India, Pak are anything but similar
Of course they are. They are wonderfully courageous people and way more largehearted than us in their friendship and hospitality. But they are too few, a tiny Englishspeaking elite often with the comfort of having one foot overseas, a place to live in Dubai, London or New York, and the double assurance of dual passports (unlike India, Pakistan allows dual nationality). Remember, Pakistani news TV is all in Urdu. There isn’t an English Channel. The discourse in English is hopelessly marginal. Outside this circle, there is a vast sea of the fastest growing large population in the world (at twice India’s rate, and we fret). Pakistan’s median age is 23, compared to “young” India’s 29. And 46% of these young people have never seen school. It’s also a society with more automatic rifles with civilians than even its sizeable army.
So, think again before you next say “both of us, like this only .... ” A bleeding heart will never stop bloodshed. We, in India, are far from perfect; we make a very poor case for democracy for our neighbours, and we are getting worse. We need to worry. But if we think we are the same as Pakistan and vice versa, we are either being stupid, or do not know Pakistan beyond a few Karachi and Lahore drawing rooms, that famed terracerestaurant on the old Lahore haveli, or Khan Market.
I started traveling to Pakistan as a reporter in 1985 and had pretty much the same starry-eyed view. I was jolted when invited to attend a “kalam-mazdoor” rally on May Day, 1990 at Lahore’s liberal hangout, Pak Tea House, and heard stirring calls for peace when our two countries seemed on the brink of war. Would this happen in New Delhi?
That evening we gravitated to the home of Prof. Eqbal Ahmad, the noted academic. We drank Black Label until 4 am. By then we had resolved every problem between our countries including Kashmir.
As I was leaving, the distinguished host stopped me. “I believe you are a very good young journalist,” he said. “I do not want you to go with a big misconception”.
“Such as what,” I asked.
“That the views you heard tonight are the views of Pakistan. This is the view of Pakistan’s liberal Left. There are only nine of us left, and you met all of us here,” he said. “And once I am gone, which can be any time, there will just be eight. So, make note, barkhurdar (son),” he said. We laughed.
New York’s Columbia University has instituted a memorial lecture now in his name and sometime back we saw Arundhati Roy deliver it. Has his tribe grown beyond eight? I am sure it has. But it is still too small to challenge an institutional takeover of their state by their army, this time in cahoots with the judiciary as well.
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