Patriots
Zafar Hilaly
It is only an idiot that criticises every country but his own; and the world is full of them, with India and Pakistan having more than their fair share. George Bernard Shaw once said: “You will never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.” Indeed, to chart policy without hatred or bitterness towards any other nation is what we should aspire to. But it is the opposite consideration which guides policy in India and Pakistan. In them patriotism has run amok. So much so that the very values that they are pledged to defend become their greatest targets.
In Afghanistan, for example, India and Pakistan are said to be fighting a proxy war killing innocents who happen to be nationals of the other while remaining deaf, deaf as adders, to the clamour of their populace who want no part of it.
India’s support of Karzai, an American creature, with a following no larger than his extended family, is morally indefensible, considering that by rigging his own election Karzai has lost the last sliver of legitimacy to which he could lay claim. And, if that was not enough, a news report emanating from Delhi on Saturday indicates that “India is studying the option of engaging with the Taliban,” even though Taliban antics have been an almost daily target of Indian odium. So brazenly opportunistic is Delhi’s stance on Afghanistan that the presence of any scruples has become a far off abstraction utterly unconnected with the conduct of Indian foreign policy. And this only so that India can out flank Pakistan and get a leg up on Islamabad.
Not to be outdone, Pakistan has demonstrated equal opportunism. A political party, like the PPP, that should be the byword for liberal, tolerant and progressive Islam, whose erstwhile leader was assassinated by a murderous offshoot of the Taliban, has taken to cultivating Karzai and supporting the Afghan Taliban that spawned her killers. Why? Lest India gain an advantage in the endless game of beggar your neighbour.
Both countries, one by supporting Karzai, an Afghan quisling, and the other the Afghan Taliban, the antediluvian holdouts of mediaeval Islam, and, lately, also Karzai, have displayed the squalid kind of morality that only their respective “patriots” may justify and shrug off as “part of the game” that nations play to ward off adversaries.
If this is a game it is a deadly and self-defeating one, with no rules or referees. And, considering that one country has 600 million starving inhabitants and the other has about the same percentage of its populace below the poverty line, a wastefully expensive one. But unless our “patriot” leaders are born with greater cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands or, in plain words, are less passionately idiotic, these “games” will not cease. It is said that the means can justify the ends, but what if there is no end of such “ends”?
Similarly in Kashmir India, which is pledged to follow the teachings of a great Mahatma, not only spawned his killers but continues killing Kashmiris regardless of pledges and promises to free them, just so that India can cow and terrify a people who long for freedom. Inevitably, this has created a whole genre of mindless warriors in Pakistan wanting to avenge their brethren.
And, instead of bringing an end to this wretched state of affairs by addressing the cause of their ire, Pakistan is asked to stop these self-guided, self-detonating warrior/missiles located in Pakistan from reaching their targets. Why? So that India can continue its repression undisturbed and the interminable negotiations resume?
The madness does not stop there. Pakistan is warned that if it does not stop the jihadists, then all sorts of pain will be inflicted. Mujahaideen training centres will be targeted and if war results, so be it. As if war is a solution; as if we are not fellow brown subcontinentals but Red Indians; as if war and violence worked for the Zionists or the Americans; as if war is in the enlightened self-interest of India’s Hindus and their final and decisive response to Pakistan’s troublesome Muslims; as if such threats will act as a deterrent rather than a spur to those seeking vindication through war. India’s attempt to make its threats sound sane is worrisome, rather like reasonable conversation that most frightens us about madmen.
That is not to say that Pakistan is absolved from its responsibility to do what it can, and must, to prevent jihadists attacking Occupied Kashmir and/or India, thereby, vitiating the atmosphere for a peaceful outcome. And on this count, as the dramatic revelations in the monthly magazine, The Herald, reveal, much more must be done. That Kashmir cannot be won by force is now a widely accepted truth but that the spirit and a cause can never be quashed by force is no less a self-evident truth. Meanwhile, it is worth pondering that what conflict and confrontation did not achieve cooperation, collaboration may, given half a chance and a mite of patience, understanding and maturity.
Cutting the nose to spite the face, the preferred tactic of some of Pakistan’s “patriots,” is yet again on display in their determination not to allow normal economic relations with India, especially trade. Hence, even if it costs the earth to import industrial raw materials from Australia, which can be had cheaper in India, it is to Australia to which our importers must turn. Of course, when times are desperate exceptions are made, and otherwise too a blind eye is turned when Indian goods under different names are imported from Dubai. Over the years this fatuous and self-defeating policy has cost Pakistan tons of dollars, robbed some industries of much of their competitiveness but, of course, pleased our “patriots” no end.
Predictably, India is no less bloody-minded when it comes to pandering to pique. It welshed on an agreement to withdraw forces from Siachin concluded between Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 because the Indian army had second thoughts. And hence uninhabitable barren peaks and glaciers are today populated by Indian soldiers, hundreds of whom have perished in the cold while waiting for targets that are as elusive as the Abominable Snowman. In addition, supplying the troops with rations and equipment is estimated over the years to have cost India hundreds of millions of dollars.
The latest example of common sense taking a backseat to wacky prejudice is found in India’s refusal to go ahead with the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. India preferred the sea route, which cost several billions of dollars more, lest Pakistan block the pipeline. Precisely how an underwater pipeline can be protected from a determined effort to block it in this day and age of advanced technology beggars the imagination.
There are, of course, legion other examples where lives and money have been expended for temporary advantage. But those at the helm of affairs in India and Pakistan would do well to shun the juvenile antics of their respective “patriots.” and instead heed the wise caution of a statesman of a bygone era who “played the game” and reached the following conclusion:
“Uncertain is that relation between pressure and resistance which constitutes the balance of power. The arch of peace is mortised by no iron tenons. One night a handful of dust will patter from the vaulting: the bats will squeak and wheel in sudden panic: nor can the fragile fingers of man then stay the rush and rumble of destruction.”
The writer is a former ambassador.
Email: charles123it@hotmail.com
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