Back to the brink in South Asia

Dubai eye

The writer is a Middle East based
columnist.

Amid all the war hysteria and rising tensions between India and Pakistan, it is becoming increasingly rare to come across voices of reason and sanity. This is a season of what Mahatma’s grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi calls “hatriotism”.

Noting the raging lunacy on both sides of the divide, Gandhi writes: “Terror and Hindutva do each other’s work. They offer to a credulous and suspicious public an alternative patriotism, which is hatriotism – hatred of the other country, its majority religion. They feed on each other’s mistaken, misguided, misleading nationalisms. They’d die without the other.”

While Narendra Modi himself has been unusually circumspect on the surgical strikes India is supposed to have carried out inside Pakistani side of divided Kashmir, the motor mouths in the BJP and the militant political and security establishment haven’t stopped crowing since.    

Some are comparing him to Indira Gandhi and the mysterious strikes to the 1971 war that carved Bangladesh out of Pakistan – something that most Pakistanis are yet to forget or forgive. Clearly, the Indian leader sees himself stepping into those formidable shoes of Mrs Gandhi, hailed as Durga by an effusive Vajpayee.       

His surprise salvo on Balochistan during the Independence Day address and the recent manoeuvres to ‘isolate Pakistan’, and run it dry by ‘reviewing’ the historic Indus Waters Treaty point to the same ambitions.         

The ‘surgical strikes’ are being portrayed as the new normal of India-Pakistan equation. Having long needled the Congress for its ‘soft’ approach to Pakistan and having himself promised an ‘aar paar ki ladai’ (war to the finish) and ‘munh-thod jawab’ (fitting response), he has become a prisoner of his own macho image.        

Who could forget the jibes at the poor Manmohan Singh for hosting ‘Mian’ Musharraf and treating him to ‘chicken biryani diplomacy’?

The increasingly raucous, bloodthirsty media warriors do not help with their endless chanting of ‘teach Pakistan a lesson’ mantra. The BJP’s own rank and file and extended Hindutva clan have been spoiling for a fight, pushing the government to walk the talk.  

So by ordering the “carefully measured, surgical strikes” along the Line of Control, the Modi government has tried to target many birds with one stone. 

For one, they silence the voluble, growing constituency of elites and militant security-media establishment. For them, India is no longer the land of Gandhi but a country that has arrived as a major power and it must assert itself, beginning with Pakistan.

For two, they ramp up the stature and political weight of the prime minister and his party immediately and rather timely – ahead of the crucial elections in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab next year. No wonder, posters cheering the ‘victory’ have already come up everywhere.

The outpouring of nationalistic zeal and euphoria with everybody queuing up to hail the emperor has been unprecedented.       

One did not witness such loud celebrations even in the wake of the 1998 Pokhran nuclear explosions. It’s as though ‘the enemy’ has already been vanquished and wiped off the face of earth in one single, decisive nuclear strike. A defining moment in the country’s history, if you will, with the craven strategic restraint of the Congress era being given a decisive burial.

The national mood has been such that even the opposition has been forced to fall in line, hailing the PM for speaking to “terrorists in the language they understand.”

The fact that Pakistan continues to vociferously insist that the ‘surgical strikes’ never took place seems to matter little. Indeed, it’s perhaps just as well that the Pakistan Army has refused to take the bait and has resisted the temptation to reciprocate – so far. If it acknowledges the attack, it would be expected to respond in kind.         

Islamabad has stuck to its guns, saying what transpired in the early hours of September 29 was routine exchange of cross-border fire, in which two Pakistani and many Indian soldiers died. It even flew a team of international media to the Line of Control, to show that Pakistan-administered Kashmir remains “impregnable”.

Interestingly, even the UN military observer group in Kashmir has questioned Delhi’s claim, saying it didn’t observe any such activity.    The New York Times and     the Washington Post  have covered the issue at length in the same vein, quoting far from convinced, local sources.     

Whatever be the truth, Pakistan is clearly trying to avoid getting drawn into yet another conflict with India for now.  

Which should come as a huge relief to the world community, considering the neighbours are proud nuclear states.

Predictably, the first casualty of this loud beating of war drums and chest thumping has been the once strong relationship between the two people.

Immediately after Uri, pressure started mounting on Pakistani artists working in Mumbai’s film industry to leave the country. Following threats by the likes of Shiv Sena and MNS, even IMPPA (Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association) has imposed a ban on all Pakistani artists until ‘normal relations’ resume between the two countries.

In a tit for tat, screening of all Indian movies has been banned across the border. The same has been the fate of Indian soaps and news channels. A cloud of uncertainty now also hangs over several big budget Indian movies, which feature popular Pakistani stars and are ready for release.        

This is most unfortunate and totally unjustifiable. Artists, poets and writers are the custodians of our shared heritage and humanity. Punishing them is the worst thing any society could do.

Lamenting the new trend of targeting artists and cultural figures, Pakistani rights activist IA Rehman notes that in the past at the height of such tensions and even during wars, these people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan were never touched. Unlike today, the neighbours did not demonise each other’s people and respected their dignity and humanity.

This is how it should be. Our colourful mushairas, literature, music, cinema, sports, art and culture are the bonds that must be cherished.

The media and politicians have caused irreparable damage to these historical ties and centuries of shared legacy, with their campaign of hate, exclusion and unbridled jingoism. As Rehman puts it, “Today an Indian is prosecuted for cheering a Pakistani team and a Pakistani boy is sent to prison for applauding Virat Kohli.     This change has not come suddenly. The state agencies have worked energetically for it and media has made the mistake of playing along.”

Where will it all end? In mutually assured destruction, of course. This frenzied clamour of cultivated anger and xenophobia doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We will reap as we sow.

Now that Modi has made his point, sending out the message to Pakistan that he means business, it is perhaps time to step back from the brink. Military force isn’t the best way to settle issues between nuclear states. It’s also unlikely to deflect the attention from the Kashmir conundrum.      

The best way to deal with Pakistan is to address the Kashmiri discontent. It is no longer possible to brush genuine Kashmiri grievances and aspirations under the carpet of ‘Pakistan-sponsored terrorism’.     

Pakistan certainly could do more to rein in the Lashkar and Jaish hotheads who have done nothing but bring a bad name to the Kashmiri cause. Attacks perpetrated by such forces hardly promote that cause. And being unable to deal with such deadly antics could have dangerous, unintended consequences. This is playing with fire, especially when nuclear weapons are involved. This is a game no one can win.

Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com