saarc Lifetime Achievement Award on March 26th in the Saarc Writers' Conference in Delhi. Email: hamid.mir@geo.tv

*Reinventing Pakistan, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Dawn, 23 Mar, 2010
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/reinventing-pakistan-330

PAKISTAN is not a nation although it has been a state since 1947. Missing is a strong common identity, mental makeup, shared sense of history and common goals. The failure to effectively integrate flows from inequalities of wealth and opportunity, absence of effective democracy and a dysfunctional legal system.

Notwithstanding the recent outburst of Punjab’s chief minister, most Punjabis think of themselves as Pakistani first and Punjabi second. But not the Baloch or Sindhis. Schools in Balochistan refuse to hoist Pakistan’s flag or sing its national anthem, Sindhis accuse Punjabis of stealing their water, the MQM runs Karachi on strictly ethnic grounds, Pakhtuns adamantly want the NWFP renamed Pakhtunkhwa against the wishes of other residents, caste and sect matter more than competence in getting a job and ethnic student groups wage pitched battles against each other on campuses.

Pakistan’s genesis explains the disunity. Created as the Boolean negative of India — not India — there was little thought to how the new country might accommodate diversity. It did not help that its founder died just a year later. Mr Jinnah’s plans were ambiguously stated and he left behind no substantive writings. His speeches, often driven by the exigencies of the moment, are freely cherry-picked today. Some find there a liberal and secular voice, others an articulation of Islamic values. The confusion is irresolvable.

The determination to emphasise a singular Muslim national identity, and maintain a centralised state structure run by the colonial-era ruling elite, became the basis for governance. It proved to be Pakistan’s greatest burden. This became evident as the Baloch, Pakhtuns, Sindhis, and most dramatically the Bengalis in East Pakistan, launched struggles to be respected and pursue their own dreams. The independence of East Pakistan almost 40 years ago should have ended the illusion that religion and force can hold people together in the face of injustice and a lack of democracy.

Yet, religion still remains the strongest bonding factor. A recent survey of 2,000 young Pakistanis in the 18-27 age group found that three-quarters identify themselves first as Muslims and only secondly as Pakistanis. Just 14 per cent defined themselves as citizens of Pakistan first. Dejected and adrift, most see religion as their anchor. The common refrain of the post-Zia generation is that “every issue will be solved if we go back to the fundamentals of Islam”.

But these ‘fundamentals’ have multiple interpretations that fuel divisive and violent political forces, each convinced that they alone understand God’s will. Murderous wars between Sunni and Shia militias started in the late 1980s. Today, even those favouring the utopian vision of an ideal Islamic state are frightened by the Pakistani Taliban who seek to impose their version of the Shariathrough the Kalashnikov and suicide bombings.

This is not a temporary difficulty. Shall it be for Sunnis to decide Pakistan’s laws? Whose Sharia is the right one: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, Hanbali? Will the amir-ul-momineen or caliph be elected and by who? More troubling questions: can Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Ahmadis, be equal Pakistanis? Or is Pakistan only for Muslims?

For all these vexing matters, Pakistan can become a nation one day. Just as rain grinds down stony mountains and ultimately creates fertile soil, nations are created when people live together long enough. How long is long? In Pakistan’s case this does not have to be centuries. Its people are diverse but almost all understand Urdu. They watch the same television programmes, read the same newspapers, deal with the same irritating and inept bureaucracy, use the same badly written textbooks, buy similar products, and despise the same set of rulers. Slowly but surely, a Pakistani culture is emerging.

But nationhood is still not guaranteed. Both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia broke apart after 70 years. If Pakistan is to chart a path to viable nationhood, there must be a national dialogue on its most pressing problems. What might be a suitable manifesto of change? First, Pakistan needs peace. This means that it must turn inwards and devote its fullest attention to ending its raging internal wars. The long conflict with India has achieved nothing beyond creating a militarised Pakistani security state which uses force as its first resort. Attempts to solve Kashmir militarily have bled the country and left it dependent on foreign aid. The army’s role must be limited to defending the people of Pakistan, and to ensuring that their constitutional and civil rights are protected.

Second, Pakistan needs economic justice. This demands a social infrastructure providing decent employment, minimum incomes and rewards according to ability and hard work. In rural areas, where old structures of land ownership remain intact, sweeping land reforms are an urgent need. India abolished feudalism upon attaining independence but the enormous pre-partition land holdings of Pakistan’s feudal lords were protected by the authority of the state; the land reforms announced by Ayub Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were hardly serious. But even in the urban areas there is gross inequality. The military is a landlord and capitalist class that owns vast assets having no relation to national defence.

Third, Pakistan must shed its colonial structure of governance. Different historically constituted peoples must want to live together voluntarily, and see the benefits of doing so. A giant centralised government machine sitting in Islamabad cannot effectively manage such a diverse country. As in India, Pakistan has to be reorganised as a federation where provinces and local governments hold the critical economic and social powers, with defence and foreign affairs held in common. In particular, Islamabad’s conflict with Balochistan urgently needs resolution using political sagacity rather than military force.

Fourth, Pakistan needs a social contract. This is a commitment that citizens shall be treated fairly and equally by the state and, in turn, shall willingly fulfill basic civic responsibilities. But today Pakistanis are denied even the most fundamental protections specified in the constitution. The poor suffer outright denial of their rights while the rich are compelled to buy them. Rich and poor alike feel no obligation to fulfill their civic duties. Most do not pay their fair share of income tax, leading to one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world.

Fifth, our education needs drastic revision in the means of delivery and content. Money goes some way towards the first — better school infrastructure, books, teacher salaries, etc. But this is not enough. Schools teach children to mindlessly obey authority, to look to the past for solutions to today’s problems, and to be intolerant of the religion, culture and language of others. Instead, we need to teach them to be enquiring, open-minded, creative, logical, socially responsible and appreciative of diversity.

For Pakistan to succeed, it must want to become a normal nation held together by mutual interests rather than abstract ideologies. This is the only way to deal with the multiple civil wars that have started around us.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
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*Little Pakistan's big India Problem, M J Akbar, March 20, 2010
http://www.mjakbar.org/mjblog.htm

Pakistan’s India policy is nurtured by a fundamental principle: Pakistan is always right. The obverse assumption is, but naturally, that India is always in the wrong, and gets away because of its size. The conflation between size and strength is meaningless and unhistorical, but remarkably effective. Britain was less than the size of a medium-level principality of the Indian
subcontinent, and it ruled half the world.

Grievance is a wide canvas, creating elbow room even for the unacceptable. In this Pakistani logic, even cross-border terrorism becomes India’s fault since its “root cause” is Indian injustice towards the Muslims of the Kashmir valley. History becomes the story of lament, and if facts do not suit the lament then facts must be suitably altered. Little mention is made therefore of the fact that it was Pakistan which began the war on Kashmir within six weeks of freedom; this was the first foreign policy decision taken by independent Pakistan, on the assumption that it could seize what it wanted while India remained comatose. The reality is that if there had been no Pak-sponsored invasion in 1947, the status of Kashmir would have been settled through negotiations by 1948, probably through some form of partition. There would have been no Kashmir problem.

There are two starting points to history as written by Islamabad: Kashmir in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971. The first exonerates cross-border terrorism; the second is used to explain Islamabad’s need for “strategic depth”, which, in effect, means Pak control of Kabul without interference from India. Once again, the military defeat of Pakistan and birth of Bangladesh is “big” India’s fault. The sequence of events from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s spectacular victory in the general elections to the massacre of Bengali civilians in East Pakistan and the consequent arrival of millions of refugees into India is excised from public memory. These are not academic issues; they impinge on current objectives creating tensions, as for instance in Afghanistan.

Any nation’s foreign policy must keep space for flexibility, and therefore cannot be bound to a specific pattern, but its contours are always evident. The world’s powers and superpowers cannot be indifferent to India-Pakistan relations, not only because the two neighbours have nuclear weapons, but also because they are involved in a critical battle zone of the next decade. America and Britain would be happy to see peace between India and Pakistan, not because it is a good thing in itself, but also because it is in their interest to release Pakistan from confrontation with India so that it can concentrate on the confrontation with their foes in Af-Pak region. Their need for Pakistan makes them add to their historical ambivalence about a core problem, the terms on which this peace can be arranged. It would suit them to see a more compliant India, even though, on paper, India is closer to Anglo-America’s definition of terrorism than Pakistan’s. Washington and London, therefore, have to negotiate each decision, whether on policy framework or specifics like Headley, through a complex web of immediate necessity, medium-term options and long-term horizon. Contradictions are inevitable.

Russia, aware of its post-Soviet limitations, but determined to pursue its interests in Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan to the extent possible, would prefer a greater convergence of Russia-India objectives on terrorism as well as national priorities in South, Central and West Asia. The revival of a military equation between these two powers is evidence of shared goals. The reasons are not the same, for the world is radically different, but the impulses and intellectual reasoning that brought India close to the Soviet Union are again in play within the India-Russia relationship. Russia would be happy at a resolution in South Asia, but with its tilt towards Delhi.

China is the one regional power that has no interest in Indo-Pak peace, and as long as China remains Pakistan’s all-weather benefactor, a settlement is unlikely. Pakistan’s self-image, painted with the brush of lament, suits China perfectly, because it can outsource a substantive part of its competition/confrontation with India to Pakistan. China and Pakistan offer a vital service to each other, by improving mutual comfort levels. With China by its side, Pakistan can negate, psychologically, India’s “big” factor. China helped build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal not only as reassurance, but also to stretch the nuclear confrontation from the north to the west. Pakistan is the nuclear hedge that China factors into its war games at a time when India is displaying the promise of economic resurgence and military potential.

Diplomats and their political guardians are used to tiptoeing through minefields, but surely there is no region more explosive than the stretch between North India, Iran and Central Asia. West Asia has dangerous triggers of course, but only one side, Israel, has nuclear arms. (This could change, of course, if Iran goes nuclear, a prospect that keeps the mood wintry in Washington and Tel Aviv.) The sheer danger of an unmanageable explosion should, in theory, make the imperative for an Indo-Pak settlement that much more urgent. In practice, the absence of minimal trust, and the competition of a widening arc of national interests, keeps India and Pakistan frozen in a winter of despair.
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*Regaining cultural space (in Pakistan), Hajrah Mumtaz, Dawn, 21 Mar, 2010
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/local/regaining-cultural-space-130

Time is hardly hanging heavy these days on the hands of those Karachiites that are interested in culture. First there’s the Karachi literature festival, bringing together an impressive range of writers and commentators that include Kishwar Naheed, Intizaar Hussain, Bapsi Sidhwa, Mohammed Hanif, Mohsin Hamid and many others. Then there’s a number of plays: the invaluable Danka.com.pk tells me about the Tilsm theatre festival, a tragic-comedy called Insha ka Intezaar, the satire Rang Badal Lo Bhai, a ballet performance and a number of others.

In Lahore, too, there’s a fair bit going on, although at least one theatre production that was to be staged soon has been postponed, reportedly because of security concerns after the recent bombings. But going further north to the NWFP, classes and examinations at the University of Peshawar, and the over half a dozen other educational institutions on the campus, have been suspended because of violence after the death of a student. Adnan Abdul Qadir had been lying in a coma for the past week, after having been severely beaten up by student members of a right-wing party. What was the crime he committed? Only that he was playing music in his hostel room, and the right-wingers objected.

Should we then cease to play music for fear of the right-wingers who have taken it upon themselves to light our way to heaven by guarding our morality? Should we fear going to the theatre, or the cinema, or to an art exhibition, because any one of these venues may become at any time the target of a suicide bomber, a car bomb, any sort of a hundred different incendiary devices? Should we resign ourselves to the disappearance from our cultural landscape of concerts and festivals, because of the inability to protect such large gatherings of people from terrorist attacks? There is no end to this path, if once we embark upon it. After music, theatre and cinema, it’ll be sports events and literary gatherings and conferences. And very soon we will actually have the sort of wasteland that the right-wingers seem to wish to create.

Instead, let us fight back; let us wage a cultural war of self-defence, because that is one of the means through which the tide of medieval obscurantism that is washing over us can be pushed back. Culture and its associated activities are not about entertainment, you see; they’re about exploring and creating a national identity, about debating who we are and where we came from and where we now want to go. The arts are a vital avenue of education and self-awareness. Through these means, a society examines its characteristics, orientation and politics, and forges links with its history and context. And this function is crucial to Pakistan, given that we are today in a state of flux about our identity; experiences ranging from Lal Masjid to the Taliban to the revenge of the jihadis have shown us, for example, that even in the apparently unshakable edifice of Pakistani-hood combined with Muslim-hood, there are major – often murderous – differences of opinion. The country is splitting along ethnically- and religiously-oriented faultlines, and unless we discover urgently who we are and why we are this way, the future is bleak.

Currently, what we have is a generation raised with confused and often ludicrous notions of history, religion, nationalism and politics, and the interplay between them. By now, most of this country’s population has for so long been force-fed manufactured constructions that range from the glory of the army and the importance of strategic depth, to the evil inherent in India and the West – there are scores of examples – that they are taken as assumed truths. In this, our cultural truths have died. Consider Zia’s Islamisation project, for example, where in addition to the need to give the Afghan ‘jihad’ legitimacy, other factors too played a role. One of them was Saudi Arabia, which poured massive amounts of money into Pakistan in the effort to neutralise the perceived threat from Iran. One of the results of this was the demonisation of indigenous subcontinental culture, much of which was labelled “Hindu”, in order to allow Pakistan to become ideologically linked with Saudi Arabia. The effects of these combined with other factors are today manifested in attacks on our freedoms that range in gravity from the death of the Peshawar University student and the blowing up of CD shops and theatre halls, to making us shun public places and fear any forum that the right-wing extremists may take a dislike to.

Bringing us back from the brink must include the project not only to reassert ourselves culturally, but to take back into our hands all the public spaces that the right-wingers have made us fear. Let us fight back by populating the parks and the cinema halls, the theatres and workshops, the streets and towns from where the obscurantists have forced us out, and confined us within the four walls of our private spaces. Meanwhile, let us remember that the performing arts and literature are powerful tools that can be used to the great advantage of the country’s liberal, tolerant and peaceful elements. Through these means can we carry out exercises in self-examination and self-critique, for through these means is it possible to hold a mirror up to reality and then foster a more nuanced understanding.

In terms of Pakistan, people often say that “the show must go on”. But there’s no ‘must’ about this: the chances of harmonious coexistence for everybody who lives here are falling fast. Perhaps a better phrase to take to heart would be “let’s get this show on the road.” We must regain space for liberal thought in our society even if that means exposing ourselves to violence; by stepping back, staying at home, we are yielding space to the extremists – and they will only continue to hanker after more.

hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com

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