Violence Has No Borders

By Urvashi Butalia

Imagine a large hall in a major city in Punjab. It’s packed with people, mostly women, from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. On the stage are two men, one a long-haired bearded, hairy-chested sardar, the other a clean shaven smooth-chested younger man. They’re engaged in a languorous, erotic, sometimes passionate, sometimes tender, rendering of the story of Heer Ranjha. In the background Madan Gopal’s wonderfully resonant voice sings the story. Tragedy hangs in the air, for most of the people in the hall are familiar with this beautiful story of star- crossed lovers, and after the initial hesitation at seeing two men, they now ‘believe’ that the bearded Navtej Johar is actually Heer, and the supple Anil is Ranjha. Such is the power of their dance.

We’re in Islamabad, attending a dance performance that marks the end of a day of conferencing, and of an award ceremony in the memory of a young woman, Meeto Bhasin Malik, whose untimely death remains one of the great losses of the women’s movement in India.

Induced Nostalgia

By Hasan Altaf         

The first time I heard the word “Gandhara” was when I was maybe eight or ten, and, driving from Islamabad to Peshawar with my father, brother, and grandparents, stopped in a town I’d never heard of to visit a museum that was equally unfamiliar. The little town was Taxila, and the museum was the Taxila Museum. I’m sure at the time someone, most likely my father, explained to me the significance, the historic and artistic value, of the objects presented there, but it seems I must have glazed over and ignored it. To the eight- or ten-year-old I was, none of the statues and relics, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, were particularly memorable. We left Taxila and continued our drive, leaving the museum behind, and until recently, I never thought about them again.

Many of us who grow up outside Pakistan have Pakistan always in the back of our minds, but that Pakistan is an imagined one that is different for each of us, and mine, at least, did not encompass Gandhara.

Ten Thoughts on Afridi’s Remarks about Indians

By Anjum Altaf

Shahid Afridi’s perceptions of Indians and India are now common knowledge. On the way out of the airport returning from Mohali, he said: “I can’t understand the approach of people, why we are against India? Why there is so much hate for India when we have Indian dramas played in every home, our marriage celebrations are done in Indian style, we watch all Indian movies then why to hate them?” A couple of days later, he said: “In my opinion, if I have to tell the truth, they will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don’t think they have the large and clean hearts that Allah has given us.”

Given the short half-life of such episodes much of the hullabaloo has disappeared. It is time now to move beyond scoring points and to see if some more interesting aspects can be uncovered. In that spirit we present ten thoughts for comments and discussion.

Our Neighborhood

A friend introduced me to the notion of a ‘chewing-gum’ concept – one that has the flexibility to be stretched or shrunk as needed to suit the context. This immediately solved a problem that had been vexing me for months.

The problem was the following: I had been toying with launching local language versions of this blog but had found myself stymied by the challenge of translating meaningfully its name – The South Asian Idea. What had come so naturally in English turned into an impossible task in, say, Hindi or Urdu. There were two questions here: why was the task proving to be difficult and what was to do be done about it?

India, Pakistan and Survival

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall / Who is the Fittest of Us All?

The question, starkly posed, could be the following: Which country, India or Pakistan, has the better chance of survival, and why?

In fact, the question is just an artifact to extend a discussion we have been having on this blog about the relationship of tolerance to survival. Our engagement with the issue has been at the very basic level of understanding but the very fact that we have been debating it leads us on to better and more sophisticated arguments. This, I strongly believe, is the beneficial outcome of discussions and conversations on a blog like this.

The Indo-Persian Synthesis

By Vijay Vikram

It’s been a while since I wrote on this blog. And a very good piece by a chap called Ahmed Kamran on The South Asian Idea has pushed me into rectifying that.

One of the themes that I love ruminating on is the synthesis of Indic and Persian cultures that emerged after India’s encounter with Islam. What is equally fascinating is how this culture has fractured and is in a state of war after the Partition of India – probably one of the most under-rated and under-appreciated of world-historical events. Intellectuals, both Subcontinental and Western tend to treat Partition as a localised event. A horrific event, worthy of intellectual analysis and monograph upon dry academic monograph but in essence, a tragedy restricted to and contained by the Indian Subcontinent. In actuality, the Partition of India is a world-historical event whose consequences shall be felt on the continuum of civilisations for generations.

Neighbours: Private Dosti, Political Demarcations

Islamabad Diary, December 2007

By Sakuntala Narasimhan

The flight from Bangalore to Delhi takes over two and a half hours, while the flight from Delhi to Lahore takes less than an hour. And yet, how little we get to know about the day-to-day lives of the people just across the border, their preoccupations, aspirations and lifestyles! We get media reports, to be sure, about the emergency, about political pronouncements by politicians in Pakistan, and about the forthcoming elections. But that does not portray the lives of the Aam Admi of Pakistan; just as the controversy over the   Indo-US nuclear agreement does not reflect anything about the daily lives of the average citizen of our country. What is it like, to be a resident of Karachi or Lahore, what do the people think, about their “big brother’ next door, or even about the political decisions on either side? We seldom get to know, because getting through the border is not exactly the easiest of exercises in international travel. And for the media, daily lives are not ‘news’, which seems sad, judging by the experiences of those who travel across in either direction.

The ‘dosti’ begins even before one lands on Pakistani territory, on the flight leaving Delhi itself. The young woman in the seat next to mine is a highly qualified surgeon in Karachi. One doesn’t think of a Pakistani woman as a surgeon, right? And yet – in spite of the Islamic restrictions that we have preconceptions about, women across the border are doing exactly the same things as Indian women, taking up careers, traveling overseas, teaching, undertaking research, and breaking social constraints with élan in a manner that mirrors the Indian social scene.

The dosti in fact began even before we emplaned – the invitation for a three-day conference of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute at Islamabad came with two cartoon figures, one waving an Indian flag and the other a Pakistani one. On arrival on Pakistani shores, human hosts took over where those cartoon figures left off, plying us with hospitality and genuine friendship of a kind that left a lasting impression.

Pakistanis who said they had had the “good fortune” to visit India, recalled the friendliness they encountered everywhere they went, and we (ten of us from India, a mixed group of researchers, academics and policymakers) were remarking at the end of our visit, on the genuine, and often overwhelming, affection that the locals showered us with wherever we went. The people-to-people bonds seem vibrant and strong, regardless of the political equations between the two countries.

The emergency was still on during our visit, and we drove past the Supreme Court of Pakistan, parliament house, the intelligence headquarters and the offices of various VIPs. I saw far less barbed wire, sandbags and armed sentries than I find in the VIP areas of Delhi. We moved freely around, strolling through parks and monuments in the evenings after our conference sessions, and went shopping in the markets that could be from anywhere in our own Kolkata or Mumbai. We got invited to participate in a talk show on TV where we were not gagged in anyway, and were free to air our opinions without censorship. Some television channels were blocked, to be sure, but there were plenty of others where the programmes criticized state policy (I watched fascinated as President Musharraf himself was grilled by a questioner in one telecast).

On my first morning in Islamabad, the waiter at the hotel gives me a wide grin, and asks, “Aap India sey?” His grandfather came to Pakistan as a refugee, and he was looking forward to visiting his ancestors’ village “some day, Inshallah”. Some of the locals were insistent about taking us home for “chai” and seemed disappointed that we could not spare the time. The spicy dal and saffron rice and parathas and halwa reminded one of home (that’s silly, we had to keep reminding ourselves – after all, the two nations were a single entity, within living memory).

I went looking for tapes of some classical musicians who had migrated to Pakistan in 1947, but was offered instead, CDs of the “latest hits” –  Om Shanti Om and Goal and a dozen other recent films, and  DVDs of a Jaya Bachchan-Anupam Kher blockbuster. Those, the salesman assured me, were the “fastest moving items”. The music, the language, the cultural strands, the social fabric, are such that one has to keep reminding oneself that one is “abroad”. After all, there is the shared history and heritage of millennia. “We as a people have more in common with India than with other Islamic nations of the Middle East,” remarked a woman economist at the conference. Ponder over that. During my stay there the hotel hosted a typical upper middle class wedding; the saris and salwar suits had come from Delhi, the menu was based on fancy Lucknawi nawabi fare. This was like back home, as nowhere else I have seen.

A shopkeeper at one store, after asking, “Aap India sey?”, shyly asks me to guess his name. I give up. “Sunil Kumar,” he says with a grin. Are you happy here? I ask him. “If insaan wants to live in peace, he can be happy anywhere, he replies. These kinds of nuggets rarely make it to the media. We read in the papers about the rocket attack near Peshawar but not about the amazing work that an NGO here is doing to empower women. Positive stories take a backseat when there are those that showcase violence, trauma and mayhem.

“The polls wont be perfect,” says an American comment on Pakistan – “Look who’s talking”, said an American visitor, recalling the controversy over the election of Bush and the ‘Florida count’. The keynote speaker at one session, a distinguished international consultant, closes his comments with a quote from Faiz Ahmed Faiz. “Mile kuchh aisey…. We met in such a manner that my heart is leaving not with a scar but with a flower…” You can say that again, Shoaib Sultan Khan sahib…

Sakuntala Narasimhan is an award winning journalist-author-musician and academic resource person, specialising in gender and development. She has doctorates in sociology (women’s studies) and in musicology.

This article appeared first in The Deccan Herald, Bangalore, on January 3, 2008 and is reproduced here with permission of the author.

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Yehudi Menuhin: On Nationalism

By Anjum Altaf

I am reading Yehudi Menuhin’s autobiography (Unfinished Journey) and sharing with readers what appeals to me. These thoughts on nationalism I feel are particularly meaningful for South Asians.

As a musician, well aware that art must have local roots if it is to convey universal meaning, I view evidences of cultural difference, even the perhaps insignificant ones I have cited, with approval as well as interest. The yearning to preserve a distinctive culture which sets the Basque against Madrid, the Scot against Westminster, the American Indian against Washington (however vastly these examples differ in degree), wins my sympathy. Undeniably the aspiration is legitimate and worthy. But is it possible, given human nature, to separate good from bad, the wish for cultural autonomy from the wish to impose one’s way of life on one’s neighbours? For me – the product of an upbringing not exclusively Jewish, not exclusively American, nor exclusively any other thing; one who has lived in many parts of the world and established ties with Asians, Africans and Europeans, as well as his beloved Americans; one who has spent his life bridging gaps – exclusivity as expressed in nationalism is not enough. I find it stifling. I also find it dangerous, for it carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The first premise of existence is interdependence – not at the level of human organization alone, but throughout the cycle of activity embracing man and microbe, the worm and the swallow, in a complex of interlocking functions, all moving to the complementary rhythms of life and death. My ideal world would express its interdependence in a burning desire for understanding, a true sympathy, a readiness to pardon, which would sacrifice no strength, spare neither itself nor its enemies, but through its even-handed honesty would win universal trust – like a good doctor who is rigorous with his patients while healing all alike, saint or sinner, enemy or friend.

I understand the appeal of exclusivity, even the need for it. But it is not my way.

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Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Asia

A Pakistani journalist has recorded his observations from a visit to Sri Lanka. He has asked a lot of questions but not provided too many answers; and some of the answers can be debated. I am extracting parts of the article that are of interest to us and hoping that readers would enrich the arguments and fill in the gaps.

On the regional bond: Everything told me this was still South Asia, that Colombo was not very different from Lahore, that somehow our regional bond held. Yet, something was very different, and I was struggling to pinpoint it.

Note: Why do we feel this regional bond in Colombo but not in Bangkok or Teheran?

On literacy – a question asked by a Sri Lankan: Why were so many Pakistanis illiterate, when Sri Lankans were so educated, when Sri Lanka boasted a literacy rate above 90 per cent? How could a democracy work with so many illiterate people?

Journalist’s anwer: It was not because Sri Lankans ate so much fish, but because of Pakistan’s feudal history, because of its unstable dictatorships and its ingrained class system.

Note: We have speculated in an earlier post that we may be what we eat. Any thoughts on that? Also, we cannot stop at the journalist’s answer. We have to explain where the engrained class system in Pakistan comes from and why it differs from the one in Sri Lanka.

Cricket – Journalist’s question: Why did I see no games of street cricket?

Sri Lankan’s answer (on not comprehending the question): Children played cricket in schools. Or in grounds. Why would they play in the street?

Cricket – Journalist’s observation: School matches [in Sri Lanka] are regularly played in the national stadium, several schools end their season with a match there, giving schoolboys the opportunity to dream. 
I don’t know of a similar practice in Pakistan.

On child labor: I had not seen any child labor in Sri Lanka.

Civic services: Why there was no rubbish on Colombo streets. Of course there was rubbish on the streets, but the small piles of human discard did not compare to the mountains of refuse in Pakistani cities, towns and villages.

Media: But “illiterate” Pakistan has an aggressive media, and the high literacy rate in Sri Lanka has not translated to a free and aggressive media.

On the origin of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict: the tyranny of democracy meant that a group that had felt marginalized in colonial days now had the power of numbers… the Sinhala had felt marginalized by Tamils on the island, who made up approximately 20 per cent of the population, but held 60 per cent of government jobs – a legacy of missionary education… In 1956 Sinhala was made the national language, forcing Tamils out of jobs. In 1983, the civil war started.

Note: For reference see our earlier post on democracy in Sri Lanka.

On the explanation for differences in literacy: Pakistan, a country with little feel for grassroots democracy, declared Urdu as its national language, foretelling disaster when half the country spoke Bengali, and when the ruling classes had no incentive to educate or compromise with the masses. Why cut deals with the masses if your families, your clans, will lose their grip on power?

Could it be that Sri Lanka’s Sinhala majority was proportionately large enough to impose its culture on the rest of the country? Did this, coupled with a populist, democratic culture and ethnic nationalism provide the incentive to educate? Was this the reason for Sri Lanka’s high literacy rate compared to its neighbors and why its ruling elite made education a priority?

Do you agree or disagree with the writer’s explanations? Do you have any answers for the questions that the writer has asked but not answered?

The complete article is here.

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Similar and Different: Bengal Revisited

 

What have we learnt from this extended discourse on similarities and differences? It is time for a recap and a summary.

We started with Vir Sanghvi’s angry pronouncement that Pakistanis and Indians were no longer similar; they may have been 60 years ago but by now ‘they’ were fundamentalist and ‘we’ were secular.

There were immediate rejoinders to this burst of annoyance with hurt pronouncements of sharing the same music and the same sports.

It became immediately obvious that there were two flaws with the framing of this discussion. First, human beings were not one thing or another; rather, they were better characterized as bundles of attributes. And it was quite possible for individuals to share some attributes and differ along others. To take a very simple example, Punjabis could share a language but differ in religion.

Second, and because of that perspective, it became clear that one could not generalize so broadly as to contrast all Indians and Pakistanis. Within each country, individuals could well have quite different attributes. Again, to take a simple example, fundamentalists and secularists could be found in both countries.

The insight that emerged from this richer framework was that comparisons across individuals are not neutral; indeed they are very context dependent. Thus, the specific attributes that get highlighted in emphasizing similarities or differences are very much dependent on what is at issue at that time.

And the follow-up to that insight was that this highlighting is rarely left to the individuals themselves. More often than not there are external agents who manipulate these attributes for other ends that only indirectly involve the individuals whose attributes are being highlighted.

We can now see that all these factors came into play during the partition of the subcontinent. But we can illustrate the point even more dramatically by thinking about the relationship between the people of West and East Pakistan.

During the run up to the Partition, the only attribute that was given prominence was that of a shared religion. It was taken for granted that Bengali and Punjabi Muslims shared a common destiny and were meant to share a common homeland.

But within a few years other attributes were raised to the fore: their language was different; their staple food was different; even their culture was different because Bengalis sang and danced; and so on. And the highlighting of these differences for political ends led to another unforgivable human tragedy of massive scale ending with Punjabis being described as the ‘butchers’ of Bengal.

The lesson from this discussion is that political differences (which will always exist in society) have to be resolved in political ways. They should never be reduced to the level of individuals and attributed to their individual differences. Whenever we find ourselves thinking in terms of blue-eyed people being devils, or dark-skinned people being dangerous, we should become wary. We can be sure that we are being manipulated for ulterior ends, that we are being used as pawns in somebody else’s game.

And thus we reach our conclusion: it is really quite irrelevant whether we are similar or different. The important thing to realize is that all citizens of a country need to co-exist as equals within their respective countries. And citizens of different countries in the same neighborhood (as in South Asia) need to exist in cooperation with each other.

All of us have to work together and strengthen those who believe in these aims and resist those who hope to discriminate or disturb the neighborhood. Vir Sanghvi is perfectly justified in being annoyed but his analysis is wrong and his prescription will create more problems than it would resolve.

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