Hindustan and Pakistan: How different are we?
It has been on my mind all along to write about this topic, the elephant in the room: India-Pakistan. As a child, all I cared about was whether India wins the Cricket World Cup or not; it should not lose against Pakistan. (As a matter of fact, this record holds even today: 7–0, bragging rights it is !). But as I grew up, I realized we are very similar- in terms of our Cuisine, Clothing, Culture, importance to the institution of Family and Education, our love for Cricket, Movies and many more. It has baffled me, why is there so much animosity between the two nations? Is there animosity in the first place? Why has this percolated into our minds to such an extent? Is it a mere political or electoral punching bag? Or is there some weight to this argument?
Let us try to understand a few dimensions about the backdrop to this journey.
The story of the partition of India was very well on the cards and was put forth by Sir Mohamed Iqbal in his Presidential Address to the Muslim League in 1930. The scheme was very simple-Hindustan for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. The basis for the partition of Bharata (India did not exist back then) was religion. There are no two ways about this. Let me be extremely clear and blunt about the same. In his book ‘Pakistan or Partition of India’, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar went to the extent to say that the Hindus and Muslims are ‘two distinct species’ and they cannot be expected to recognize that ‘humanity is an essential quality present in them both’. Simply put, Ambedkar mentions that Hindus and Muslims cannot, should not and will not co-exist, and if that happens, it will be catastrophic.
This opinion of Ambedkar might be unknown to many, more so that he has gone on record to criticize Gandhi for focusing too much on Hindu-Muslim unity and not on the freedom struggle. According to Ambedkar, Hindu-Muslim unity is nothing but a myth. Be that as it may, what else did Ambedkar talk about with regards to this issue?
The most controversial is his view on the composition of Muslims in the Indian army. According to figures published in 1930, Muslims formed 36% of the Indian Infantry and 30% of the Indian Cavalry. Another sign to worry according to him was where these people came from- North-West Frontier Province and Punjab. Ambedkar asks the Hindus a simple question, which is this: ‘Suppose the Afghans singly or in combination with other Muslim states march on in India, will these gate-keepers stop the invaders, or will they let them in?’ Now, I do not believe this is true; Questioning the loyalties of the army is nothing less than a crime. I am putting that out exceptionally clearly.
This opinion can give us an idea about the animosity that led to the partition of Bharata. So, this answers one of our questions. There was animosity between Hindus and Muslims. There is no denial about that. Medieval history gives us accounts of the destruction, decimation, and deplorable condition that the Hindus were subjected to under tyrants like the sultans of Delhi, leading up to Aurangzeb. The same could be said about the Muslims, who were socially and financially far behind the Hindus at that time.
What we need to understand here is the concept of a Nation. I believe a Nation and a Country are two different entities. Like the words ‘ghar’ and ‘makaan’, both mean the same — A home, but they aren’t. Is there anything that unites all Bhartiya’s? I keep asking myself this question. Between the years 1930–1940, the answer to this question was a definite NO, making the partition inevitable. We’ll come back to the relevance of this question in current times a bit later.
The second question on why it has percolated in our minds is a unique challenge to explain. I have friends from Pakistan from my school days, and we are still as close as we were back then. I feel, primarily people do not care about the India-Pakistan issue. The fear of oppression has percolated into people’s minds, and it has been there for a long time.
But there have been several heights that we have scaled together, bilaterally. The most successful and long-lasting piece of litigation is the ‘Indus-Water Treaty signed by the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the then Pakistani President Ayub Khan in 1960. It has stood the ravages of time, war and lauded as one of the most successful agreements between two nations.
Bilateral relationships between the two nations have been, complicated to say the least, But signs of improvement were visible from both sides over the past decade. In 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed to the resumption of bilateral talks. The following month PM Modi made a brief, unscheduled and surprising visit to Pakistan while en- route to India, becoming the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Pakistan since 2004. Both these nations are part of the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), a major regional inter-governmental organization globally.
But Pakistan unilaterally suspended trade with India in August 2019 against the changes our internal policy changes in Jammu and Kashmir. This warrants another article because it is way more complicated and intricate than what mainstream news media portrays. But, purely from an economic perspective, this ban is doing no good to Pakistan, which is facing the music as far as Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is concerned. FATF is an inter-governmental body found in 1989. It assesses the strength of a country’s anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing frameworks. The FATF has retained Pakistan in the grey list, which is suffocating their economy. It is for them to realize that the opportunity cost of this childish move is going to be enormous, where the common man is going to suffer the most and not the elite.
Cross-border activity and ceasefire violations are a reality and need to be checked. The least that India would want now is aggression from both the West and East. It is good to see that back-channel talks between these two nations have begun. This is one step in the right direction.
I will let the question on the electoral punching bag slide to another article where I intend to write about the ‘main issue’ that comes up every time we talk about India and Pakistan. For now, let me try to throw some light on another question which I talked about earlier: Today, is there something that unites all Indians? I feel strongly that one thing unites all Indians. There could be more, but this is a definite yes because I could see it unfold in front of my eyes. That one, in my view, is Cricket. Remember when the nation came to a halt on 2nd April 2011? That day, we all were united, all of us were happy, and all of us were Indians first.
Can Cricket bring these two nations together? I am not asking anyone to forget the past. No one should. But to move on towards dealing with problems common to both of us, is this too much to ask for?
