Modi and other encounters

By Ghazi Salahuddin
December 27, 2015

After the day of celebration and of surprises was done, the earth shook. Take this as a measure of how hectic and emotionally exhausting Friday the Twenty-fifth of December was. That sight of the prime ministers of two countries forever at odds hugging each other like old friends was almost unreal. But that is how, perhaps, the destiny of this region of sorrow can be steered towards a new reality.

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In that state of flux, there was little time to seriously ponder the significance of the event. The timing of it was truly dramatic. Christmas and the birth anniversary of the founder of Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif’s own birthday. A full moon in the sky just when the sun set. And the setting was perfect, illuminated with a wedding ceremony. A Bollywood touch, you could say.

Is this how history is made? We can’t be sure. Still, we should rejoice in this amazing development and hope that the immortal longings of the people of the two immensely populous countries would have some bearing on decisions that are made by their rulers. We live in treacherous times and honest peace between India and Pakistan will certainly improve our capacity to deal with the many other challenges that we confront.

Yes, we have suffered the loss of our hopes that were awakened by similar events of a dramatic nature. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to Lahore in a bus in early 1999, the sense of a new beginning was palpable. One could see history in the making. But then Kargil intervened in so vicious a manner that its after-effects still linger. Can something similar divert the process that seemingly began with a meeting in Paris about a month ago?

It should help that Modi belongs to the same party that Vajpayee represented and is so much more in command. It is the party that is in a position to block any reconciliation with Pakistan if it were not in power. Nawaz Sharif’s credibility in this role is well established. Leave aside all the difficulties in which our bilateral issues and discords are wrapped, the opportunity for moving forward is very obvious.

What happened on Friday is to be seen in the perspective of what is happening to us in this action-packed season of anniversaries. In many ways, this is the time for looking before and after. The last days of December do stir deep thoughts about life and its possibilities, particularly at a personal level. In a few days, a New Year will dawn and we will struggle with our resolutions and promises to make amends for what has gone wrong in the departing year.

Collectively, a similar exercise should also provoke a mix of emotions about the state of the nation. December, as I said, is a month of history. We know that the sixteenth of December stands out in this calendar. This year, it was devoted entirely to the memory of the massacre of our schoolchildren in Peshawar one year ago.

Here, to be sure, was another milestone in our history and it cast its shadow on the entire year, with specific reference to the National Action Plan. Our drive against terrorism and extremism is as vital for our survival as the urgency of making peace with India. Alas, the implementation of the plan has not been very satisfactory and we still seem to be in denial as far as the sources of extremism in our society are concerned.

In any case, we are still not able to contend with what happened on the sixteenth of December in 1971 and the Peshawar tragedy seems to have provided an opportunity to divert our attention from that monumental tragedy. That we must interpret it properly to be able to set our national sense of direction is another matter.

Now, this column is appearing on the twenty-seventh of December – another flaming reference to a turning point in our history. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on this day in 2007 was another great national tragedy. She was killed at a time when she was emerging as the only leader capable of taking on terrorists and religious militants. Pakistan would be a different place had she lived and led this country.

Some months ago, friend Zohra Yusuf sent me the clipping of a column I had written in 1988 to mark Benazir’s appointment as the first Muslim woman to become head of a government in modern world. She had found it in her papers. Since I am not good at keeping a scrapbook, I was happy to read it and it opened a floodgate of memories. It so happens that Benazir was the only leader I had known well.

That column is now before me. It was published in Dawn, where I then worked and wrote a weekly column, with the title: ‘Celebration of hope’. It was published on the first of December, one day before Benazir was to take her oath of office. So this was my intro: “When Ms Benazir Bhutto recites that solemn oath tomorrow, she will be standing in the unseen drizzle of memories. The moment of glory may be tinged with some sadness. And in the midst of all that ceremony and grandeur, the young woman who will step on to the pedestal of history, with the whole world watching in admiration, may feel a little lonely in her heart. But she should have learnt by now that the strong have to be lonely”.

After suppressing my desire to quote more from that column of 27 years ago, I can vouch for the fact that it was one genuine moment of hope in our otherwise painful history. We should also remember the journey Benazir had made to arrive at that moment through the dark night of Gen Zia’s Martial Law. With almost the entire nation, she had passed through the traumatic execution of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

With reference to Modi’s visit, Benazir had also strived to mend fences with India; Rajiv Gandhi had come to Islamabad in July 1989. But this initiative by South Asia’s youthful leaders was subverted by the war-mongers who are still in our midst. But we miss Benazir; and the pain that this anniversary of her death has brought is enhanced by the thought that she could really make a difference. Her own party has provided the evidence of what it means when an inspiring leader is removed from the scene.

But we have to move on. Will Modi and Nawaz Sharif share their thoughts on their resolutions for 2016?

The writer is a staff member.

Email: ghazi_salahuddinhotmail.com

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