A tale of Adnan Sami, national identity and the diaspora

Former Pakistani singer and composer Adnan Sami finally getting an Indian passport after 15 years of trying has made him an object of ridicule in Pakistan with TV anchors piling on adjectives on him, according to reports. The reason is that Sami had committed the double sin of tweeting Jai Hind, compounding his primary sin of getting rid of his Pakistani passport. 

Columnist and editor of Pakistan Newsweek, Khaled Ahmed, commenting on the issue in his column in The Indian Express writes: “Pakistani nationalism and Pakistani textbooks instil an intense single identity based on “separation” from India. If the unconscious Indian slogan is ekta (unity), Pakistan’s is pehchan. Clearly one is inclusive and the other exclusive and Pakistan uses religion as its binding glue. Pakistan’s nation-building has gone haywire by becoming “exclusionary” which doesn’t stop at “excluding” only non-Muslims but also Muslims through apostatisation.” 

India may be more inclusive than Pakistan, but it is also insular, denying citizenship to hundreds who have stayed here for more years than Sami, while working in education and health sectors. While developed nations have opened their doors to thousands of elite Indians, India itself has excluded people from many countries. Here India sees itself as a ‘pure’ (morally and physically) and superior civilisation, which will be corrupted by lesser nationalities. 

But by a calculating and slightly devious granting of Indian citizenship to Sami after 15 years, India has scored many points. The main point is that India is more inclusive than Pakistan as Ahmed now indicates. Also Sami’s case has helped Indian thumb its nose at Pakistan and going by the resultant fulminations of TV anchors, it is clear that the ploy has succeeded. Not to forget, if an Indian singer or a cricketer gets Pakistani citizenship, Indian TV anchors will also react similarly. As of now, there is nothing more appealing than embracing a Pakistani renegade to score a brownie point in the ongoing and never-ending tussle with Pakistan. 

So far so good. But what does national identity mean for an Indian and a Pakistani? Actually nothing much. Both see their respective countries as highly limiting in its scope and ambition and hence the elite, the middle classes and the labour classes of both countries are constantly trying to migrate to western or Gulf countries and they are all ready to give up national identities. While India definitely offers better opportunities than Pakistan for personal aggrandisement, getting an Indian citizenship is seen as blasphemous and hence such people like Sami are attacked. But if Sami had instead acquired a British passport, he would have been just one among the many Pakistanis of the elite class to have done this and so would have been congratulated. 

A former journalist colleague of mine who recently got a US citizenship was profusely congratulated by his Indian friends on Facebook after he posted a picture of himself with a US passport with the star and stripes flag in the background. For many in India and Pakistan, such a picture is the dream for which they live and nothing wrong is seen in that desire, inculcated from childhood, to finally reach those shores of El Dorado (to undo the accident of an Indian/Pakistani nationality) where you can shirk away the narrow confines of nationhood and become a citizen of the modern world (US/UK). 

While an Indian (or Pakistani) identity is emphasised in sports, wars, diplomatic tussles and terrorists attacks, that identity is easily dispensed with when it comes to personal ambition and the need for a brighter future. This seems to be a universal habit.  The people who migrate from developing countries are the people who can, if they stay back, make a big difference to their own countries. “The people we are losing, they are economically active, they are dynamic, they are people who refuse to live in poverty. These are the people Africa needs,” a UNDP official was quoted in Time magazine report on migration. Many African countries are growing now at a fast clip. Ethiopia has had an average growth of 10.7 per cent, better than China and India’s, but educated people there are dying to migrate to Europe, according to the report. Ditto in India.

Nationality and patriotism have evolved into a form of excessive love for one’s country, to the exclusion of the other. All this could be the reason why Prime Minister  Narendra Modi said in Singapore while addressing the diaspora: “India is not confined to territory. India exists in every Indian in every part of the world. India is in you.” Here the PM was trying to appropriate the NRI while the NRI himself has done away with Indian identity and to underline that has also acquired an American, British or Singaporean accent. 

To the diaspora, India is just nostalgia. For them an Indian national identity means nothing which is why they discarded it without much moral qualms. The diasporic Indian citizen looks at himself as a possessor of multiple identities. He sports religious, caste, class, sub-nationalistic, regional identities, but the national identity is the one he easily dispenses with. A Keralite working in the Gulf clings dearly to his Malayali identity rather than to his Indian identity because in those countries it gives him more of an advantage. Once outside the physical confines of the country, an Indian citizen enjoys being some sort of a universal citizen. Once abroad, national identities are redrawn. My friend working in the Gulf has a Pakistani assistant who is most  loyal to him. 

Sami’s Indian dream was also driven by his fascination for working in Bollywood. So while for him India was a dream, for hundreds of Indians themselves India is a nightmare from which they want to escape and assume another identity, another life. “The NRIs are contradictory creatures marked by a deep and terrifying alienation: while many miss “home” they actually shudder at the thought of living in India,” writes Rohan D’Souza in The Hindu. Nobody will argue with this.

Sami can now wear the new garb of an Indian citizen. “Now that India has accepted a son of Pakistan, let’s count it as “advantage Pakistan” and let the (Shiv) Sena bother about it. And when Sami comes to Pakistan on a visa welcome him as a great talent that will survive as part of our civilisation,” writes Khaled Ahmed. 

Sami surely will not be welcomed in his homeland. We know that Sami is unlikely to get a Pakistani visa anytime soon. The hurt among Pakistani nationalists is too much for such a thing to happen. There are many Pakistani aspirants hanging around in Bollywood. Are they also aspirants for a new nationality? Are we waiting to score brownie points with them too?

The writer is a senior journalist