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Slow and unsteady
By now, the near decade-old composite dialogue between India and Pakistan has run out of steam. There is little progress on any of the eight topics listed in the joint statement issued in Islamabad on June 23, 1997.
By now, the near decade-old composite dialogue between India and Pakistan has run out of steam. There is little progress on any of the eight topics listed in the joint statement issued in Islamabad on June 23, 1997. Least of all on the item placed least significantly, namely ‘promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields’. There has been some improvement in the last two years since the Saarc summit in Islamabad in January 2004, but not much. While there are obstacles on both sides in this matter, the honours are not evenly divided. Pakistan has been by far the more blatant offender though India has not lagged too far behind in this silly game.
Since the governments of both countries control the academia and wield influence over what pass for ‘think-tanks’, private initiative cannot go far without official support. Professions of commitment to freer intellectual exchange have not prompted any government of India, regardless of its political complexion, to rescind the long-standing obscene circular that requires Indian citizens to seek permission from the MEA and the Union Home Ministry to hold any seminar within the country in which South Asians participate.
Yet, it would be unfair to dismiss professions of commitment to freer exchange of persons and ideas as altogether insincere. One suspects that one drawback is that not much thought has been given as to how the process can be put on rails so that it moves smoothly. Another is ignorance and suspicion on both sides.
As to the first, a good roadmap was drawn up 45 years ago at the Indo-Pak Cultural Conference in New Delhi in April 1961. Its moving spirit was Dr Tara Chand, while Humayun Kabir, as then chairman of the ICCR, gave his strong backing. Behind the scenes, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru lent his powerful support and inaugurated the conference. Nothing like that has been witnessed in the years since.
Erudite papers were read by scholars on archaeology, history, education, fine arts, journalism, films and languages. Among those who participated enthusiastically were I.H. Qureshi, R.S. Sharma, G.C. Chatterjee, K.G. Saiyadain, Mulk Raj Anand, Balraj Sahni, Gopinath Aman and Gopichand Narang.
Four papers stand out: A.R. Rashidi’s on Indo-Pak historiography since 1947; Mulk Raj Anand’s on a common basis for contemporary art in India and Pakistan; Yadu Vanshi’s on growth of scientific and technical literature in Hindi and Urdu; and Gopinath Aman’s on Urdu literature in post-Independence India. It was not dominated by Urdu-speaking scholars nor by any single intellectual discipline. There were only three papers in Urdu: by Ehtesham Husain, Gopichand Narang, and Balraj Sahni. Born in Rawalpindi, Balraj Sahni’s thought-provoking paper on the language issue makes poignant reading. Indeed, to read the papers today is to realise what both countries missed because of their obdurate and short-sighted policies.
For a roadmap, the Resolution which the Conference unanimously adopted can serve as a good model. Its very first recommendation was that ‘for exchange of information on literary and cultural matters centres may be established in the two countries’. Others were ‘exchange of professors and students’, ‘facilities for research’, ‘exchange or transmission of books and journals’; agreement on protection of copyright; periodic conferences on ‘scientific and academic subjects’ and ‘the institution of a new type of visa, to grant facilities to students and scholars who visit the country for the purpose of study and research’.
Politics killed these ideas. How can any such centre exist in a hostile environment and without official support? The odd seminar, the jamboree, and visits of public figures are no substitute for organised, institutional exchanges, say, between the leading universities of both countries.
The generation with memories of the pre-Partition subcontinent is fading away. Most of the stalwarts of the Progressive Writers’ Movement are gone. The new generation combines healthy curiosity with inherited suspicion. There is little appreciation of the intellectual ferment on both sides of the divide in which there is sharp questioning of conventional wisdom, not excluding the policies of the national heroes that led to the Partition.
Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman, a leading figure in the Pakistan movement, lamented, “Look at the condition of the three isolated Muslim communities [in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh]. They dare not communicate with one another. Pakistan today is not one-third as important as the pre-Independence Muslim India was. Are the Indian Muslims a third of their forebears in political weight? And the Muslims of Bangladesh — well, you know, they do not count as much as even Pakistan”. This was said in an interview with M.B. Naqvi ages ago (Pakistan Economist, April 15, 1979). The distinguished poet, Munir Niazi, told The Herald (Jan. 2006) that “Partition was the worst thing that could have happened to us.”
Air Marshal (retd.) Zafar Chaudhri had no hesitation in asserting that the so-called “Pakistan ideology”, a euphemism for religious bigotry, was no part of Jinnah’s credo and cited his famous speech in 1947 which brought our poor L.K. Advani to grief. He said, “The Pakistan ideology was invented after the birth of Pakistan” (Jang, July 10, 1987).
While religious bigots hijacked Jinnah’s Pakistan, the bureaucracy and armed services also put on it the stamp of their own outlook. Ironically, Pakistan’s civil and military bureaucracies could boast of a large number of writers and intellectuals from among their own ranks. There began an increasing domination of religious bigots and civil and military bureaucracies over the intellectual life of the society.
As Mohammed Waseem pointed out, their credo was “anti-communism, anti-secularism and anti-Indianism”. But there was another school, intellectually no less powerful, with bases in Lahore and Karachi. I.A. Rehman and Khaled Ahmed represent it in their analyses. They are as nationalistic as any other Pakistani but are secular and liberal to the core. We laud their criticisms of Islamabad, ignore those of New Delhi. The school they represent received no understanding from us at any time.
The reality of Pakistan’s cultural scene was portrayed accurately by Zeno in MAG on Aug. 5, 1982. On the surface, Islamisation held sway. Yet, there was an ‘Indian-Muslim dimension of our culture’, as Indian as it was Muslim. Efforts to denude, if not eliminate, the former could not go far. The ‘new view of Pakistan’s culture being presented by our diehard Islamists... does not exclude the Indian element from the Indo-Muslim culture’. In fact, ‘it affirms the Indianness of the Pakistan tradition’. A statesmanlike policy by India will strengthen this school of thought.
