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Indo-Pak war of words |
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PROFILE
On the record
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Indo-Pak war of words In the event, both the Mahatma and Mazhar Ali Khan were wrong: neither could an independent sovereign state, which is what Pakistan was and is, do without its own armed forces; nor would Partition end, as Mazhar sahib fondly believed, the causes of war between the two countries.
Hindus and Muslims
For most of the last six decades, the best and the brightest of our countries: sants and ulema; ideologues and propagandists; politicians and statesmen; scholars and the media; diplomats and the military, as also the worst elements in our society - terrorists and cerebral communalists - have done all they can to render us asunder. They have not entirely succeeded. For we remain hyphenated in the eyes of the world, because we remain hyphenated in the minds of our people. Some in India and many in Pakistan would argue that the very reason for Partition having been the religious incompatibility between Hindus and Muslims, it is inevitable that the two nations would also find it incompatible to live together as good neighbours. The argument goes that the underlying hostility is generic, built into our genes as it were, and if it were not, Partition would not have happened. Yet, there are several levels at which this argument breaks down. First, the Indian Muslim community: are they not living in harmony with their Hindu brethren? If there were no compatibility, how is it that almost every icon of India’s 85% Hindu youth is unabashedly Muslim ? Except that the Justice Rajinder Sachar report will immediately be thrown at those who suggest that the lived experience of secular India shows no incompatibility between the two alleged “nations” of Hindu and Muslim. Yes, indeed, in many, many respects the denizens of the Muslim community are worse off than their non -Muslim counterparts, particularly in northern India. Equally undeniable is that while the North Indian Muslim elite largely took off for Pakistan at Partition, the vast majority of the ordinary Muslims voted with their feet to remain where they were. Moreover, it needs to be recognised - in Pakistan, of course, but much more in India, that where population transfer did not take place, as in South India, the Muslim community is doing quite exceptionally well - and is not resented by the majority community for doing so. In most parts of Pakistan there are so few Hindus that most Pakistanis of the current generation rarely run into a Hindu, thus, the question being pro- or anti-Hindu simply does not arise, and this accounts for the warmth and cordiality with which the few Indians who do visit Pakistan are invariably received. Six decades down the line, Pakistan is caught between what M.J. Akbar has described as the vision of the Father of Pakistan and the vision of its Godfather, Maulana Maudoodi, or what Sartaj Aziz has described as the triumph of the Deobandis over the Aligarhians and the Barhelvis. But Pakistan is a modern nation-state, now under serious threat from armed religious fanatics, but it is not about to succumb as a society or as a State to elements who even in a moderate democratic garb have rarely managed to win more than a tiny handful of seats in any election. I would, therefore, emphatically repeat that it is not communal animosity but national hostility that keeps India and Pakistan apart: a matter to be addressed by political and diplomatic action, not theology. Indeed, if religious differences were the root cause, how does one explain Pakistan’s excellent relations with (till recently) the only avowedly Hindu nation in the world, Nepal, or India’s excellent relations with virtually every Muslim country — except Pakistan?
NO THREAT TO PAKISTAN
From the Indian perspective, and perhaps also the perspective of a majority of Pakistanis, the overwhelming role of the military in Pakistan’s approach to India is often held to be the principal institutional block to reconciliation. The argument goes that so long as the army, abetted by a complaisant civil service, is the effective political power in Pakistan, and so long as the raison d’etre of the huge Pakistani military establishment and what Ayesha Siddiqa calls Pakistan’s Military Inc is founded on the assiduous propagation of the threat from India - so the argument goes, the Pakistani military will never permit hostility between the two countries to be undermined for that would be to cut off the branch on which the Pakistani defence forces are perched. On the other hand, in Pakistan it is often claimed that revanchist sentiment in the entire Indian establishment, including the Indian military, is so strong and persistent that the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 was only the prelude to the destruction of the rest of Pakistan, whenever this might prove possible; hence the need for eternal vigilance as the price to be paid for Pakistan’s liberty. Let us take first the Indian view of the Pakistan military. It is rooted, I think, in Gen. Ayub Khan’s coup of 1958. But it was the Ayub regime that in its earliest days suggested a “Trieste” solution to Kashmir, that is, let the status quo lie and postpone resolution to a future generation. And it was indubitably during the Ayub regime that the Indus Waters Treaty was signed, a Treaty that has weathered three wars and continues to offer the only effective forum for the resolution of water disputes. Moreover, it was during that regime that Sheikh Abdullah, Jayaprakash Narayan and others were, by all accounts, on a successful or, at any rate, promising peace mission to Pakistan when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru suddenly died. Later, it was during the period of Zia-ul-Haq that a new impetus was given to people -to-people relations, the most important having been the opening of the Indian Consulate General in Karachi. And when in the winter of 1986-87 the temperature started building up over Operation Brasstacks, it was in Zia-ul-Haq that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi found a most effective partner in defusing the threat of war. And although Gen Pervez Musharraf’s coup was almost universally looked at with deep disapproval and suspicion in India, coming as it did in the wake of Kargil 1999, eventually it was under his aegis that the composite dialogue made more progress on the Tariq-Lambah back-channel than at perhaps any other stage of India -Pakistan relations. Equally, of course, the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, the Simla agreement of 1972 and the Lahore Declaration were the handiwork of civilian governments. I also salute the present Government of Pakistan for the decisive moves being made towards placing trade between the two countries on a Most Favoured Nation footing, a move warmly welcomed by the business communities of both countries. Perhaps we could still become each other’s ‘sabse pasandida mulk ’ ! On the other hand, the regrettably widespread view in Indian circles that Pakistan is a “failed” State or a “failing” one also needs to be countered. I do not think any nation, let alone Pakistan, which is so firmly anchored in history, civilisation, ideology and spiritual belief as is Pakistan, with one of the largest populations in the world (even if relative to India somewhat small), with the high degree of political and philosophical sophistication which one encounters in this country at every turn, a resilient economy and a burgeoning globalised elite, a strong bureaucracy and a stronger military, and an extremely lively and informed media, can ever be a pushover. That accounts too, in my view, for no one in India harbouring any illusions any more about a return to Akhand Bharat. That was a slogan in the immediate post-Partition period, a cry from the heart of those who had been deprived of their hearths and their homes. That generation has gone, the refugee in India is well-integrated into India society, and there is no nostalgia for return except perhaps in the fading memories of some eighty-to-ninety year olds. Moreover, what on earth are we going to do with 18 crore seriously angered malcontents if ever anything so stupid happened as the end of Pakistan? No, there is nothing, nothing at all, to be gained by promoting any disintegration of neighbouring Pakistan, and I would advise any Pakistani who doubts us on this score to consider how steadfast a series of Indian governments, of every hue and colour, were in standing up for the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka through thirty years of a vicious civil war caused by gross discrimination against the Tamil minority despite the strong ethnic links that bind the Sri Lankan Tamil to the Indian Tamil.
KASHMIR & WATER
The historical record would appear to disprove any military solution to the argument over Jammu & Kashmir. The attempt to annex the Maharajah’s state when he and Sheikh Abdullah were readying to throw their lot in with India failed; so did Operation Gibraltar; so did the attack on Akhnur that followed; as did the hostilities on the Western Front in 1971; as did the Kargil misadventure; as did the proxy war of the Nineties. And while there are those in India who maintain that the war of 1948 should have been pressed forward to a conclusion, I think Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was sensible in listening to wiser counsel. There is no military solution, and subversion will not work. To go by available records, a framework for resolution had reached an advanced stage under the aegis of President Musharraf and Dr. Manmohan Singh through the Sati Lambah-Tariq Azeez back-channel talks. There was agreement in principle on no exchange of territory or populations and working instead towards rendering the Line of Control “irrelevant” by promoting cross-border travel and trade and facilitating the reunification of divided families and friends. As for water, this is a most serious issue between upper and lower riparians, whether within nations or between nations, as witness the contentious issues of water sharing between Punjab and Sind in Pakistan or between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in India, or the question of the diminishing waters of the Indus Basin. We will have to find answers in 21st century technology, not in the polemics of the 20th century. The total availability of water has run so low that where India and Pakistan started in the 1950s with a per capita availability per annum of about 5000 cubic metres, water availability in both countries has since declined to under 2000, in Pakistan rather more sharply than in India, down to about 1200 as against India’s 1800. The problem of water shortage is common to both of us. Israel has shown the way to the conservation of water through drip and sprinkler irrigation. I imagine that it is in such technology rather than in the 19th century technology of large dams and command area channels that the answer lies. But while technology may hold the secret, there is no denying the fact of water deprivation or the politics that flow from it. That is where the Indus Waters Treaty has proved its immense worth. The numerous mechanisms it has for finding acceptable ways of resolving agonised issues, as was demonstrated over Baglihar recently and as is being demonstrated over Kishangana now, are solid examples of India and Pakistan being able to discover forums of settlement in preference to the vapid aggravation of real problems and real issues.
REAL ISSUES
There are any number of issues on which troubles arise. If not tackled, they persist - and when they are resolved, leave one wondering what all the fuss was about. Take, for example, the opening of the Indian Consulate-General when I arrived in Karachi 33 years ago. It was expected that a Pakistani Consul General would soon land in Bombay. That was delayed. A year later, elections in India led to a change of government. Jinnah House was no longer on offer. Three decades on, there is still no Pakistan CG in Mumbai. And the Indian CG in Karachi was closed down 18 years ago. Who has gained? I do not know. But I do know who have lost. Ordinary, very ordinary Pakistanis and Indians. Episodic disturbances are par for the course in almost everything that affects the life of the aam admi: from visas to newspapers to cultural exchanges to pilgrimages to trade, to investment. I would also add as a casualty of “episodic” disturbance the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, which I initiated as Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, but which is, alas, withering on the vine. The initiation of the TAPI pipeline, that is the gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and thence to India, shows, I think, that there are no insuperable political or security concerns relating to transit through Pakistan. If TAPI is acceptable, then why not IPI? India needs every cubic metre of gas it can lay its hands on, if it is to sustain its high rate of GDP growth. The stalling of the IPI, especially when the Iran - Pakistan sector now stands agreed, needs to be overcome with all deliberate speed. For the loss on this account and, cumulatively, the loss to both countries on account of all episodic disturbances is huge, almost incalculable. Yet, we persist in scratching at the scab. And we call this “diplomacy”! (Parts of a lecture delivered in Islamabad on February 2, 2012 on Indo-Pak relations under the aegis of Jinnah Institute. Mr Aiyar is a Rajya Sabha MP
and former career diplomat and Consul General of India at Karachi)
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Uninterruptible dialogue: Aiyar’s Prescription Like the dialogue that took place in Paris every Thursday to bring an end to the US-Vietnam war, Indo-Pak dialogue must take place at fixed intervals, come what may. Principal interlocutors must not keep changing but should remain the same. Rather than an agreed agenda, each side should bring two subjects of their choice to the table, after giving due notice Set aside half an hour to enable each side to raise topical concerns There should be no timeline for the conclusion. Spokespersons should display dignity and goodwill while briefing the media in order to bridge the trust deficit.
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A “ Heavenly” girl in hell
Despite the media coverage, it is obvious that this “heavenly” creature is nobody’s child. The girl with the unusually poetic name has been tortured, and broken —-and the doctors who are trying to rescue her admit that their efforts are unlikely to succeed, unless there is a miracle. But, with her terrible story, for a short while, Falak has brought home a difficult reality. Because of the ghastly way in which she has been treated —- she represents our attitude and behavior towards our baby girls and women. The hypocrisy and the ambivalence with which we pretend to worship female goddesses but turn away when real life women are burnt over dowry—-is not any different from the manner in which we become blind when female foeticide and infanticide is practiced around us.
Saving Grace
Of course, we can always give our girl children fabulous names, while in reality we treat them like rubbish. And thus far, Falak’s short life story is one of betrayal and dishonesty—-by all those who were meant to be the child’s carers. Whether it is Aarti, the so-called pimp who allegedly prostituted the abused teenager, who in turn pretended to be Falak’s mother, and who is possibly among the many abused Falaks, or Sandeep who is said to have raped the teenager, it is a cycle of frustrated and marginalised individuals —-giving vent to their anger on others who are more vulnerable than them. But at least the teenager was able to find the humanity –despite what was done to her –to take the child to hospital. Even through her own miserable plight—or perhaps because of it –she did try to save poor Falak. That is something we should all remember. Many stories have been published blaming her for mishandling Falak—but then she is herself little less than a child herself—and yet she tried to take the brave step of breaking the cycle of violence. It may have been far, far too late for the badly injured Falak –but at least one attempt was made. Falak’s story (before it was drowned out by the wretched 2G scam) has opened up a pandora’s box. Data has once again begun to pour out about how the country has one of the worst records for its treatment of baby girls—and that many more baby girls die in infancy than do boys. None of this is new information –yet it persists in grabbing headlines. But while these figure are discussed over and over again, they become immutable statistics set in stone –maybe because the problem has been ignored for far too long and there are now too many Falaks for us to cope with. The system does not want to recognise that as the gender imbalance grows –more and more baby girls will be victimised at younger and younger ages. The inequities between the India which can look after its children —-and the millions of families which cannot do so due to poverty and ignorance is growing everyday. More and more “heavenly’ girl children are falling through the net.
Perpetual victims
And if help is offered, it usually takes an absurdly surreal form. For instance, now we have those who are hoping to convert those unfortunate women and girls who have become victims of oppression into vote banks. Thus Mulayum Singh Yadav has recently pronounced that he will give jobs to rape victims. This has been countered by an equally foolish statement from the Minister in charge of Women and Child Development, Krishna Tirath —-that Mr Yadav should not have ever promised that. Not because it was an outrageous statement –but because what if the girls were not qualified or educated enough to get jobs—-wouldn’t it create confusion? What she, poor thing, obviously does not know or even understand is that Mr Yadav should have promised that he would ensure that women are safe —-and that law and order would improve. He should have promised that he would make sure the perpetrators of crime against women would be severely indicted. He should have said that women , were he to become Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, would be given equal opportunities so that no man would be able to ever victimise them again. Instead he too tried to make them into “Falaks”, or perpetual victims, dependent on others, by stating that he would ensure that in case they got raped they would get employment—because even he knows that he can never get them justice. When we live in this kind of certainty , that nothing will ever change—-the story of Falak, arms broken, brain damaged, responding only to painful stimuli is a horribly apt allegory. Of course, children are hurt and injured in other countries as well. But usually the state steps in. For instance, there are indictments—both of the perpetrators of the violence and the child protection agencies who are involved. In the UK, the heads of the agencies looking after children in particular areas have had to quit—-or face severe punishment –if a single child has been abused in their area. Even the politicians in charge of the department are hauled over coals of public ire. The police and the courts are quick to act and mete out punishment. But here, either some well meaning agency will offer money in the bank for Falak to be used for her “wedding” or Mr Yadav will no doubt step up and offer her a job. And the Minister in charge of child development will look concerned and wash her hands of any responsibility. And for a child named after the heavens, India will forever be hell on earth.
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PROFILE Asked to explain his reticence, he once recalled a tale. A centipede was moving with his one hundred and more feet when an ant with just six feet, asked in annoyance which one of the one hundred feet moves forward first while moving. As the centipede started thinking, he found he could not move ! He refuses to answer certain questions lest he also is numbed into inaction, he added wryly. Although he studied Economics at the Presidency College, Madras, K G Subramanyan’s first love was always art. Born in Kerala, the born artist was drawn to the freedom struggle and was imprisoned during the Quit India Movement. Denied employment as a lecturer because of his links with freedom fighters, a disillusioned Subramanyan left for Santiniketan, where well-known artists like Nandalal Bose, Benode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij were teaching at Kala Bhavan. In 1951, Subramanyan became a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts in MS University in Baroda. He went to study briefly in London at the Slade School of Art as a British Council scholar in 1956. He did a short stint in New York as a Rockefeller Fellow in 1966. In 1980, he went back to Santinekatan to teach in his alma mater, Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University, as Professor of painting and retired from there in 1989. As an artist he is known as one of the most versatile practitioners, having done works, apart from painting, in the tradition of mural, various craft traditions of India, toy-making, pottery, Illustration and design and terracotta sculpture. His paintings are noted for their inherent wit. Ironies, satire and critical social commentaries. Art critics say Subramanyan demolished barriers between the artist and the artisan. He experimented with weaving and toy-making. He also reinvested several mediums earlier used in Indian art. For example, the terracotta mural and glass painting found a new lease of life with his experiments. The artist gave the human figure a new dimension. Drawing upon the rich resources of myth, memory and tradition, Subramanyan tempered romanticism with wit and eroticism.
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On the record
Holly
Brackenbury, Director, Indian Art, at Sotheby’s, London specialises in Indian and Islamic art. She works on the modern and contemporary South Asian sales in New York and the Arts of the Islamic World sales in London and is responsible for the annual sale of Indian art held in London in June each year. She has played a pivotal role in bringing together a sale of Tagore collection and is excited about organising a sale of modern masters in March this year. In Delhi for the fourth edition of India Art Fair, she felt the future of Indian Art was bright. What triggered your interest in Indian art? Well, it started when I was studying art to become an artist. I opted for textile art. And when you talk of textiles, India is the obvious choice and I came to Rajasthan to explore it. From textiles I moved on to study all other aspects of Indian art including classical, modern and contemporary art. How do you explain the growing interest in Indian art? See, as far as classical Indian art goes, the interest goes back to six decades. Contemporary and modern art has picked up in more recent times about 10 year ago. But there has been a phenomenal growth in sales, which peaked between 2005 and 2007. In 2007 the market corrected itself and today the healthy trend is that the buyers are more selective and discerning. However, each collector to his own and has different reasons for buying art. Are high auction prices…? Auction prices are definitely a reflection of the market, of what the buyers are willing to pay. Yet at the same time, one auction price should not dictate the market. As they say, one auction price is an exception, two is a trend and three a market. How do you conceive the
auction? Sotheby’s has three sales of modern and contemporary art a year. Two are held in New York and one in London and two sales of Arts of the Islamic World in London that includes Indo-Islamic works of art and miniatures. We are continuously monitoring the market and tailor our sales accordingly How do you compare the market for Islamic and Indian art? The market for Islamic art has been long established and like the classical Indian market, has had a strong following from collectors worldwide. Our buyers are global, with the greatest demand coming from the Middle East. Which of the auctions do you consider as the most significant and why? The Dartington Tagore collection and the Stuart Cary Welch collection were some of the most important collections of Indian art to have come to the market in the last 50 years. Both were fresh to the market and had impeccable provenance. What about the Tagore collection? We were delighted to be given the opportunity to offer a collection of paintings by Tagore from the Dartington Hall Trust. These paintings were exceptional and had not been on the market in over 70 years having been gifted in 1939 by Tagore to the Elmhirsts, the founders of Dartington Hall, Devon. Proceeds of the sale went into further funding educational programmes at Dartington, an institution that was closely aligned with Santiniketan. What is your next major auction? We are planning an auction in New York in March this year that will also include a masterly work by SH Raza. It is a huge oil on canvas called “Village with Church”. He painted it in France and it was purchased by Mr and Mrs John D Rockefeller III. It had never come to India, till we exhibited it recently in New Delhi. Otherwise it has been shown widely in the US and is a very important work and is expected to sell at anywhere between 1.5 to 2.5 million dollars. Who are your favourite Indian artists? MF Husain from the period between from fifties to sixties and V S Gaitonde. What is your take on the role of public institutions in India? India is far behind as compared to Russia and China. You need more funds, more museum programmes. Art awareness may have increased but India has a long way to go.
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With
It
It is unlikely that Falak will survive to lead a normal life —-and it is unlikely that any one of us will remember her beyond the next few months. After all, she is just another sad and sorry tale –among the legions of pathetic stories about Indian girl children. 
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