| Aug. 15th, 2007 @ 07:45 pm My Thoughts on India & Pakistan Celebrating 60 Years of Independence |
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Exactly 10 years ago, my family and I were celebrating India's 50th Independence Day in Jaipur. Exactly 60 years ago, India got its Independence from the UK, and broke-up into three parts: West Pakistan, India, and East Pakistan. Twenty-four years later, in 1971, East Pakistan became its own nation-state, Bangladesh. Two of the three are celebrating their Independence from the British this week; yesterday Pakistan, today India. And even though all three parts have been Independent from the British for the same length of time, there couldn't be greater contrast in their progress since then (or lack thereof in the case of two of them).
Yesterday, President Musharraf focussed on terrorism in his Independence Day speech, while India's first, and newly elected female President, Pratibha Patil, focused on spreading the benefits of economic growth to all. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, went a step further and said "the best is yet to come" and made concrete promises about eradicating "malnutrition within five years". Poor Mushie, he was reduced to defending his foreign policy motives ("I see everything from Pakistan's point of view. Now if Pakistan's point of view suits America, all right.") and re-assuring his people that America would not attack them ("I am 200% sure that these [comments] are neither at official nor at government level"). 200%!
The two greatest men of Pakistan and India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It is ironic that the two English-trained lawyers who fought for two different great causes, originally came from the same area in Gujarat, India.
Though Indians may not look favourably upon the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and his fight for an independent Muslim state, (though he was hardly a practising one himself!), I am quite satisfied with the fact we Partitioned. Imagine if the people and politicians of modern India, would've had to deal with all those extra Islamic extremists in Pakistan and Bangladesh? Thank you very much, but I think we've got enough problems of our own... internal terrorist threats included, but I'd argue that none of them are as grave as the problems that affect our neighbours. At least with Naxalite rebels and ULFA extremists, you can negotiate an economic and political solution. But with Islamic extremists, it is much more difficult to negotiate a settlement when the Quran is non-negotiable.
The fact that India has only a Muslim minority, makes it all the more difficult for Islamic extremists within India, to rise-up with popular support. 60 years ago, the Muslims in Greater India did have the popular majority in two parts of the country and got their piece of the pie. Though ironically, they were inspired and led to this freedom by a secular, pork-eating, wine-drinking, non-Urdu-speaking, non-religious moderate leader, Jinnah. But just because Jinnah didn't practise Wahabism, didn't prevent him from fighting for the rights of his religious community. My hope is that Indians will one-day recognize the fact, as I have come to see it, that Jinnah was actually a great leader who fought for a worthy cause, but without intending to, contributed to the creation of a monster. Not enough is written of it in mainstream history books, but the fact remains, Jinnah was ultimately inspired to fight for an independent Muslim state in South Asia because of Atatürk's success in uniting and modernizing a poverty-ridden, outdated Muslim society in nearby Turkey. Even today, President Musharraf extols his ambition to lead Pakistan back to the future by following the example of Atatürk. Unfortunately for us Indians, and now even the world (since 9/11); Jinnah died of TB in 1948, a year after Pakistan's independence. Jinnah would've been Pakistan's Nehru. An idealistic statesman, committed to establishing a modern democratic state, but without a clue about economics.
I admit, this is an extremely simplistic analysis, and ignores Jinnah's role in "encouraging" Afghan rebels to invade Kashmir, immediately after Independence. This led to the First Indo-Pakistani War (of 1947), the Kashmiri Maharaja's cry of help to Indian Prime Minister Nehru, and the subsequently controversial, Instrument of Accession (to the Indian Union), in October 1947. It also ignores the worrying dictatorial methods of Jinnah, both during the fight for Pakistan, and upon his elevation to Governor-General at Independence. And there are obviously many more reasons why Indians can harbour negative feelings against him, but I think it is better to draw conclusions based on what has also happened in Pakistan since Independence. In that light, it is obvious that however much trouble Jinnah might've directed at India, it would've been in our interests for him to have modernised and de-extremised his Islamic-majority Pakistan. That is how we should judge history. Not just by what happened then, but also by how things have turned out, (and could've been). It is ironic then, that Musharraf also draws parallels to Atatürk's Turkey today, just as Jinnah did more than 60 years ago. We Indians may not like Musharraf for his perceived hatred towards secular, non-Islamised India; but as I said about Jinnah, Mushie is our best bet to modernise and control Pakistan's extremism. But unlike Jinnah, he doesn't just have dictatorial tendencies... he is a dictator!
On that rather bittersweet note, I'd like to congratulate both India and Pakistan on their 60th anniversaries.
India-Pakistan Zindabad! |
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