One can only lament the Pakistanisation of India: Husain Haqqani

The audience gasped as columnist writer and Mumbai International Literary Festival Founder-Director Anil Dharker began by telling leading South Asia expert, journalist, academic, political activist and former ambassador of Pakistan to Sri Lanka and the US, Husain Haqqani he found his latest book “unreadable.” He quickly qualified, “I found it unreadable because it was horrific to read what was happening to Pakistan.” Haqqani came back to that asking both Dharker and the audience “to imagine what it must then be like for the 210 million plus Pakistani citizens to live with that reality every day of their lives.”  The duo was in conversation at the Mumbai launch of Haqqani's book - Reimagining Pakistan, Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State  - as a part of a Literature Live! on Thursday evening.

When Dharker broached the subject of what might have been without the Partition, Haqqani compared that with asking a septuagenarian if his birth was planned or an accident. “Don't forget 95% of Pakistanis, including me, weren't even born in 1947. Except for a handful, I don't think anybody wants to undo Partition.”

He admitted though that the very premise of Pakistan's positioning was wrong. “You can only leverage your strategic location for so long,” he said citing the instance of Yugoslavia which did the same to its own detriment. “Once the Iron Curtain fell, the nation just collapsed.” He lamented how Pakistan which had the 6th largest army in the world also had the 3rd highest malnutrition rates and the worst infant mortality rate in the world.

Comparing how Partition affected India and Pakistan he observed, “India was already a nation and it was only becoming independent after throwing off a colonial past,” he said and reminded, “Pakistan, however, was coming out of nothing. It was an idea conceived by some Cambridge students in 1937 and took over three years for the Muslim League to accept it. I don't think even those who proposed Pakistan had thought it through enough.”

He pointed out that while Pakistan got 19% of undivided India's population, it got only 17% of the resources. “What they did get was 15% of the army. And since they had a huge army they had to start by creating a threat to justify the army. Unfortunately, India was made into that threat.” He also rued how Pakistan's budget has often assigned more money to the army than making its citizens' life better. “As much as 85% of the first budget was allocated to the army!”

Dharker also brought up how the new nation did not have any clarity even on a capital. Haqqani informed him that Karachi, Multan and even Dhaka were considered as options before settling on the current capital. He also underlined firmly how Partition was not about Hindus and Muslims. “Why would one of biggest Hindu corporates of that time Dalmia become one of the biggest financiers of the idea of Pakistan? In fact, the Hindu ruler of the Jodhpur princely state too had sent feelers saying he wanted to accede to Pakistan.” He warned how this could happen anywhere else too. “Leaders, misguidedly raise slogans and inflame passions. Before long this gathers so much momentum that even they can't undo the damage it unleashes.”

He spoke of how Jinnah had rallied the clergy saying 'Islam was in danger' before Partition and then tried to change that cleverly to 'Pakistan is in danger' but it was too late. “The radical clergy now wanted to exercise control. Now that a nation was created in the name of Islam they felt they knew better how to run it. That created a faultline which every leader of  has tried to balance in their own way.”

Haqqani cited an interview that Jinnah had given a Dhaka based daily on August 11, 1947. “Jinnah said he was going to be governor-general of Pakistan as an Indian citizen comparing it to how Lord Mountbatten, a British citizen was becoming the first governor-general of India,” and added, “Jinnah asked Nehru to maintain his Mumbai home since he wanted to retire here. He had thought of India and Pakistan becoming neighbours like the US and Canada with free travel and movement of people and goods.”

He also lamented how Pakistan was home to the largest number of out-of-school students. “While South Korea has got only 15 billion USD as aid and see where they have reached while Pakistan has got nearly 43 billion USD in aid and it has still not been able to improve education, health or general quality of life. Merely pushing Pakistan's identity based on religion and antagonism to India has only done it harm. Pakistan needs to focus on our own human development than grandiose notions of being at the centre of the Islamic world and contrived nationalism.”

He called the idea of teaching children distorted history in Pakistan's school laughable. “A narrative to find closer ties to the Middle East than Asia is continuously made often to leading to very funny consequences,” he pointed out. “Many Pakistanis believe the idea of Pakistan began with the Muhammad ibn Qasim capturing Sindh and Multan in 715 AD.”

Haqqani had the audience in splits as he spoke of the efforts at arriving at the national language. “The first census showed that hardly one percent of Pakistanis accepted Urdu as their mother tongue (most spoke Balochi, Saraiki, Pashto or Sindhi).  And yet there was an effort at making not Urdu but Arabic which was spoken by less than 900 people at that time as a national language,” he laughed.

Pointing out the erroneous Pakistani notion that Muhammad ibn Qasim arrival brought Islam to the region he said, “They completely leave out the fact that Arab traders had brought  Islam to the Malabar coast much before,” and added, “I never fail to point out the dubiousness of the linkage between Arabic and Pakistan since Arabic does not have the character 'pa' in it.”

He cautioned Pakistan about replacing the US with China as a close ally. “They are not the US which saw several generous write-offs of debt. The Chinese will tie us up in debt and things can quickly go downhill from there,” he warned. “The Karachi port is any way underutilised. So the Gwadar port is just going to sit there and could become another Hambantota (Sri Lanka)-like situation.” He also underlined how the Chinese are wary of radical Islamist elements which could potentially create trouble in their own country. “They have had to crack down on hardline elements in Xinjiang, with a significant Uyghur population.”

When Dharker asked him about the rise of cricketer Imran Khan (known for his playboy past) in Pakistan's politics he brushed him off. “I don't follow the game and don't think too much of his cricket accomplishments. As for his hardline propaganda, he's worse than General Zia-ul-Haq. At least Zia knew what he was talking about. Imran Khan is merely parroting what he is told is popular and will help him rise.”

He also felt leaders like Imran Khan and Hafiz Saeed were often propped up by the Pakistan army. “They haven't struggled and risen from grassroots to become mass leaders. Such foisted leaders have a shelf-life of only as long as they are useful to the army. Then they are replaced or worse disposed off.”

Haqqani avoided a direct answer to a question from this writer on “the way India is being reimagined under the current regime,” but conceded: “Some developments one hears of are very worrying. They also strengthen voices of the rabid right anti-India hawks in Pakistan.” He reminisced how as a young collegian he looked up to India which had both the RSS and the Jamaat-e-Islami finding space. We used to want that space in Pakistan too. However in recent times, One can only lament the Pakistanisation of India. Which can only be lamented.”

When asked about Kashmir he said the problem was being made larger than it is by Pakistan. “Lots of countries have disputes like Kashmir but to make entire countries a prisoner of that problem is unfair. You first go and cultivate friendships and then solve disputes, not the other way around.”

Haqqani who has a warrant against him in Pakistan issued by the Supreme Court and admitted grave danger to his life if he returned said he would not give up hope for the people of Pakistan. “They are good people who deserve better. They can't keep suffering as a consequence of the failure of those in power,” he lamented.