The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

ARTICLE

Engaging with Pakistan
It’s a case of smoke and mirrors
by Arundhati Ghose

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines the word ‘schizophrenic’ as that ‘characterized by mutually contradictory or inconsistent elements’ and ‘schizophrenia’ as ‘withdrawal from reality into fantasy and delusion’. A person can be diagnosed as schizophrenic, but a State with all its institutions, military and political structures, its press and civil society? Or is it a case of smoke and mirrors? Pakistan has presented to the world several images, most of them contradictory and inconsistent, leading to apprehensions and reactions that are themselves often contradictory.

Let me at the outset offer a disclaimer: I am an outsider to the world of Pakistan watchers and commentators, dependent on reports in the media from Pakistan, India and the world. I am also a citizen of a neighbouring yet hostile country, but am unaffected by the hostility as I have no nostalgia for a country towards which reactions of my fellow citizens are complex and contradictory. It is in this spirit that I have dared to comment on what appears to me the possibility of a looming and seemingly intractable threat to the well-being of my country, its citizens and its ambitions and aspirations.

Recently, the Pakistani press reported that Pakistani Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh had said that his country was on the verge of ‘bankruptcy’, that it might not be possible for the State to pay salaries to its employees next month. In any other country, this would have been headline news, and there would have been widespread alarm. However, this was Pakistan, and the news was reported in a newspaper as an almost routine statement.

That Pakistan is facing a multitude of challenges cannot be denied: home-grown terrorism, the involvement of the country in the Af-Pak war, the floods and, of course, the stuttering economy. For a nascent democracy the challenges are indeed formidable. Add to this witches’ cauldron the separate and ambiguous role of the military, which after several decades in power, appears to retain an existence distinct from the State, and its severe paranoia about India, the desire not only for political and military parity with India, a State several times its size, but also a desire, as pointed out by Ahmed Rashid, a well-known Pakistani writer and journalist, to be recognised as a regional power. This is where the smoke begins to appear — a bankrupt regional power? Is it conceivable? Apparently it is, if the country is Pakistan. And, more stunningly, this appears to be accepted by many in the world.

Several months earlier, there was a concerted outcry that Pakistan was failing as a State and that this would lead to chaos not only in the State itself with its terrorist groups and nuclear weapons, but also in the region, indeed, in the world as a whole. This was at the time that the US, in a rabbit-in-the headlights situation in its messy war in Afghanistan, was seeking to pass a bill in its Congress transferring huge amounts of money to Pakistan, both to the economy and the military, in the forlorn hope that this would make the Pakistanis more friendly to them and more willing to back-stop them in Afghanistan. Stephen Cohen, an American scholar who has tried perhaps the hardest to understand Pakistan, has memorably likened that State to a man who holds a gun to his own head if he is not helped — with money, arms and other forms of support. Pakistan did not fail, of course, and not because millions of dollars had been poured in by the US and Pakistan’s other allies. And it did not make the US any more popular in Pakistan nor did the Pakistani army substantially support the flailing US efforts in Afghanistan. Here is where the mirrors come in.

The Pakistanis, after much talk of sovereignty and national pride etc, accepted the US largesse; much of the money went to the Pakistani army to bolster its support for the US troops in Afghanistan, who were fighting the Taliban and al Qaida, who used bases in Pakistan to launch their sallies against the US troops and who were supported by the Pakistani army, which had been paid by the US to help it fight the…the mirror-effect is dizzying. Add to this that the US sees the Pakistani army as a part of the solution of the war in Afghanistan, and possibly in post-NATO withdrawal Afghanistan as well.

Yet it would seem that the US is fighting a proxy war with that very Army. The US munificence could not possibly be funding the entire army and its operations and the country, the Pakistani Finance Minister has said, is about to face bankruptcy. So where is the Pakistani army getting its resources from? It has received promises of a soft loan of about US $250 million from the Chinese for two nuclear reactors and is in the process of purchasing from its all-weather friend other military hardware such as high-altitude anti- ballistic missile systems. According to a Pakistani defence analyst, the Chinese HQ-9/ 2000 is being considered “as no other supplier will sell these types of missiles to Pakistan.” Yet the Pakistani Ambassador to the US is “imploring” the world to help Pakistan deal with the very real catastrophe of floods and Pakistan’s President is asking the international financial institutions to write off the country’s outstanding debt. The missiles could not be for free, or could they?

Trying to look through the smoke and mirrors, one can only conclude that there are two States — one a poor developing country, a nascent democracy, trying to cope with floods, terrorism and violence which claims victims almost every other day, stunned by the immensity of its problems and its fragile economy and reportedly believing that friendly relations with India can only help its development and prosperity, and the other, a well-funded army with regional, if not global, ambitions and an agenda that includes a visceral hatred of India and does not appear to take the problems facing the first as its own. To be fair, they have been helping with floods, but almost like a foreign entity. Relief material delivered by the army is marked “Gift of the Army/Corps Commander”.

Should this be of concern to us? I am one of those who support the Prime Minister’s belief that we have to engage with Pakistan in our own interest. But which Pakistan?

MIDDLE

Of fear and mistrust!
by Balvinder

I remember a play, in Hindustani, that Balwant Gargi presented for a small audience at the studio-theatre of Panjab University’s theatre department that he was heading at that point in time in late sixties.

The story of the play, set in the late medieval period and adapted perhaps from some Greek tragedy, was about a European traveller who was crossing a desert on a camel along with his lone black slave and guide. At some resting place the slave goes behind a small bush to have a sip of water from his water bottle, that he had hidden from his master.

The master, mistrusting his attendant, mistakes the water bottle to be a stone which he thought the slave has picked to hit him and loot his belongings. As an immediate reflex action to defend him, the master picks up his gun and shoots the slave dead.

The story ends here showing a frightened and shouting-in-distress traveller. For, he being an alien to the safe passages to cross the desert, would also die due to his folly of killing his route guide that was the outcome of his unfounded fear and distrust.

Both fear and mistrust, perhaps, are at the root cause of most of the human problems. Not so strangely, most of the religious ritualistic beliefs that one follows rather blindly also relate directly or indirectly to these two synergic symptoms: fear and mistrust.

Perhaps the fear of losing one’s one or the other materialistic or psychological holding makes one suspicious and distrusting towards one and all, including one’s own religious faith.

One’s seemingly frustrating religious wanderings, having lost faith in a single religious icon or entity, from one place of worship to another to ward off their fears explicitly explain this popular phenomenon.

In fact, if closely observed, it is not one’s mistrust upon other people or faiths alone. In actuality one loses, in this mad materialistic rat race, one’s trust upon one’s own self!

For instance, one of my close religious-minded acquaintances, who though has kept the holy book of her religious faith in a specially created nice and comfy room at her residence, walks down every day, without fail, to one particular temple in the morning and to another one in the evening to pray and bow before the same sacred book!

And on special occasions she travels long distances to special places of worship for the same very reason. This dutiful looking behaviour towards her religious convictions, in fact, shows not only her flickering faith in the actual holy book, but also in herself.

Following faithfully what is written in the sacred text appears to be none of her concerns, though the crux of these full of wisdom writings clearly teaches the concept of having faith only in one formless God and fearing none.

But I must make it clear that she is not a rarity. In fact, a majority of us belong to this widely increasing creed of unsure believers; and the ever-rising mad number of people at various religious sanctuaries speaks for itself.

In one of his essays, “What I believe”, E.M. Forster very aptly illustrates the fatal fallouts of general mistrust:

“For instance, the man who is selling newspapers outside the houses of Parliament can safely leave his papers to go for a drink and his cap besides them; anyone who takes a paper is sure to drop a copper into the cap. But the men who are inside the houses of Parliament - they cannot trust one another like that, still less can the government they compose trust other governments. No caps on the pavement here, but suspicion, treachery and armaments.”

OPED TRIBUTE

Shaheed Bhagat Singh, whose 103rd birth anniversary is being celebrated today, was a noble patriot, a staunch secularist and an eminent thinker. His lofty ideals will continue to inspire the nation and generations to come. Punjab’s Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, in this tribute, calls upon the people to carry forward the revolutionary teachings of Bhagat Singh.
THE Phenomenon of BHAGAT SINGH

THIS year marks the 103rd birth anniversary of one of the greatest Indian revolutionary-martyr, Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Born on September 28, 1907, Bhagat Singh was a mere 23-year-old young man when he was judicially murdered on March 23, 1931, by the British.

Although his life was plucked so early, during the short period of time he lived, he became a cult figure, who literally aroused devotion on the part of the Indian youth and the wider downtrodden masses. To no small extent was the "phenomenon of Bhagat Singh" to borrow Nehru’s apt description, due to this remarkable young man’s spotlessly clean life, his lofty ideals, his passionate commitment to the cause of Indian freedom, his devotion to secularism and uncompromising hostility towards religious fundamentalism, his hatred of narrow nationalism and his dauntless courage, unwavering fortitude and a self-sacrificing heroism that defies belief in the pursuit of the ideals to which he had devoted his life.

By all accounts, Bhagat Singh was of a scholarly bent of mind and a deep thinker who understood the power of ideas. "The sword of revolution", he told the judges trying him, "is sharpened at the whetstone of thought". On being asked as to what set him apart from other revolutionaries, Shiv Verma, a fellow revolutionary and a close comrade-in-arms, replied thus: "I can tell you that in just one sentence: Bhagat Singh was our undisputed ideological leader. I do not remember a single moment when Bhagat Singh did not have a book in his pocket. The other virtues of Bhagat Singh like tremendous courage and so on were there in the other revolutionaries amongst us also. But his uniqueness lay in his great studiousness. The degree of clarity and integrity that he had about the aims of our movement was not there in any of us at that time".

It was to the ideals of freedom of the Indian masses that he had committed himself while still in his teens. In 1924, learning that his father was insistent upon marrying him, Bhagat Singh left for Kanpur, leaving behind a letter addressed to his father. In this letter, he explained that he had no time for a peaceful married life, devoted as had become to the cause of liberation of the Indian masses. His father had tried to put pressure on him by alluding to the desire of his grandmother to see Bhagat Singh married. Bhagat Singh countered his father’s plea with the following unanswerable remark:

"You are caring for Dadi, but in how much trouble is our mother of 33 crores, the Bharat Mata. We shall have to sacrifice everything for her sake."

It was in the pursuit of the self-same ideals that Bhagat Singh along with Sukhdev, B.C.Vohra and Ram Krishan, formed the Naujawan Sabha in March, 1926, played a leading role in the formation of the Hindustani Socialist Republican Association in September 1928; took part along with Sukhdev, Rajguru and Chandrashekhar Azad, in the killing of the British Police Officer, J.P. Saunders on December 17, 1928, and on April 8, 1929, he and Butukeshwar Dutt threw two bombs in the Central Assembly Hall.

In the Second Lahore Conspirary case, which lasted from July 10, 1929 to October 7, 1930, Bhagat Singh and his fellow accused formed, as had been their intention all along, the court room into an arena for trying the crimes of British imperialism against the Indian people, for propagating their revolutionary programme and rousing the Indian masses to revolt against the alien rulers who had so abused their subjects.

The verdict was a forgone conclusion with Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev receiving the death sentence, while seven others were transported for life and the remaining two were given prison sentences of seven and five years.

Meanwhile, as the judgment day neared, unable to contain his paternal feelings, Bhagat Singh’s father, Kishen Singh, petitioned the Tribunal in a last desperate effort to save his son’s life. On hearing of his father’s petition, Bhagat Singh was incandescent with rage and wrote to his father a remonstrative letter, which brings out clearly Bhagat Singh’s exacting standards of conduct — standards which he followed and expected others, including those he dearly loved and respected, to abide by. Bhagat Singh’s letter, published in full by The Tribune on October 4, just three days before the Tribunal’s judgment, reflects not only his legendary courage, fidelity to principle and indomitable spirit of self-sacrifice but also the deeply-felt injury to his feelings inflicted on him by the father that he loved and respected. This is what, inter alia, Bhagat Singh wrote to his father on this occasion (the original written in Urdu is translated here):

"My dear father,

I was astounded to learn that you had submitted a petition to the members of the Special Tribunal in connection with my defense. This intelligence proved to be too severe a blow to be borne with equanimity. It has upset the whole equilibrium of my mind. I have not been able to understand how you could think it proper to submit such a petition at this stage and in these circumstances. In spite of all the sentiments and feelings of a father, I don’t think you were at all entitled to make such a move on my behalf without even consulting me.

Father, I am quite perplexed. I fear I might overlook the ordinary principle of etiquette and my language may become a little but harsh while criticising or censoring this move on your part. Let me be candid. I feel as though I have been stabbed in the back. Had any other person done it, I would have considered it to be nothing short of treachery. But in your case let me say that it has been a weakness.

This was the time when everybody’s mettle was being tested. Let me say, father, you have failed. I know you are as sincere a patriot as one can be. I know you have devoted your life to the cause of Indian independence, but why, at this moment, have you displayed such a weakness? I cannot understand."

On the evening of March 23, 1931, with the shouts of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ and ‘Down with Imperialism’, the three great revolutionaries forced the hangman’s noose. They were hanged while singing the following couplet, which has become a symbol of the revolutionary immortality of Bhagat Singh and his comrades:

Dil se niklegi na markar bhi watan ki ulfat,

Meri mitti se bhi khushboo-e-watan aaegi.

(Love for the motherland will not leave my heart even after death,

Its fragrance will still be there in my dusty remains.)

While we freed ourselves from the alien rule about 63 years ago after bearing the merciless physical pain and agony of unrelenting batons and well aimed bullets, our country continues to flounder on the edge of economic despair.

The fire of nationhood actuated Shaheed Bhagat Singh and so many other patriots of the same genre who left their smiling children, beautiful wives, green fields and happy homes so that the people of India could live a life of honor and dignity — a cultured and prosperous life. But the dreams of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and those patriots remain unfulfilled.

Why has India deviated from the objectives of her freedom movement? Political freedom for our citizens is beyond the pale of the present if we proceed within the present structures at the present pace. Foremost amongst the obstacles are the lack of educational opportunities and the availability of even basic health care.

Around 300 million people live on less than Rs 25 a day. Every other child is malnourished in our country. But even more than these, at the level of basic existence, access to potable water, inadequate sewage facility, crucial shortage of decent housing and electricity remain but a dream.

As a policy maker, I pause here to focus upon the proud martial tradition of Punjab, which has had the privilege of guarding the borders of India’s ancient and refined civilisation for thousands of years. It was with excruciating anguish and searing pain that last time when I visited the Sainik School, Kapurthala, I was told that recruitment from Punjab to the armed forces in the officers’ cadre was coming down. I was told that no one was willing to join the armed forces to defend the motherland to carry forth the tradition to lead a life of honour, discipline and noble purpose.

I ask the young people of India on Shaheed-e-Azam’s birthday: does the younger generation truly prefer the life of an executive of a multinational company? Is earning money the only imperative of higher thought and honourable living? If the glitter of gold and the clatter of silver were the only criteria, then, there would never have been a Bhagat Singh.

The war is not merely against the enemy without but the enemy within and I hope some of us will devote part of our lives and one day turn the tide in favour of the starving millions of this great country.

Today is the day to make the pledge in all our hearts that while we have life and strength, we will fight the forces which have kept India poor and backward, i.e. corruption, communalism, lack of access to education, lack of opportunities, etc. I ask the young people that as we prepare to take forward our individual destinies, it is also time to move on the destiny of India and change it forever.

It is not an easy task to learn to give back to society from which one has always taken so far. This would require a deep sense of honour and courage. Let us remember what the great Shaheed wrote to his brother Kultar in his last letter from Lahore Central Jail in 1931:

Daher (duniya) se kyon khaffa rahen

Charakh (ruler of the sky) se kyon gila karen

Sara jahan Addu Sahi (dushman)

Aao mukaabla karen

(Why should we remain annoyed with the world? Why should we complain against the God (ruler of skies)? Let us face stoically the opposing world.

Today, while marking the 103rd birth anniversary of this great son of India, the people of India, especially its youth, must vow to carry forward the revolutionary teachings of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. This is the only way to honour them. There is no more fitting tribute that can be paid to them — And no more appropriate monument to commemorate them.