Past And Prejudices
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
12 January, 2013
Countercurrents.org
The atrocious beheading of Indian soldiers at the LOC and subsequent firing between the Indian and Pakistan troops must not be allowed to escalate into a blame game. The Pakistanis have as usual rejected Indian claiming for ‘beheading’ of the soldiers while the Indian intelligence and army blames the Special Operation Unit of Pakistani army for the same. There are others who continue to feel that it is a combined Pakistani army-Taliban operation. However, these antics or one-upmanship should not be allowed to hijack the peace process. There is no other way than peace between India and Pakistan.
The relationship between the army and political establishment in Pakistan always hinges the balance of power and foreign policy on that country. Indian does on the other hand want to talk everything except Kashmir. In the initial phase, the right wing forces in India always blamed Nehru for not seeking ‘Azad Kashmir’. They would often cry how India is not doing enough on Kashmir and why Nehru a ‘western’ influenced politician has not ever respected the sentiments of people. Interestingly, India has never ever accepted the UN option as Pakistan is now seeking and always opposed the third party mediation on Kashmir; the fact is it was India who went to United Nations immediately after the attack on Kashmir by the Pakistani forces. The marathon speech for 9 hours at the United Nation by Krishna Menon on the issue of Kashmir is itself a classical document to read but unfortunately the Indian establishments felt that using UN would unnecessarily internationalize the issue and put India into defensive.
India and Pakistan’s foreign and defense establishment became obsessed with the issue of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan felt it is their legitimate right to claim it since it was a Muslim majority state while India claimed that J & K is an integral part of India after the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh had duly signed the annexation treaty with India.
There is a lobby in India which talks of greater India and visualizes the country in such a way that its border transcends Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani army establishment has always felt and used this argument to strengthen their forces and budget that Indians always want to ‘undo’ partition. None of us would do justice to a historic legacy which needs to be accepted with grace that there were two brothers and they could not live together and decided to part ways.
The condition of Muslims and their continuous marginalization gave legitimacy to Pakistan’s claims many times about its own existence. However, Pakistan cannot develop just by siting Indian example as its ruling Punjabi elite actually did worst when the Bangla Muslims who were mostly ‘Pasmanda’ Muslims with Bangla as their mother tongue. The birth of Bangladesh may be termed as one of the ‘achievements’ of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi but the fact is the dissension in East Pakistan had started immediately after Jinnah took over as Governor General and visited Dhaka.
The first announcement of ‘Urdu shall be the language of Pakistan’ became the major threat of division between the two diverse societies. The Bangla nationalism defeated the Pakistani nationalism in 1971. The brutalities of the Pakistan army are well known and Bangladesh sought an apology from Pakistan. For years, the interference by the Pakistan army and its penetration in Bangladesh army were well known and those planned games resulted in horrific and brutal murder of Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman, the father of Bangladesh. The overwhelming majority of the East Bengal people were against Pakistan and it is that created Bangladesh. The language terrorism and the contempt with the Pakistan feudal rulers looked down upon Bangladeshis was the region of vast discontent towards Pakistan. Unfortunately, many social scientists feel that India divided Pakistan in 1971 and that way they actually denigrated the vast struggle of Bangla masses. India definitely played a catalyst but cannot deny the vast mass upsurge against the Pakistan forces who had history of torture, rape and killings in Bangladesh.
The creation of Bangladesh has hurt the Pakistan psyche more than anything else. They feel India might do it again and can instigate violence in Sindh and Baluchistan. The military establishment will never content with peace unless the Kashmir issue is resolved. The problem now is that an open battle with India is fraught with grave dangers. One, there are definitely normal relations now. People of both the countries want peace and trade. People to people contacts have increased and none would ever want a war again as it will damage the growing economy of both the countries. The biggest war we need to fight is against poverty, feudalism and caste-ism which is deep-rooted in our society. The caste discrimination is not a phenomenon with India alone; Pakistan does not lag behind it despite its claiming to have an Islamic government. Yes, the treatment to Bangladeshi Muslim was out of deep caste and cultural prejudices and even today, the Pakistani elite and its bosses in the army never accept that.
Whatever happened in the past were inevitable but now the global scenario has changed and Pakistan itself in deep crisis. India though claims to be a democratic system yet the poverty, superstition and caste play big role. We cannot afford communal riots and disturbances any more but then it is essential for war mongers, communal mindset to cry at top. The more the two nations are at distance with each other, the bigger will be the benefit for the arms industry and those whose only license to patriotism is crying either India or Pakistan, Hindus or Muslims. These shops will make huge business. The Jamat in Pakistan will not sit idle unless Kashmir comes to it and the Sangh nationalists in India will always make the lives of Muslims horrible, difficult and unworkable. All are playing games according to their political convenience.
The skirmishes at the border must be tackled diplomatically as an escalation of hostilities between the two nuclear nations will only bring destruction of immeasurable amount in South Asia. We could not make a bomb that could eliminate poverty, superstition, and violence against marginalized and women but we have potential bombs that will reinforce all this again and eliminate completely the beautiful Indus valley civilization.
Media has to play a bigger role and not to put words in people’s mouth which they are doing. It does not reflect well of a mature society when media becomes a partner in these skirmishes and create a situation where there is no return. Pakistani establishment would do well to concentrate on their problems and resolve them. Anti-India rhetoric might have paid heavily to military establishment but it is not going to work in future. You cannot change your past but you can definitely improve your present by leaving aside the prejudices that emerge from Past. India and Pakistan should develop healthy relationship and more people to people contact. The bigger this will happen; it will reduce the war mongers to nothing as it is bound to make many thugs in our politics virtually workless. We need to look forward by learning positive lessons from our past and not become a prisoner of past which are potential time bomb to destroy our present.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter : freetohumanity skype : vbrawat Facebook : Vidya Bhushan Rawat [email protected]
Comments are moderated
