Trysts and Turns: Humanism on the Olympic scale

FOR me the biggest takeaway from the Paris Olympics was the voice of two women — two mothers, one an Indian and the other a Pakistani. Raziah Parveen, whose son Arshad Nadeem bested our hero Neeraj Chopra for the gold in the javelin throw, on being informed that her son had won the contest, said Neeraj was also her son and she would have been equally happy if the result had been the other way round.

That was a brave thing for a mother to say. But the other woman, too, expressed something similar. Suraj Devi, Neeraj’s mother, said Arshad was also her son. Two mothers from two neighbouring countries, separated by a barricaded border and mutual hostility built up over 77 years or so, were not merely happy and proud of their respective son’s performance at the Games but, even more importantly, exhibited a dignity and grace that only wisdom and gentility can evoke.

If common citizens of the two perpetually warring countries can drive some sense into their rulers, poverty and misery can be fought & conquered.

Arshad and Neeraj have given their nations a lot to cheer about ahead of their respective Independence Days. If common citizens of the two perpetually warring countries can unite and drive some sense into the thoughts and actions of their rulers, poverty and misery — which is presently the lot of a sizeable proportion of their respective population — can be fought and conquered. Such a transformation may not result in top positions in the comity of nations but will certainly be good enough to assure both of a place at the high table. India, with a stronger economy, would most certainly get there.

Parveen has invited Neeraj to her home at Mian Channu village in Khanewal district of Pakistani Punjab. Will the government of Pakistan give him a visa if he does accept the offer? That is a million-dollar question, very difficult to answer.

Pakistan’s Ambassador in Romania during my tenure there had a schoolgoing daughter whom I had met when my wife and I were invited for dinner at their home. Thirty years later, I received an e-mail from the girl saying that she was employed in a foreign country where she met and married a Hindu colleague from India. They wanted to meet the parents of their spouses but were finding it difficult to obtain visas. Could I help?

I wrote to then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. She was an old acquaintance of mine from my Punjab days. A gracious lady, she replied the very next day that she had instructed her ministry to expedite the process. I heard nothing about that request thereafter, neither from the ministry nor from my young Pakistani friend.

Moving on to Bangladesh, micro-credit wizard Muhammad Yunus, now tasked with the difficult task of running a government in his native land, knows that his primary task is to restrain the proclivities of the religious extremists intent on decimating the minority Hindus. He has inducted their representative in his interim administration, probably to humour the hotheads. I doubt if that will work. Religious extremists of all creeds are a menace in any country and the Bangladesh ones find themselves unchained after 15 years of Sheikh Hasina’s rule. That makes them doubly dangerous. The Nobel laureate has his work cut out.

It is emotionally gratifying to humanists the world over that when these extremists threatened to destroy Hindu temples and homes, the students who propelled the ouster of India’s friend Hasina took it upon themselves to mount a vigil and deployed volunteers to defend the temples, homes and shops from religion-inspired vandalism.

The student protesters of Bangladesh alleged that Hasina was an autocrat, a minor dictator who favoured her own party operatives with jobs in the government. These are as prized in Bangladesh as they are in ours. Government jobs ensure security of tenure even while the quality of service rendered is well below par.

Many commentators from Bangladesh mentioned the close relations between their country and India as a grouse against Hasina! That comment was not well received in India. Here, the common man’s view has always been that Bangladeshis should perpetually be beholden to India for helping them achieve independence from Pakistan. Those of us who harboured such misconceived expectations know better now. Like blood is thicker than water, religion can also replace blood in the Islamic view of life.

The Bangladesh imbroglio presents grave problems for India. We wait and watch. Some intrepid Congress leaders have pointed to parallels between what has happened there to what is happening in our country. They forget that it requires a popular upheaval of the type that emanated from students in Bangladesh to force any ruler’s hand. That is nowhere near the horizon here.

What is eminently possible, though, is that a resurgent Opposition can and should curb autocratic tendencies born of sycophancy and over-the-top imagination. The tendency to imprison political opponents who refuse to defect should be firmly opposed and put to slumber. There was public awareness already of such measures being employed which a more pugnacious Opposition can easily exploit.

The lessons learnt from Bangladesh will perforce have been studied by our rulers. They have no option but learn therefrom. If they neglect to do so, they will do so at their own peril. The happenings are so very close to our doorstep that lessons from past history could have been forgotten but not this one. The fallout of troubles in a neighbouring country are sure to destabilise settled positions in numerous spheres of concern. Insurgent groups that operate in the North-East will again try to find safe havens in Bangladesh, just like they were able to do before Hasina bottled them up.

If that happens, it will be a major headache, but not the only one that could follow Hasina’s ouster. Another round of migration by Hindus from Bangladesh is also a possibility — unless Yunus can convince them to stay on by assuring them of their safety.