By Fabian Lyngdoh
It is interesting to watch the panel discussions on TV channels on Pakistan terrorism and reactions from the Indian side. To fill the gaps in the discussions I feel compelled to write this article as a supplement, for general information and intellectual nourishment. History tells us that the nationalists of India mistakenly believed that their only enemy was the British Government, so they sought the good will of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League in driving out the British, innocently unaware of the emerging dragon of communalism. Jinnah exploited the situation and aggressively staged his multiple demands. His stubborn attitude led to the failure of two ‘Round Table Conferences’ beside the Shimla Conference. Jinnah was harbouring communalism in his mind; his clear cut stand was that the Congress represented the Hindus while the League represented the Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi engaged Jinnah time and again in negotiations to resolve the communal deadlock, but such negotiations simply raised the political stature of Jinnah, and his arrogance and obstinacy increased after every negotiation with Mahatma Gandhi.
The Cabinet Mission Plan in May, 1946, ruled out the League’s demand for Pakistan and recommended an undivided India. But Jinnah remained obstinate; bid good-bye to the constitutional methods and called upon his followers to observe 16th August as a direct action day. Before Independence, the interim Government, with Nehru as the Prime Minister assumed office on 2nd September, 1946. There followed large scale outbreak of lawlessness, looting and arson in Noakhali and Tipperah Districts of East Bengal in October, 1946. It was an organized attack planned by the Muslim League with the connivance of the executive officials, in what is known as the League’s ‘direct action’. The gap between the standpoints of the League and the Congress became unbridgeable. One stood for partition, the other for undivided India.
The country was in the brink of anarchy, and Lord Mountbatten devised a new Plan and impressed upon Nehru the desirability of getting rid of the League by allowing it to have its Pakistan. Mountbatten’s Plan proposed the division of India into two Dominions; but contrary to the League’s demand for a Pakistan that included the whole of Bengal and Assam in the East and the Punjab in the West, the Plan excluded Assam completely and also proposed the partition of Bengal and Punjab. Jinnah refused to accept the proposed territory of Pakistan; nevertheless, he had to submit to Mountbatten’s pressure. On 15th August, 1947, India emerged as a sovereign nation, the nationality of which was set to be built on the unity in diversity of races and religions and satisfied with the territory thus apportioned, and Pakistan emerged as another sovereign nation, the nationality of which was based on religious communalism, with a bitter regret and insatiable hunger for the territories it was compelled to forgo. That was the beginning of the bone of contention between India and Pakistan.
Now let us discuss present debate on Pakistani terrorism and Indian reaction. The Indian media houses have tried their level best to bring some Pakistani intellectuals to parley with Indian intellectuals on the panel discussions on the nature of the continuous conflict between India and Pakistan, but it seems that the attempts were futile. It is futile to bring two sets of people of different emotional conditioning to a common understanding. The Indian panellists are brought up and emotionally conditioned in an atmosphere of non-violence, tolerance, and spirit of unity in diversity, while the Pakistani panellists are emotionally conditioned in the atmosphere of religious communalism, violence, intolerance, and hatred. The blood of civilians especially that of innocent women and children, shed as collateral damage of military operations would bring tears and emotional distress to Indian military jawans, but such bloody carnage would cause no concern to the emotionally stunted Pakistani military, terrorists, political leaders and state intellectuals. For the Indian leadership, the safety of one innocent civilian is worth the blood of a hundred soldiers, but for the Pakistani leadership the safety of one terrorist is worth the blood of thousands of innocent civilians. The Pakistani political leadership is a suicidal regime, and that is the reason why it is ever eager to threaten India with a first-strike nuclear attack, though knowing full well that India has the capacity to retaliate with force sufficient to transform Pakistan into a nuclear desert. Therefore, it is useless to engage Pakistani leaders and intellectuals in a rational discussion on the same panel with Indians.
It is disheartening to notice in the media debates that some Indians, who feign to be lovers of humanity, rationalize the need to tolerate Pakistan’s terror strike on India on the ground that the common people of Pakistan had no hand in it. The irony is that these Indians who are losing sleep and aggressively assert opinions on behalf of the common man of Pakistan, but showing apathy towards Indians’ loss of blood to Pakistan’s bloody exercise, do not seem to care about the welfare of the common man of India. This only reveals their secret support for Pakistan against India. Indeed, they can be categorised as Pakistanis with Indian citizenship just to avail the wide ranging rights and freedom guaranteed by this benevolent country.
It is interesting, as well as amusing to observe in the media debates the body language of the panellists. The loud-mouthed Indian panellists could still smile and contain their composures in spite of apparent anger in their hearts, while the Pakistani panellists speak less with their hoarse voices, and more with weird facial expressions. I have especially noticed one Indian lady who seems to be ardently supporting the Pakistani stance, and one Indian gentleman who argued for the innocence of the Pakistani actors and celebrities nourished on the Indian soil. It was really impressive while observing how the beautiful and handsome faces of the lady and the gentleman gradually transformed under the emotions of hatred, anger and desperation into something which cannot be described, something wrong in their appearances, something displeasing and downright detestable, as R. L. Stevenson described of Mr Hyde. This is the result not of rational argument on the fact of justice, but of a rage in their defence of the indefensible.
It was also argued that there were many common Pakistanis who went to the streets to protest against their Government’s connivance with terrorist groups, and that many of them were arrested, persecuted and even executed as martyrs of peace. If righteous people of Pakistan, who live in their own country, dare to speak against their Government’s policy of terror, then what reason have the Pakistani actors and celebrities who suck wealth, fame and honour out of Indians’ charitable hearts and under the protection of the Indian State, to withhold their condemnation to the Pakistani Government’s involvement in acts of terrorism? Yet we dare glorify these self-centred, media-created artificial greats as ambassadors of peace!
There can be no ambassador of peace between India and Pakistan, because the Pakistani leadership would never be at peace until they are able to occupy the whole Jammu and Kashmir, and until Jinnah’s dream of a Pakistan that includes North East India, Bangladesh, West Bengal and the whole of Punjab is realized. We can only have formal political ambassadors just to fulfil the norms of international relation, and that too, only as long as armed conflicts between the two countries can be averted.
A new form of cold war has today emerged in which the USA assumes the leading role for maintaining the full employment of its economy, while Russia and China, for their own separate interests, assume vigilant role. India, as ever, remains a sober nation with neither fear of, nor ill will against, any other nation. It is a nation friendly to all nations; but to maintain that status it also has its own axe to grind for defending itself. Hence it cannot afford to deal softly with traitors. Romulus, the founder of Rome, killed his own brother, Remus and exclaimed, “So perish all who dare leap over my walls.” Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome, killed his own sister and exclaimed, “Away with thy unreasonable grief, forgetful of thy dead and of thy living brothers, forgetful of thy country. So shall perish every Roman who mourns the death of an enemy.” In the same spirit, I should say, thumbs down to all Indians who are forgetful of their dead and of their living brothers and sisters, and forgetful of their country, and dare to express sympathy with the Pakistani military and its terrorist auxiliary, when the country is in a deep security crisis.
Though as Indians, we all want peace and abhor war, but in the present security crisis that India now is facing, the rational statement is, “Let the State of Pakistan be responsible for the common man of Pakistan, and the Indian State be responsible for the common man of India.”