Let India  and Pakistan  Stay Their Hands

WHENEVER there is trouble anywhere in India , our neighbours see a Pakistani  hand behind it. It all began with the Mizos and the Nagas. We were training them in the Chittagong  Hill Tracts and we were arming them.

          Then we got into the nasty business of training and arming the Khalistan  secessionists. We masterminded that terrible explosion in faraway Bombay  and now we have been aiding and abetting the Kashmiris . We have committed numerous other acts of sabotage to destabilise our tiny, helpless neighbour which is smaller in size than Monaco and which has nothing more than six soldiers and toy guns and tanks and aircraft.

          On our part when there is mayhem in Karachi , we see an Indian  hand behind it. When there are bomb explosions, we say the Indians did it. And the tragedy is that people on both sides of the border have been taking this seriously, and both governments have been succeeding time and again in throwing a Pakistani -hand, Indian-hand smokescreen to hide their own failure to maintain public peace and to guarantee safety of life and property.

          The explosion at the Lahore Airport is no exception. President  Leghari, generally extremely reticent, lost no time in putting the blame on the Indians. He should have left the job for General  Babar.

          Having come thus far, someone rang to tell me that one of my sisters had died. So should I stop writing? I asked the person who had taken the trouble to give me the glad tidings. Should I take the day off? Like the devil I would. I have never made song and dance about death. That which is inevitable must be accepted. You see it is death, which makes life so interesting.

          Every birth is the beginning of an end. My wife is distraught because she is afraid of life. Life  is like cricket and when the Great Umpire gives you out, you walk into the Far Pavilion and let those who are in the stadium cheer you in.

          Forget the cussedness of your colleagues for colleagues are meant to be cussed especially when they have a cold. No great loss, this. Unknown sister of an unknown brother. Hundreds of unknown sisters of unknown brothers die every minute. Life  should not be like that but life is like that, take it or leave it. Born nameless. Died nameless. There is, you will agree, great comfort in anonymity. Those who mourn death, mourn life. But if you want to be serious about it, think of what the poet  said: Ahmad-i-Mursal na rahe, kaun rahega?

          And now back to this India -Pakistan  business. They say we did it. We say they did it like kindergarten boys who love each other and at the same time, hate each other. You stole my crayons. You stole my lunchbox. I'll tell the teacher. Like the devil you will, I'll tell the teacher. But kindergarten classmates always forget yesterday. Another day, another fight, and then? Friends forever.

India  and Pakistan , however, are worse than kindergarten kids. They nurse their prejudices. All prejudices are dangerous but no prejudice is deadlier than an inherited one. Why can't the two countries forget the past? It was a foolish man who said that those who forget history are made to repeat it. Most history should be thrown into the dustbin.

          But should we do so? India  today is the Raj  resurrected and reinforced. And far more subtle than the Sahibs . Expansionism at slow speed. Let the world forget our last adventure before we embark upon another. Is there any problem, internal or external, that India has sought to resolve peacefully?

          Let us see. There was no need to take the tiny French  enclave, Pondicherry , on the Eastern Ghats by force. India  used force. There was no need for military action against Goa , Daman , and Diu , the Portuguese settlements on the Western  Ghats . India took them by force. There was no need for a military takeover of Junagadh. India took it by force.

          There was no need for invading Hyderabad  Deccan , surrounded as it was on all sides by India . It was conquered by force. There was no need for annexing Sikkim . India did it anyhow. There was no justification for Indian  military intervention in East Pakistan  but intervention there was.

          Then Sri Lanka , then the Maldives . Bhutan is, for all practical purposes, an Indian  protectorate. And above all, Kashmir . Does it get talked about at the United Nations ? Where the hell is Amnesty International? And, where in the name of all devilment are the human rights busybodies across the world?

          Easy does it, you see? Take them one by one. Space out your acts of dastardliness. India  is the world's largest democracy. It can do no wrong. We have fundamentalists. India has none. We have child labour. There is no such thing in India . India is clean. We are like mud. India believes in ahmisa. We are for ahmisa.

          Bharat Wariawalla (I don't know who the gentleman is or was) wrote an article in the Indian  magazine , Seminar , in August 1986. Excerpt:

                    Attacking Rajiv Gandhi 's policy of friendliness to Pakistan , Jain said in an interview to Sunday  ( April 6-12, 1986 ) that hostility towards Pakistan "is necessary for our national cohesion." A few, including myself, have said, much the same thing earlier but with this difference: I said it in order to show that our domestic political system, as it had evolved under Indira Gandhi , was a barrier to Indo-Pak peace; Jain said it out of fear of the disastrous impact an Indo-Pak peace would have on our domestic political cohesion. At any rate, the myth of our innocence and international altruism is now broken.

That was in 1986, it is pretty much the same in 1996. Why can't the two countries forget the past and work for a better tomorrow? Why this Indian -hand, Pakistani -hand business? Why can't the two stay their hands?

Friday, July 26, 1996