Youth Presentations
Kamal Munir, McGill University
Deconstructing Pakistan's Image of India: Fact and Folklore
There is no dearth of opinions where the issue of peace between
India and Pakistan is concerned. Most of these opinions may be
grouped under two categories. The first consists of people who
maintain that peace is impossible since India has never really
accepted the idea of partition in the first place, and will continue
its activities to destabilize this land of the pure. The second
group is more pragmatic. They maintain that peace can be achieved,
but the problem of Kashmir must first be solved. How that problem
is to be solved, again there is no consensus. In the next few
paragraphs I will attempt to expose some of the fallacies in these
two arguments. Specifically, I maintain that peace is not impossible
between the countries and that the problem of Kashmir is only
part and not the cause of the problem. The conflict between India
and Pakistan is a problem of legitimacy and power within the two
nations. On both sides of the border, power structures are based
in part on this conflict and can reproduce only through perpetuating
it. Since the political systems and dynamics of the societies
are relatively similar on both sides of the border, the motivation
behind perpetuating the conflict are also common.
Let us first take the issue of whether it is at all possible
for these two countries to co-exist in harmony. This is our null
hypothesis. We must first ensure that the solution that we are
searching for is possible in the first place. There is after all,
a sizeable, and perhaps increasing number of people, commonly
known as fundamentalists or those who deride progress, who rule
out such a possibility. And there is an even larger number of
people who believe that conflict between Muslims and Hindus is
inherent, not socially produced. The commonly understood and cited
reason is religious differences. Pakistan after all, is supposed
to have come into being due to the inability of the two religions
to co-exist. This is popularly known as the two-nation theory.
It was claimed once, and is 'known for a fact' now that Hindus
and Muslims were always two different people meant to live separately.
This historical claim is almost never questioned in Pakistan,
and is accepted as a fact. The purpose of this forum, as I understand
it, is to reflect on such fundamental beliefs and question them
for the sake of developing a better understanding of the peculiar
Indo-Pakistan relationship and of the factors which sustain it.
I can recount personal experiences in this context. For two years,
1991-93, I shared an apartment in the United States with two Hindu
Indians and a Bangladeshi Muslim. I am sure you realize the irony
in the phrase Hindu Indian since the ancient Persians and Arabs
referred to the land beyond the river Sindhu or Indus as Al-Hind
or Hindustan, and the people inhabiting that land as Hindu. The
words India and Indian were simply Greek, Roman, and finally English
versions of the old Persian terminology. It was only gradually
that the term Hindu came to be associated with the followers of
a particular religious faith as a matter of convenience since
the 'Hindus' did not deploy a single term to define their religion.
As Bose and Jalal point out in their recent work, Iqbal, for instance,
now known as a proponent of a separate nation for Muslims had
no problems celebrating Hindustan as his own:
Saare jahan se acchha ye hindustran hamara
In any case, to return to my story, here we were, undivided India
in a microcosm, Hindu, Muslim, North Indian, South Indian and
Bengali all in one place. We had the time of our lives. Our social
and cultural lives were enormously enriched. We celebrated not
only Eid but also Diwali. We cooked not only north Indian or Pakistani
food but also South Indian and Bengali cuisine. Of course, we
had our differences too, but those were not rooted in our respective
religious beliefs. These mostly stemmed from other aspects of
our somewhat different social upbringings -- whether there would
be a TV in the house or not, the minimal amount of cleaning that
must be done, who will do the dishes etc. etc. You see, we were
there with open minds. We had not already decided that Hindus
and Muslims could not live together. And until the people of Hindustan
made that decision, they too were quite comfortable with the idea
of co-existence.
But I do not want to generalize from personal examples. If we
look up the history of modern South Asia, we notice that the idea
of independent existence did not seep into Indian Politics until
the 1940s! Look at the Khilafat movement. Muslims and Hindus crusading
for one cause! Look at the non-cooperation movement led by Gandhi.
Again Hindu-Muslim unity. Jinnah, by the way, opposed both. But
on what grounds? At the Congress's Nagpur session in December
1920, Jinnah derided the false and dangerous religious frenzy
which had confused Indian politics, and the zealots, both Hindu
and Muslim, who were harming the national cause. Indeed, Jinnah
worked hard to get the Congress and the League to cooperate and
came to be known as the ambassador of hindu-muslim unity.
One might argue that this was before Jinnah found out the evil
designs harbored by the Congress. But then we find Jinnah categorically
stating in 1944 that Pakistan did not entail the partition of
India; rather it meant its regeneration into a union where Pakistan
and Hindustan would jointly stand together proudly against the
hostile world without. Indeed, classification of Muslims as a
nation was initially only a tactic to ensure greater representation
at the center. It is a great irony of history that it led to the
disintegration of the same center.
Similarly, in 1947, when the actual mechanics of partition were
to be carried out, Jinnah begged Mountbatten "not to destroy
the unity of Bengal and the Punjab, which had national characteristics
in common: common history, common ways of life; and where the
Hindus have stronger feelings as Bengalis or Punjabis than they
have as members of the Congress."
And this is only a few months from partition. If we go back to
the early Mughals, the notion that muslims and hindus could co-exist
peacefully was never questioned! It is rather ironic that the
opposite is now being established as a fact. If independence was
the solution, well it has been attained. Why does the conflict
continue? If Pakistan can be friends with China, why not with
India? That we share a history with India should be a plus not
an obstacle to our friendship. Our history in no way rules out
the possibility of harmonious co-existence with a neighbor. The
theory that India has still not accepted the creation of Pakistan
and is thus trying to destroy it in every manner possible is not
supported in the slightest by actual facts. Co-existence, peace
and harmony are not fantastic notions or pipe dreams. They were
present in the past and are possible in the future.
Now, as to the claim that if we are able to solve the Kashmir
problem peace will be attained, I only ask: do you seriously think
that even if Kashmir evaporates into thin air tomorrow, we will
not find another pretext to continue the conflict? We will, because
we have to! And here, when I say we, I mean the states of course.
You see the state in Pakistan is influenced by four major groups:
the politicians (who are supposed to be representatives of the
people, but are not), the army (who are supposed to look out,
not in), the clergy (who are guardians of the faith), and the
bureaucracy (who have inherited their mantle from the Raj and
act as their representatives too). When we decided that Pakistan
was to be a muslim and not a secular state, we unconsciously made
the Maulvis guardians of the faith, since they act as spokespersons
for religion. Religion, of course, does not do anything by itself.
It has to be interpreted and applied by people. And the clergy,
which ironically enough, had opposed the division of the country
calling Jinnah Kafir-e-Azam or the biggest disbeliever, assumed
this responsibility by default. Indeed, when we make economic
policy we turn to economists. When making military policy we turn
to the generals, and when its time to create a muslim country
you turn to the mullahs. When economic policies do not work, as
in most cases, we accuse the economists of a distorted understanding
of how society or the economy functions, or even of imposing their
own understanding of economic principles on reality. Similarly,
when the new Islamic state does not function as it should, we
blame the mullahs for misconstruing Islam. In both cases, however,
we turn back to the same people. This is because we have ourselves
bestowed legitimacy on them. This legitimacy which is carried
by the clergy or the economist is actually used by other groups
in the society or outside it to further their own interests. Just
as quoting Napoleon in military matters increases the credibility
of one's argument, using the clergy adds credulity to the position
of other power groups in the society. The clergy, and its dependents,
stand to lose all their credibility if they allow the basis on
which their legitimacy rests, to be questioned. Systematically,
they have revised all history textbooks and established control
on popular discourse to ensure that there is no debate whatsoever
on the issue that religion is the raison 'detre of this country.
This includes airbrushing all evidence to the contrary of course
and ruling out all possibilities of peaceful co-existence with
India. It is drilled into the conscious of the nation that India
is the enemy throughout the 16 years of education. For those who
do not go to school, the local mullahs in local madrasas or religious
schools do this job. This process has been in operation for several
years and has produced millions of followers. Solving the Kashmir
problem will not wash away all the socialization that these people
have received over their entire lives.
This process of socialization also includes painting a particular
picture of the Hindu, the inhabitant of India. All the pretexts
for the Pakistan movement are taken, distilled and a mythical
being is created who personifies all the evils that were found
in undivided India. Particular facts are taken out of context
and aligned behind the lies that standard textbooks contain. The
result is a mythical Hindu who contains all the oppressive and
reactionary elements found in undivided India. He is transformed
into a Banya (money-lender), a coward and an imperialist. This
is a carefully constructed image that is sustained through an
elaborate socialization process. However, what is important is
that when a myth is believed by sufficient number of people, it
takes on factual status, and becomes part of the code by which
people live their lives.
Such propaganda suits the other power groups in the coalition
too. The army for instance, which gobbles up 70% of our development
budget, would not be needed if there were no conflict with India,
whether in Kashmir or anywhere else. The picture of India that
is painted in popular consciousness supports their claim of perpetual
threat from India. The internally weak government in Pakistan
lends its own support to this claim because common perception
is that it cannot function without the other two forces.
I think I don't need to point out that the political dynamics
on the Indian side are not very different. The fundamentalist
movements on both sides have constantly fed off each other, and
weak political governments have exploited the conflict history
to its full potential in order to further their own short-term
political interests. Thus the notion that solving the Kashmir
problem will wash away all traces of this age-old conflict from
our memories is delusional at best. The conflict persists because
our governments feed off it. It persists because the power structures
in our countries would be rendered extremely vulnerable without
it. And it persists because we do not make enough attempts to
deconstruct the myth, which our states paint for us.
