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Anti-India nationalism
AUG 31 -
Afghanistan is going up in flames, and Pakistan is flooded. While too much foreign chalkhel (oh how love this word!) is happening in Afghanistan, the world community was initially reluctant to help Pakistan out of this biggest natural disaster, which seemed even bigger than the army-made disaster that Pakistan has been facing not long since its founding. And then, its ISI made a turn around and finally acknowledged that it’s not India but Islamic terrorism that was its biggest threat in order soften donors’ attitude. And now you hear that even its cricket team is in trouble. While many in India may rejoice at this turn of events in Pakistan, Pakistan’s failure ought to be an object lesson for people of other South Asian nation-states about how not to run the ship of state by the fake fuel of anti-India nationalism.
Right since its founding in 1947, Pakistan justified itself as a nation-state for Muslims against India’s Hindus identity. I don’t want to get into why and how Muhammad Ali Jinnah came on his own or was compelled by Nehru-Gandhi-Mountbatten policies to conceive a separate nation-state in which Muslims would be in majority and therefore would have more power than others, namely the Hindus. This very idea was fraught with loopholes, especially as India still has the second largest number of Muslims of any country in the world.
But even if we justify that there had to be a Pakistan based on its Muslim identity, one must seriously—and the Pakistanis more than anybody else must candidly—ask what they have made of the country they fought for in the name of Islamic identity. Jinnah died in 1948 and Liyaquat Ali was murdered in 1951 but what did the others do since then? Most Pakistanis, especially its army, instead of focusing on nation-building and people empowerment, remained obsessed with their anti-Indian nationalism, anti-Indian rhetoric, and anti-Indian hatred. And then, the wars happened (1947, 1967 and 1971). These wars with India and the defeats in them further hardened Pakistanis’ anti-Indian nationalism.
Emotionally caught up in this wheel of fire of hatred and animosity, Pakistanis had little time to develop an India-free polity. Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and the Great Game of Cold War created a Taliban monster out of the US-backed Mujahideens. The biggest party responsible in all this may be the Pakistani military and its generals who blocked all political and economic reforms in the name of anti-India rhetoric but Pakistan’s landed gentry and the elite that the landed gentry has produced are no less responsible. And the most important cause of this failure is their anti-India obsession.
To be sure, India has not been blame free. The trauma of partition that many Hindus brought from Pakistan fuelled the anti-Pakistan sentiments of many of India’s politicians, especially the political Hindus who saw their Mother India broken into two because of Muslim obsession to have an independent nation-state. And, of course, Kashmir remained a perennial sore spot. But Indian politicians and its media, despite remaining focused on anti-Pakistan mind-set, were forced to free themselves by people-focused exigencies of a functioning democracy and emphasise reforms, development, education and state-building.
But Pakistan’s military rulers from Ayub Khan to Pervez Musharraf found it easy to express their anti-India obsession through either war with India or ISI conspiracy against it. And even its short-tenure civilian politicians found themselves too inextricably tied to anti-India rhetoric to focus fully on improving their people’s lives. I have read many accounts of how after Partition many Hindus who remained in Pakistan had to convert to Islam in order to safeguard their property and lives. Why couldn’t Pakistan safeguard its minorities? Why wasn’t there much hue-and-cry when its state imposed Islamic policies on its non-Muslim minorities as it has happened in India when Hindutva elements caused riots and mayhem against Muslims? Why is there so much bloodshed even between various Muslim denominations, including the Shias and the Sunnis in Pakistan? I’d say that this is because of Pakistani nation-state so obsessed with anti-India sentiments that it has little time to focus on anything else. You cannot build a nation-state on the foundation of hatred. In order for a nation-state to find its way into a hopeful future, it must build itself on positive virtues, messages, and sentiments. And in my view, many Nepali rulers and politicians have been doing the same, albeit to a lesser extent for reasons of history and geography. This became stark with King Mahendra’s rule and Machiavellian policies. In order to run his autocracy, he played the
China-against-India card while paying lip service to internal reforms and people-oriented development. Now, this was mere rhetoric in public to arouse anti-Indian feelings and show how nationalist he was in order to win people’s support while forming clandestine treaties and policies. Mere sentiments do not make one a true nationalist although nationalism, especially its ultra variety, is more a matter of sentiment than anything substantial. The only form of nationalism that had any value was the anti-colonial variety but that, too, came to a dead end all over the postcolonial world in the 60s and 70s, creating monsters as dictators. India was a rare exception that transformed its initial anti-colonial nationalist impulse into people-oriented policies albeit by fits and starts and with several flaws.
In Nepal of the past few years, that moribund, outdated nationalism of the extreme left and the extreme right has been raising its ugly head again. One can certainly ignore a Kamal Thapa’s rhetoric to resurrect the monarchy, laugh at Keshar Jung Rayamajhi’s frustration adjustment or look away from Paras Shah’s murmurings about foreign chalkhel responsible for the abolition of his dynasty but one cannot ignore the Maoists’ anti-India ultra nationalism to serve their narrow political end. More than condemning it, this kind of nationalism needs to be engaged, refuted and moderated in order to shift the focus from anti-India obsession to building people’s lives and the country. True nation building is building people’s lives within the state rather than remaining obsessed with your neighbour.
To be sure, there are problems: border encroachment, open border, trade deficit, Indian diplomats’ arrogant, undiplomatic conduct and Nepali politicians’ client and subject mentality. While border encroachment and open borders are issues for the officials, diplomats and governments of the two countries to solve, the arrogant behaviour of Indian diplomats need to be curbed by candid talk. But the most difficult challenge is to end Nepali politicians’ subject and client mentality. One hopes that the deepening of democratic culture will transform both the subject and the ultra nationalist mentality of Nepali politicians. But the media needs to mercilessly dissect this tendency in order to separate chafe from wheat and channel it in the productive direction.
Posted on: 2010-09-01 08:38
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