Pakistan suffering from sore existential crisis

Congress’ nominated member in Rajya Sabha, Mani Shankar Aiyar, is not really the bleeding heart liberal he seems to be, who would do anything to bring India and Pakistan, the sibling rivals, together. He has his feet firmly on the ground and a clear head on his shoulders. When news reports flashed that the Indian government was making secret contact with Pakistan army chief Ashraf Pervez Kayani last month, and when Osama bin Laden has been killed by the United States’ commandoes at Abbottabad on May 1, Aiyar has been arguing that India should have a continuous dialogue with Pakistan whatever be the circumstances and provocations, and that Pakistan should stop being a frontline state for the Americans and become a frontline state in its own right which will strengthen the south Asian region.

There is much sense and less sentiment in his line of argument.
The Indian hardliners — the ones who press themselves to be so and others who are viscerally anti-Pakistan  —  would contemptuously dismiss Aiyar’s point of view. But the Indian hardliners do not ever walk the talk even when they are in a position to do so. Therefore they need not be taken too seriously though they have a tendency to be loud and drown out the other voices. When the BJP-led NDA was in power for six years, whatever the antipathies of the RSS-dyed BJP-ites like LK Advani, the government of the day headed by prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee always adopted the right line towards Pakistan, giving diplomatic options the highest priority always. There are those who would argue that it was under American pressure that Indian governments are forced to deal with Pakistan governments, whether they want to or not. That charge is only partially true.

But the real problem lies with those in Pakistan, both liberals and hardliners. The liberals love to have good relations with India but they are suspicious of India’s big brotherly attitude. The hardliners are sure that the only possible equation with India is that of an adversary. So, they are continuously plotting at to how to outwit and browbeat India in every which way. This is not politics as usual. There is a deeper cause and it goes to the heart of Pakistan’s very existence.

Pakistan intelligentsia is engaged in the very difficult task of defining who they are. What does it mean to be a Pakistani? In 1947, Pakistan achieved statehood, but it has not been able to sort out the question of its nationhood. Pakistan was supposed to be a Muslim country as opposed to a Hindu India. Things did not fall into place because India did not become a Hindu country. Of course, there are enough Hindu right-wingers who have been keen to achieve that but India proved to be a complex country. India is not exactly a secular country as the secularist fundamentalists would like to believe but is willing to live with a confused identity.

Nationhood expresses itself in language, culture, social mores and norms. Of course, at the base of this all, it is the economy that moulds the other three things. In Pakistan, these issues have either been ignored or marginalised. Pakistan’s national language is Urdu, which is spoken by about three per cent of the population. The dominant regional languages are Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtu and Baluchi. We never get to hear of writers in these languages. Pakistan cinema is in a sort of limbo though Lahore was a major film production centre before 1947. The really popular films are those made in Punjabi.

There is also this paradox. While Gen Ayub Khan, the first military ruler of the country in the late 1950s, allowed the arts to flourish, but this was an area beyond his competence. Gen Pervez Musharraf during his tenure again tried the Ayub trick but it did not work. Gen Zia ul-Haq went the Islamic way and banished culture in the 1980s before the Taliban did it in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the short-lived popular and populist leader in the 1970s, had not time for these things at all. He wanted to make Pakistan a pre-eminent Muslim country in the world. So he built a huge convention centre in Islamabad and hosted the first Organisation for Islamic Countries (OIC) summit. Both Pakistan and OIC failed to take off.

So, Pakistan has an identity problem and it is rooted in culture, not so much in politics and in military capability. Pakistanis have to find out who they are culturally. It will go a long way in giving them the self-confidence to face up to a big neighbour like India and a big power like the US. India cannot do anything to help Pakistan on this county. This is one thing that Pakistanis have to do it on their own. No one can do it for them.