Sadly there is a disturbing trend amongst Indian Pseudo-Intellectuals (as opposed to the real Indian intellectuals who are known for their integrity and scholarship) and politicians to concoct a view of Pakistan which has no roots in objective reality. Whereas we Pakistanis are lucky that there are people like Khushwant Singh, M J Akbar, Kuldip Nayyar and Raj Mohan Gandhi around in India who have always spoken the truth about Pakistan but they are sadly few and far in between the multitudes of Sumeet Gangulys and Narendra Modis of India. These anti-Pakistan Pseudo-intellectuals and politicians have a sinister agenda. For intellectuals: To berate Pakistan, its people and its historical antecedents and in comparison make look India better. For politicians: To use Pakistan as an election issue. BJP Government has failed to deliver and has now made a suitable issue out of Pakistan. Everytime the chest thumping deputy Prime Minister challenges Pakistan to a fourth war, he seems to win more votes in India. Such is the appeal of this bigoted rhetoric, that the Congress was also forced to employ the same tactic. Anti-Pakistanism seems to be the one unifying factor for Indians of all colors, castes and creeds.
There are three notions that are established about Pakistan which transcend party, ideology, and ethnic lines in India:
1) Partition was the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind. Hindus are doodh kay dhulay, but the muslas are the devils who caused this vivisection.
2) Pakistan is based on a narrow exclusivist ideology.
3) Pakistan `solved` its minority problem by ethnic cleansing Hindus and Sikhs in 1947. Remaining minorities live in conditions worse than animals today.
It is futile to consider the obvious repercussions the propagation of these false notions and half truths has on the longer term prospects of peace in South Asia, but it is worthwhile to examine the these four statements closely and put them to a test of facts.
Was Partition Really Wrong?
"Ask any Indian or Pakistani: “Who first propounded the two-nation theory?” The immediate response will be “Mohammed Ali Jinnah”. Not correct. The first man to talk of Hindus and Muslims as separate nations was V.D. Savarkar who coined the word ‘Hindutva’ in a book with the same title in 1923. Other Hindu leaders who accepted the two-nation theory were Dr Moonje of the Hindu Mahasabha, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, founder of the Benares Hindu University, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bhai Parmanand and Swami Shraddhanand. Eminent Bengali writer Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay also supported the notion."
(Khushwant Singh, Hinduvta Manufactured, Hindustan Times June 29th
2002 http://147.208.132.202/news/181_4603,00300003.htm)
Father of India and internationally recognized leader of the freedom Movement, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in his famous interview with Louis Fischer admitted that the cause of Muslim League`s separatism lay in the the rise of Hindu ideology which made the Muslim leaders in the Congress uncomfortable. Yet this alone is not the justification for partition. The point is the drawing and re-drawing of borders needs no justification except the general will of a people. Nationalism is and will always be a imagined concept.
The point is that Indian Nationalism had no more of a moral justification than Muslim Nationalism, a view that was endorsed in the famous Nehru Report which admitted that communalism had as much legal validity as Indian nationalism. As the world moves towards United Economic blocs like the EU, it does so by accepting and endorsing diversity rather than imposing a centrist identity. Europe has not achieved unity by superimposing a European nationalism on the immensely proud Germans, French and the English, but by accepting the diversity of its people. The South Asia was never one people, and it will never be one people. Instead the ethnic, religious, cultural, social and caste-based divisions go deep into the fabric of the South Asian society and this can be its greatest strength. It was always divided into smaller states- even under the the rule of the Mughals, the rajas and nawabs of smaller states were autonomous atat-guzars of the Mughal authority and never one country. What EU achieved late last century, South Asia had 300 years ago; an Economic, cultural and political alliance of diverse and independent peoples of the subcontinent.
Therefore the redrawing of a border or the creation of Pakistan was in no means a contradiction to the South Asian contiguity which had existed despite the divisions amongst its diverse peoples. Besides the argument that since South Asia forms one geographical unit it should be one political unit amounts to nothing when juxtaposed against the Unity of the whole of Asia as a continent and then geographical unity of the Indus Basin vs Ganges Basin respectively.
What makes the imagined geographical unity of South Asian subcontinent more special than the other two? What makes it the right size anyway? By no means are the doors of History closed to further redrawing of borders whether here in South Asia or in the world. All effective cases for political autonomy should be entertained. The unity of the world lies in constant decentralization of authority, till effective governance and equality is finally achieved, and true meaning of liberty is realized.
2) Is Pakistan really based on a narrow exclusivist ideology?
"Mr Jinnah had sent word to my father... to persuade me to stay on in Lahore. The indication was clear; he wanted to consider me as Judge of the High Court.... Evidently he had neither wished nor forseen that in Pakistan there would be no place for Non-Muslims. " (Khushwant Singh, Truth Love and a Little Malice, an autobiography Page 116)
Pakistan Movement`s premise was the right of self determination for apopulation which formed an majority in the north west and north eastof the Subcontinent but were an over all minority. A nation arisingout a struggle for minority rights can not have a raison d` etre which is exclusivist. This defeats the purpose of its creation in the first place.
In a sweeping statement the pseudo-intellectuals love to declare `Pakistan is a country based on a religious identity`. Now the phenomenon of religion as ethnicity is not without precedent. The division of Ottoman Turkey, Ireland, Balkans, and ofcourse the creation of Israel all point to the existence of the use of religious identity as a nationalism. After all what makes linguistic or
regional nationalism more kosher than a common faith. There is nothing wrong with it as a principle, but it is the misuse of this principle that is the problem.
Indians of the Congress Pseudo-secular bent love to draw analogies between the Hinduvta of the BJP and the Muslim Nationalism of the League. In doing so they forget to make the important distinction that the League`s Muslim Nationalism was a Minoritarian nationalism which as Gandhi pointed out was a reaction to the rise of a Hindu ideology. The apt comparison therefore is with the Muslim Nationalismof the Bosnian Muslims. BJP`s Hinduvta is a majoritarian nationalismwhich finds similarities with the Serbian nationalism of Milosovec.
Muslim Nationalism therefore was a tactical response which Jinnah himself had tried to undo before the creation of Pakistan.Some pseudo-intellectuals and so called historians in India unfairly claim that Jinnah envisaged no role for the minorities in Pakistan.
Jinnah`s pronouncements with regards to minorities are crystal clear and his personal efforts to protect Hindus of Karachi and Sindh during the days of the abominable holocaust on both sides are lauded by many a Hindu writer including the first Indian High commissioner Sri Prikasa and the veteran journalist M S Sharma. One can consult the book "Peep into Pakistan" for a detailed account. The primary documents that have been since revealed also show that the League leadership, and particularly Jinnah did not envisage an exchange of populations. Infact he had tried really hard to persuade the non-muslims in Pakistan to stay on. Khushwant Singh testifies to this in his autobiography when he mentions how he was sent personal messages by Jinnah to stay on in Pakistan and become a judge in the Lahore High court. Singh holds that Jinnah had not envisaged a Pakistan without non-Muslims, and Jinnah`s subsequent appointment of Jogindranath Mandal as the first Law Minister of Pakistan seems to confirm this view. Jinnah also established a 10% special quota of Jobs for non-muslim minorities. In his personal life he seemed to trust the non-muslims more than muslims. It is well known that he employed people on the basis of ability rather than their background. Hence we find the interesting story about his house which was built by a British architect, Claude Batley, a Muslim contractor,a Hindu plumber and Italian stonemasons. To accuse a man like that of communal bias is unfortunate. Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a champion of the Muslim cause yes, but throughout his life he remained true to the description of his mentor Gokhale who had found Jinnah to be free of sectarian and communal bias.
3) What of ethnic cleansing of 1947 and the treatment of minorities now?
"Looking back, however, one cannot but blame Mountbatten for doing so little to ensure protection for the minorities. He had assured Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a top leader in the Congress, `Ishall not use merely the armed police, I will order the army and the air force to act and I will use tanks and aeroplanes to suppress anybody who wants to create trouble.` Not a fraction of that happened. It was a free-for-all. When Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan`s founder, asked Mountbatten to "shoot Muslims" if necessary to stop violence and when Jawaharlal Nehru, India`s first prime minister, suggested handing over the cities to the military, Mountbatten`s response was feeble. It may be an uncharitable remark to make but he appeared more interested in becoming the commongovernor-general of India and Pakistan - an office that Jinnah did not let him have - than dousing the fire of communalism."
( The Trial of Mountbatten, Kuldip Nayyar http://www.dawn.com/2002/08/10/op.htm)
Khushwant Singh and Kuldip Nayyar like other writers who have written about partition, holds that `neither Nehru nor Jinnah` envisaged the brutal exchange of populations. This is certainly the view that one gets from the Jinnah papers. And yet the exchange of populations happened and then came the terrible communal holocaust on both sides. Some 5.5 Million Muslims were ethnically cleansed from East Punjab and areas neighboring Pakistan, and some 3.5 million Hindus from West Punjab and Sindh then packed up and left for India. Both Pakistan and India however had large sections of Hindu and Muslim minorities in other parts of the country. East Pakistan for example had 15% Hindus who organized themselves under the able leadership of Chattopadhaya, the leader of the Pakistan Congress Party.
Undeniably the religious minorities in India have complete legal parity as per the secular constitution of that country, much more so than in Pakistan where they are not allowed to run for the highest office in the land. However this does not mean that for the common folk amongst them are happier in India than in Pakistan. Infact some will argue that Pakistan has never had the kind of en masse massacres as one sees in Gujurat and other communally troubled parts of India. In Pakistan the incidents of violence against non-Muslims are few and far in between and usually the product of problems of a more global nature as the recent church bombings indicate. Generally the non-muslims in Pakistan are left to go about their business. But this might just be because the Sunni Muslim majority is more interested in killing of shia muslim minority or the ahmadiyya community than christians, Hindus or Sikhs.
Non-muslims are amongst the most talented and the most patriotic Pakistanis. Justice Bhagwan Das of the Supreme Court is held to amongst the most honest judges serving right now. Pakistan`s best fashion designer is a Hindu (Deepak Parwani), and the best model is a christian (Sunita Marshall). The owners of the largest hotel chain (Avari Hotels) are parsis. The best batsman in Pakistan`s cricket team is a christian (Youhanna), and the best leg spinner in Pakistan is a Hindu. Pakistan`s best drummer is a goan christian (Gumby of Junoon and Noori fame), some of Pakistan`s leading musicians are christians including bands like Saraab and Aks. Even our best novelist in English is arguably a Parsi. Their contribution in fields of defence, education and nation-building is undeniable. Some of Pakistan`s best fighter pilots were christians. Pakistan`s best institutions like Kinnaird College etc are still run by non-muslims.
However not all is fine and dandy with the minorities. The institutionalized discrimination against the non-muslims needs to be put an end to immediately, not because of International pressure, but because the very premise of our nation state, our ideology is the safeguard of minority rights and their equal status as citizens in Pakistan. The point is that our doing so should not be seen as a departure from an imagined exclusivist principle, but rather the return to our true ideology, that of equality fraternity and justice
on which Pakistan was created.
Conclusion:
In a world where the victory and defeat has now come to be seen in terms of superiority of civilizations in education and tolerance, we should strive to prove that we Pakistanis and our ideology is the most enlightened, the most tolerant and the most aware. That will be the real triumph and completion of the great work we started on 14thAugust 1947, and this may I suggest is the appropriate response to the intellectual sabre rattling of a ultra-nationalist pseudo intellectuals from across the border. Nothing will stop them from hurling falsehoods and half truths in our direction. By working towards the tolerant and progressive Pakistan which Allama Iqbal and Mohammad Ali Jinnah had envisaged, where liberty will be fully realized,not only will we triumph in this new kind of war but we will also strengthen the hands of our true friends in India who are disgusted of Pakistan`s use as an election issue by the political parties of their country. Then perhaps there will be lasting peace.
Footnote: Pakistan and India were created through a mutually agreed partition and were to part as friends and brothers. That has not happened but its time we buried the hatchet and came to terms with each other.
