"How long can I continue to look for reasons to feel good about the contradictions that surround us on a day to day basis?”- is a question I often ask myself ...........more so after reading about the incidents in "Swat Valley" and "S&P downgrade of India's ratings"-latter one arising out of my conversations with my friend Rakesh...
Firstly, recent incidents in the Pakistan’s Swat Valley not only horrify me but also confuse me. I am confused because Swat, often labelled as Pakistan's Switzerland (I personally hate these "labelling comparisons" as all they do is to denigrate the "compared" (Swat) in front of "compared with" (Switzerland) by limiting their description/qualitative potential- more often only east/developing world gets these labels- would anyone call Switzerland as Europe's Swat?....how can anyone justify Kalidas to be called as "India's Shakespeare", even when he precedes Shakespeare by more than 5 centuries or Gandhi as India's Martin Luther King & not otherwise) and part of NWFP was the region that gave us a leader like Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan-someone, who single-handedly raised an army of apostles of peace-Khudai Khidmatgar and had a huge following amongst the residents of the region. So, how, when and what converted this peaceful and secular but an innately independent region into a hotbed of militancy and fundamentalism? Answer lies in nowhere but Jinnah's two-nation theory and America's cruel foreign policy.
A deeply secular NWFP region with in the realms of Pakistan would have defeated the concept or very idea of Pakistan. Hence, the establishment and its bigger nemesis-army, started a systematic nurturing and nourishment of fundamentalist forces as a counter force to peaceful tribal’s by playing on the innate sense of independence that prevails amongst the various ethnic tribes of NWFP region. This process of de-secularisation reached its nadir at the height of cold war....as American policymakers assisted by its Pakistani counterparts began using the people of this region in its bid for supremacy in the world order against Soviets.
An impoverished Afghanistan became the only real battleground for obvious reasons. I really marvel the astute policies of Western policymakers as they always manages to play their dirty games in the far-away lands...else how would you justify no battlegrounds in Europe’s neighbourhood of Romania, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria or a larger Eastern bloc as reasons for war in Afghanistan were also present there.....
Once war got over, everyone left this region’s to its fate. The fundamentalist monster ably supported by the petro dollars continued to nourish itself until that ghastly attack on common man in US helped world sit up and take notice. Now, US is back in Afghanistan fighting with the people it once helped raise into a force....
This endless saga of contradictions still continues and will perhaps continue forever in the form of India and Pakistan. More so, because Muslims in post partition India have and will continue to enjoy constitutionally guaranteed fuller rights to observe their religious faith, peaceful life, freedom and relative prosperity as compared to their respective counterparts in a country that was carved out of India as a supposed home to all the pre-independence Indian Muslims. No wonder, Indian Muslim populace continues to outnumber Pakistan’s.......Two-nation theory has been comprehensively defeated yet the contradiction in Pakistan continues...........
The endgame is nowhere in sight. If there is one, then that horrifies me........because horrific is the thought of possible danger of Pak nukes falling in the hands of fundamentalists....and if and when that happens, many contradictions will get wiped off from the face of this earth forever.....but at a severe cost.
So, how can we wriggle ourselves out of this current crisis? Think out of the box-may be do a "Kautilya"; meaning.........float an idea for re-unification of India and Pakistan!!!!! But where will we get our Chandragupta Mauryas from ???? Perhaps in our social scientists, political commentators or economists...But what will they do? Simple.............they will study the idea and come out with various costs-benefit scenarios and possibilities..........or, they will toss up new refreshing ideas into the air.....a few of them might get awards for their work......and if successful, a "Nobel Peace Prize" as well.............. Trust me, beauty of this entire experiment is that it has no human cost to it........though it is an altogether different matter that human life comes very cheap in this region..........Not for someone who looses his/hers loved ones........... it is about time that we begin to work on these contradictions.............to make them go away...........so that, 1/5th of humanity gets to see and experience a much better world for themselves and future generations..........world and humanity at large will benefit the most.......
If this is a case of "hoping against hope".......or a desire to be labeled as a day-dreamer .....or to give all the sceptics and the doubting Thomases a reason to laugh out loud...........Certainly not.....Don't modern day Europe offers us that hope?.........Arguers will argue that the situation is not comparable......But we must not forget that even today's India and Pakistan share much more commonalities than what Europeans ever did at any point of time in their history. Besides, we are not that much divided as they were historically..........For confirmation, talk to any visiting ordinary Pakistani or an Indian and everyone will have hundreds of separate stories of mutual affection and respect to share.......On my part, I did put up this question to my brother after his Pakistan visit; and trust me he had all the nice things to say about that country and it's people....even about their immigration officers!
Think and propagate...........
S&P downgrade part to follow..........
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